by M. D. Cooper
“Actually,” U8AB said, “there’s a clause in galactic space travel regulations that states that in life or death situations, providing time allows, each crew member has an equal say over decisions regarding the safety of the ship. The regulations extend to semi-autonomous crew members such as androids.”
“Whaaaaat?”
Jaquil choked as Banty’s exhaled vapor hit him full in the face.
“The clause also includes interns,” U8AB went on.
Fully exhaled by this time, Banty could do little more than splutter at this additional information.
“So we have to put it to a vote,” U8AB finished.
The woman, who was perched on a console, jumped down at this revelation. “Wonderful. Okay, I’ll come clean, and then you’ll see why it’s vital that you don’t take me back to Kranablehater III. My name’s Phoemian, and I’m carrying classified information that’s highly valuable to certain commercial interests. People are searching for me—people who’ll do anything to get their hands on that information. That’s why I had to leave Kranablehater III secretly. I paid Cilia to arrange to smuggle me off the planet. If you take me back there, you’ll be putting my life in danger.”
“From the sound of it, if we don’t take you back there, we could be putting our lives in danger,” said Banty. “What if these people figure out you’re aboard Starblaster? I’m responsible for the safety of my crew. You’re going back.”
“What if I said you’d be extremely well compensated for taking me somewhere else?” Phoemian asked.
Banty paused mid-huff.
“I’m with Banty,” Lollololp said. “What have your problems got to do with us?”
“I vote that we should help her,” said U8AB. “It’s in my programming to offer aid to sentient organic beings who are in danger. I can’t help it. What about you, Jaquil? What do you think we should do?”
Jaquil was about to reply when Lollololp said, “Wait a minute. We’re forgetting Fred.”
“You’re right,” said Banty. She peered under the flight control console. “Waddaya say, Fred?”
A wet, bubbling sound was voiced in reply.
“Hmpf,” Banty said. “I thought you’d say that. Fred’s always soft-hearted. Looks like we’re split down the middle. Two for returning the stowaway to Kranablehater III, two for taking her someplace else. You got the deciding vote, kid.”
Jaquil ground his teeth at the hated k word. He took a look at Phoemian, at her shoulder-length brown hair, amber eyes and heart-shaped face. He was warming to her, especially that twinkle he thought he saw in her eyes. He was suddenly painfully aware of his baggy dungarees, rolled up to his knees.
He suspected that his burgeoning affection for Phoemian was probably something to do with his being a tweenager who had never been very successful with women, yet he also knew that his distrust of his feelings was no reason to put her life in danger. Besides, his internship had turned into something much more exciting than he’d ever imagined it would be. For the first time in his life, Jaquil felt like he knew what he was doing.
“I vote we take her where she wants to go,” he said.
Chapter Eight
The bridge of Starblaster developed a tense atmosphere after the decision was made to take Phoemian to her chosen destination. Banty and Lollololp were disgruntled and refusing to speak to anyone. Fred was her usual laconic self, and U8AB was, as always, absent.
Jaquil felt a little bad for voting against Banty after she’d been so good to him. But he’d had his first taste of adventure, and he had an inkling that he was going to become a lifelong addict. Returning Phoemian to Kranablehater III might have been the sensible thing to do, but every fiber of Jaquil’s being rebelled at the notion of doing anything sensible ever again.
He was even seriously doubting that he would finish his Garbology degree. His mom would probably object, but he was twenty-seven and old enough to decide for himself.
Banty had input the coordinates Phoemian gave her, but the ship’s computer reported that the area was empty space. Phoemian assured them otherwise, saying that it was an uncharted planet.
The unknown world was at the edge of the galaxy, and it would take them a week to reach it. A week of a grumpy Banty and a miffed Lollololp was not a pleasant prospect to Jaquil. He decided that his time would be better spent with Phoemian. However, like U8AB, she, too, had disappeared. He set off to find her.
First, he went to the cabin that Banty had assigned to the stowaway. He rang the door chime several times, but she wasn’t there. He checked the galley, but the place was empty and the meal preparation apparatus was cold, so she hadn’t fixed herself something to eat. He went to the observation deck, but it was dark and quiet, the transparent dome overhead filled with slowly shifting stars. Jaquil felt another attack of awesomitis coming on, so he quickly left.
He wondered where Phoemian could have got to. He searched the engine room, where the purring of the starship engines was loud, and peeked into the room where the auto-augur was stored, but aside from the vast surface of winking lights, it was empty. He even looked in the hold, but all that remained there was the odor of the recently ejected trash.
When he’d checked the ship from top to bottom, Jaquil concluded that Phoemian must have gone back to the bridge. Feeling a little frustrated by this time, he jogged there.
But she wasn’t on the bridge either. He was beginning to wonder if it was possible that she had somehow left the ship.
“Kid,” Lollololp said, “you’ve got the face of someone who just used their winning lottery ticket as toilet paper. What’s your problem?”
“I can’t find Phoemian anywhere,” Jaquil said. “I’ve searched the entire ship. I don’t think she’s aboard.”
“Huh?” Banty swung round in the pilot’s seat. “That ain’t possible. Listen, I’ve been in the trash business a long time and I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe, but I’ve never seen a woman disappear into thin air.”
“Wait a minute,” Lollololp said. “I ain’t seen U8AB in a while either. Did you check his cabin to see if she was there?”
“Why would she be with U8AB?” Jaquil asked.
Lollololp and Banty shared a glance.
“You know what he’s like,” said Lollololp.
“What?” spluttered Jaquil. “But he’s...And she’s...” He scratched his head. “How would they?”
“That android’s randier than an ugly tweenager—no offense,” Lollololp said. “If there’s a way, he’ll find it.”
Jaquil ran to the crew cabins. What Lollololp was saying was surely impossible, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. It was his turn to get the girl.
He rang U8AB’s door chime. Why the android needed a cabin at all, Jaquil didn’t know. It wasn’t like he needed to sleep.
When there was no response, Jaquil rang again. He banged the door with a fist.
“Hello?” U8AB’s face appeared on the door screen. “Jaquil. Can I help you?”
Jaquil saw a movement behind the android. It was Phoemian. She was inside!
“I’m looking for Phoemian. I couldn’t find her.”
The door opened to reveal U8AB. Phoemian was in the center of the room. What they’d been doing wasn’t clear.
Both U8AB and Phoemian seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Jaquil swallowed. “I was...worried about you, Phoemian.” he said, feeling suddenly ridiculous. What was he doing? She didn’t have to answer to him for her whereabouts. “We were worried about you.” He hoped that implying that Banty and the others shared his concern would help him look a tad less stupid.
“Aww, that’s sweet of you,” said Phoemian. “But here I am, safe and sound. No need to worry.”
“Yeah,” Jaquil said. “Glad you’re okay.” He winced inwardly. “So, I’ll leave you two to carry on whatever it was you were doing.” He paused, hoping for an explanation as to why Phoemian was in U8AB’s cabin. None was forthcoming.
“Thanks for your co
ncern, Jaquil,” U8AB said. “As Phoemian said, there’s no cause for alarm. Now, if you’ll excuse us?”
“Oh, right. Okay.” Jaquil took a step backward into the corridor, and U8AB closed the door.
Chapter Nine
A week is a long time on a small trash-transporting starship, but Jaquil once more found something to occupy him. He had a mission: he was going to transform himself from a tweenager to a man.
Starblaster had a small incinerator for trash items that were seriously toxic or otherwise hazardous. Jaquil decided that his plasti-vinyl dungarees fitted at least one of these categories, and he quickly disposed of them. He picked out some new clothes from a catalog—clothes that his mother would probably describe as boring and unfashionable—and printed them. His new pants and top were smart but functional. No more tripping over when he ran.
He asked U8AB to cut his hair short—no more hiding his face behind his bangs.
He made himself useful around the ship. He read up how to fly it, just in case of an emergency—no more sitting on the sidelines waiting for others to tell him what to do.
The days passed quickly for him, and sometimes, when the crew were eating in the small refectory, Jaquil was sure that Phoemian began to glance at him more than was natural. His heart rejoiced, but he played it cool. His transformation was for him. If Phoemian liked him better for it, that was a bonus.
By the end of the week, his confidence had risen to a previously unknown high. His internship had been just the thing he’d needed, he realized. He’d spent all his life trying to please other people. He decided that now he was going to please himself.
The day before Starblaster was due to arrive at her destination, Jaquil went down to the hold to practice his forklift driving skills. He opened the hold door and went inside. As he headed over to the storage room, a squeak attracted his attention. U8AB and Phoemian were in the corner, and Jaquil realized it had been Phoemian who had squeaked.
His eyes nearly popped from his head. Phoemian and U8AB were joined by wires. Wires that ran from his chest—and from hers.
Jaquil froze. Phoemian was an android. A soft-skinned, brown-eyed, real-haired android.
“You...you,” Jaquil said, his mouth open. He felt like he was having another awesomitis attack, but this time the feeling wasn’t so pleasant.
Phoemian was pushing wires back into her chest. She swung the hatch between her breasts closed, adjusted her top, and turned to Jaquil defiantly, saying, “Do you have to stare?”
“But...you...why aren’t you metal? Like him?” He pointed at U8AB, who was toeing the floor.
“Harrumph,” U8AB said, as if clearing his throat. Jaquil wondered why on Earth he felt the need to do that. Did he even have a throat? Jaquil’s conception of androids had been severely shaken. They were synthetic. Human-like in their intelligence, but essentially machines. Phoemian had had him completely fooled. He could swear he’d seen her breathing.
He went over to her, staring at her chest, looking for signs of movement.
“Do you mind?” she exclaimed, covering her cleavage with her hands.
Realizing how it looked, Jaquil redirected his gaze to her face. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe it. I totally thought you were human. It’s amazing.”
“Urgh, you organics are all the same,” Phoemian said. “You’d prefer it if I were entirely metal, plastic, and silicone, wouldn’t you? You’d like that. Then you could tell us apart.”
Taking his hand, she put it on her face. “It’s real. Real skin. Get used to it. And these.” She took his other hand and pressed both of them to her breasts. “These are real too. Are you happy now?”
Jaquil was happy. Very happy. With great reluctance, he pulled his hands away. “Hey! You’re laying a massive guilt trip on me when I’m not the one who’s at fault here.” He pointed at U8AB. “You’re supposed to be keeping your wires in your chest. You didn’t take long to figure it out and make your move, did you? Now I know what you were doing with her in your cabin that first day.” He pointed at Phoemian. “And you’ve led everyone to believe you’re human when you’re not.”
Jaquil folded his arms.
But Phoemian wasn’t backing down. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not human? How rude. What do you think these are?” She gestured toward her chest. “Balloons?”
“No...I...of course not.” Jaquil’s self-righteousness lost some of its steam. “But if you are human like you say, how can you hook up with an ardor attachment like U8AB? What are you?”
“If you must know, I’m a new kind of being. I’m part android, part organic.” She waggled a finger at him. “So don’t hit me with your prejudices in either direction, okay? And if I want to liaise with this lust magnet, I damn well will.”
“Why, Phoemian,” said U8AB, “the feeling’s—”
“Oh, oh,” exclaimed Jaquil. He waved his arms and danced a small jig, his eyes wide with realization. “It’s you! It’s been you all along, hasn’t it?”
Phoemian tilted her head and regarded Jaquil from the corners of her eyes. He thought he caught another glimpse of that sparkle.
“Are you feeling a little unwell, Jaquil?” U8AB asked. “Do you need some Reversamil?”
“It’s her,” Jaquil said to him. “She said she was carrying a secret, but she didn’t have anything with her except the clothes she was wearing. I thought the secret must be something she knew, and she had to pass on the information. But that wasn’t it at all. It is you, isn’t it?” he asked Phoemian.
Smiling, she nodded.
“She’s the secret,” Jaquil said to U8AB. “She’s a new model. A prototype. An industry secret that someone was trying to sneak off Kranablehater III. Exports are inspected, and travelers are screened. The security agents would detect that she was part android right away. The producer had to find a way to get her to their customer without the rest of the android industry discovering what they’d invented.”
Jaquil took a breath and paused. He held Phoemian’s upper arms and looked at her from her head to her toes. “You’re fantastic. If it weren’t for the fact that I just saw you connected to U8AB, I never would have guessed. “
“Why, thank you. I did pass my training with flying colors.”
“So you’re organic on the outside and synthetic within? How many more of you are there? Do they all look the same as you?”
Phoemian smiled and touched the side of her nose. “Industry secret, remember?”
“But how much of you is human and how much is artificial?”
“Now that really would be telling.”
Phoemian looked so mischievous that Jaquil was suddenly filled with a deep affection for her. Then he felt weird. Was it wrong to feel that way about a not-totally organic woman?
He turned to U8AB. “Why didn’t you say anything when you figured out what she was?”
“It didn’t appear to be relevant. Whether Phoemian was carrying a secret or she was the secret, what did it matter?”
Jaquil had come to another realization. “So those people who were shooting at us...they wanted to be the first to have this new product?”
“That’s right,” Phoemian said. “I was supposed to be delivered to a manufacturer, but word must have got out that they were receiving something top secret. A rival manufacturer must have turned up to snatch me. The android industry is worth quadrillions. When it comes to new products, they fight dirty.”
A klaxon sounded and the hold lights flashed. Jaquil put his hands over his ears.
“Emergency,” said U8AB. “We have to go to the bridge.”
The human, the android, and the part-human, part-android ran out of the hold and raced through the ship. As the bridge doors opened, a haze of vapor puffed out. Inside, Banty was huffing madly and pacing up and down.
“I keep telling you,” Lollololp said, “quit paying attention to that over-priced fortune-teller. We’ve shipped garbage more valuable than that piece of junk.”
“But it’s
got to mean something,” said Banty. “The auto-augur was right before. It’s gotta be right now.”
“What’s the problem?” Jaquil asked.
“The problem is our captain went and got her fortune told again,” Lollololp replied, “and—surprise, surprise—it ain’t good.”
Jaquil went over to the screen to read the auto-augur’s prediction.
Part animal, part-machine
The woman isn’t all she seems
Where she’s taking you there’ll be trouble
You might want to back up on the double
If you don’t, the result isn’t one size
Could be disaster, could be a prize
“You,” Banty said as she saw Phoemian through the fog. “The auto-augur’s talking about you. What does it mean, part-animal, part-machine?”
Phoemian confessed and told Banty, Lollololp—and presumably Fred if she was listening—the same tale she’d told Jaquil in the hold. Though after her earlier subterfuge, Jaquil wasn’t sure if her story was entirely true. She definitely seemed to enjoy her deceptions.
“Sheesh,” Banty explained. “Makes total sense. And you and him have been connecting, right?” She gestured at U8AB.
The android hung his head.
“So,” Banty went on, “what does the message mean, there’ll be trouble?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Phoemian replied. “The coordinates I gave you are for a secret plant, where the company that bought me aims to mass produce more designs like me. As far as I’m aware, if you just drop me off there, you’ll receive a handsome reward and then you can be on your way.”
“I don’t like it,” said Lollololp. “Why take the risk? I say let’s drop her off at the nearest planet and get out of here. Trash Iz Uz is a nice little business. Pick up a little trash here, dump a little trash there. Why jeopardize that by getting in over our heads? “
Phoemian shrugged. “It’s up to you, but I’m guessing the reward you’ll receive would be enough for all of you to retire tomorrow if you wanted.”