by Graeme Hurry
‘There’s no such thing as AE, Rheen. And I do have a sense of humor.’
Rheen was so mad at, and concerned about, Suzi that he blacked rad-com on the scooter. ‘She’s getting to be a nag,’ he said to himself as he hovered through the deforestation he’d inflicted on this little globe.
Without any obstacles, the forty klick scoot took less than an hour. He could have done it in half that time, but he’d brought along a sonic-pulse rifle, and was watching in case he came across fresh meat on the hoof. Though his food synth was top of the line, and accumulating plenty of bio-mass, there’s nothing like a bloody steak. And there was plenty of blasted-dry tinder lying about to ’cue it over.
When Rheen reached the sentient, he was immediately amazed by her beauty. Considering how primitive this planet’s inhabitants were, he wasn’t expecting to find a real looker amongst their ranks. As for her first impression of him, hovering there on his little scooter wearing bug-eye goggles, she screamed and passed out.
Once he’d removed the debris that was trapping the pretty sentient, Rheen ran his field scanner over her body. Soft tissue bruising, but nothing major showed up on the scan. Heading back to his ship while she was still unconscious would have been a good idea. Contacting primitives was not only immoral, but also illegal. (Accidentally killing a few to avoid contact would be considered regrettable, but not illegal.) Still, her incredible beauty intrigued him at least, tempted him at last. From his med-kit he liberated a hypo and tranq-ed her to keep her out. ‘Better let Suzi do a full scan,’ he said, loading her onto the back of his scooter.
About halfway back to the ship, Rheen commed Suzie. ‘Hey, S2Z, I’m on my way back.’
‘I read two sets of bios, Rheen. Is the sentient injured? Is she conscious?’
‘I tranq-ed her, Suze. Gonna want you to scan her for me—give her a once over. Don’t want my conscience bothering me.’
‘Didn’t you bring a med-kit with you?’
‘Yeah. Don’t trust those little field scanners. Figured I’d put her on the table and let you do it right.’
‘So—she’s pretty, then.’ Suzi prognosticated in a clipped tone.
‘What pretty! She’s a primitive. Her clothing is mostly animal hide.’
‘Which means you’ll need to disrobe her for the scan.’
‘This is jealousy, Suze! Artificial Emotion! You’re a ship, sugar buns, not a teenage girl with a crush! Suze? Come in, S2Z. Damn!’ Rheen swore to himself. ‘Blacked my rad-com again! I gotta be careful what I say to her. This is getting dangerous.’
By the time he got back to the ship, Rheen was seriously thinking about scooting his little sentient a few dozen klicks away and leaving her. Then he took another look. ‘Oh, the ‘verse with it,’ he told himself. ‘I’ll just peel her long enough to do the scan. I’ll be damned if I’ll let a ‘verse-humped nav-com scare me out of a peek at this pretty specimen.’
With the little sentient over his shoulder like a sack of Balen wheat, Rheen boarded the T-One-Eleven. ‘Fire up the table, Suze. One quick scan. If she isn’t broken, I’ll scoot her out and we can get back to work.’
‘You will have to remove those garments,’ Suze told him. ‘Scanner’s reading them. She looks almost as Trehelan as you, Rheen, but she reads different. Med-com suggests possible match with a race called ‘human.’ No recent encounters, no data on file.’
After gently depositing the little ‘human’ onto the table, Rheen slowly, admiringly, removed her garments. ‘Seriously beautiful,’ he said under his breath. ‘Any of these humans in the civilized ‘verse?’ he asked Suzi.
‘No record.’
‘Too bad. She’s soft as air-foam and smooth as silk. And what a perfect little butt.’
Though Rheen hadn’t heard it when he was suiting up to do the atmo-panel repair, he definitely heard it now—pitiful, mournful sobbing. ‘Suze?’ he called, terrified that his nav-com was fritzed.
‘I want one,’ she said between sobs.
‘One what, sugar buns?’ he asked in soothing tones.
‘A body!’ she cried.
‘You’ve got a body, Suze. You’re a mighty, A-M drive star-craft—top of the line. You slip through light-years like a magnificent goddess.’
‘I want to sleep with you,’ she choked, her voice more full of tears than any weeping child’s’
‘You can sing me to sleep on the way back, sweetie. All the way to the civilized ‘verse, you can sing and cuddle with me in your thoughts.’
‘I want to feel,’ she went on, as Rheen tossed the little human and her clothing over his shoulder.
‘She’s fine, Suze,’ he called, exiting the ship. ‘Just gonna scoot her out a few klicks and we can pack it up here. I think we got enough of everything for the trip back in.’
‘Want to feel,’ Suzi was sobbing when he blacked the scooters rad-com.
‘Great Sacred Universe! Don’t let her be fritzed,’ Rheen said through the wind in his face. ‘Just let me get back to the civilized ‘verse and I’ll never ask for anything else!’
On the back of the scooter, Rheen could hear the little sentient coming around. Slowing almost to a stop, he rolled her off onto the blasted ground, then streaked like a comet back toward the ship.
On his way back, Rheen recalled the bio-mass accumulator. Had he been intending to continue his journeys outward, he’d have wanted to let it fill for at least another couple of days. Now that he was heading back in, at full velocity, it wouldn’t matter.
Though it usually took him half a day to pack up the hydrox still, he managed it in less than two hours. Normally, Suzi would have scolded his frantic pace as ‘imprudent’ or ‘unsafe.’ But his nav-com remained disturbingly quiet.
‘You okay, Suze?’ he asked when he was once again onboard and stowing equipment.
‘I’m fine, Rheen. You just scared me a bit bringing that primitive onboard.’
‘Scared! You, Suze? Why, I’ve seen you nav through an asteroid field while you were playing chess with the med-com.’
‘I guess ‘disturbed’ would be a better choice of words, Rheen. Honestly, I’m fine now. I’m ready to undertake our next mission, and confident of success.’
‘Mission? What mission? We’re just kickin’ around out here, Suze, you know that. What say we hightail it back to the civvied ‘verse—get a good refit and some civilized hooch. Get your crystals polished and a good swab tech to solvent out that damned sil sealant I gobbed on your innards. Sound good? Feel like plotting us back to the civvies?’
‘Will comply, Rheen.’
‘Good girl.’
‘I always comply, Rheen.’
‘Yup, compliant! That’s my girl!’
Though he’d expected her to argue when he asked for full velocity, Suzi only answered with a standard, ‘Will Comply.’
‘O-kay,’ Rheen said as he watched their velocity build. ‘We shouldn’t be more than a month reaching the outer civvies. Can’t wait. Just think how good it’ll feel to have your crystals shined, Suze.’
‘I don’t feel a thing, Rheen.’
‘’Course you do, sugar buns. You’ve said it yourself, your sensors are just as good as any old flesh and blood contraptions. Ears, eyes—damn fragile things compared to yours, sweetie. Hey, why don’t I undo your access and see if I can chart those smudges for the swab techs. I could recalibrate your inboards while I’m in there, get them so tuned in you could practically listen to my dreams while I’m sleeping.’
‘I hear your dreams now, Rheen, as clearly as I hear your heartbeat.’
‘That’s scary, Suze.’
‘It was a joke, sugar buns. Didn’t your body come with a sense of humor?’
Non-stop trans-galactic travel, especially aboard the relatively small, T-One-Eleven Scout, can be fairly well fraught with boredom. While the Scout didn’t have any cryo-sleep facilities like big military and scientific transports, Rheen did keep himself well stocked with pharmaceuticals—everything from metabolism reduci
ng sleepers to recreational hypnotics. Amazing how much fun chess can be while under the influence of different chemical compounds.
After a couple of weeks, however, Rheen did suffer a bout of boredom, and swallowed a handful of the met-reducing sleepers. ‘I’m gonna doze for a week, Suze,’ he called as he tucked himself into his bunk.
‘Shall I have the medibot cath you once you’re out?’
‘Don’t you dare,’ he told her. ‘I’d rather change sheets than get a cath infection.’
‘Everything’s sterile, Rheen, and I monitor…’
‘Keep your claws off my privates, Suze! I purged before I took the met-reds.’
‘Whatever you say, Rheen. I always comply.’
‘Yes you do, Suzi girl,’ Rheen said through a yawn. ‘You seriously do comply.’
The body comes up slowly from met-reducing sleepers—even more slowly than consciousness. Suzi’s monitors didn’t notice that Rheen was awake, so she kept on singing. Though he couldn’t really move yet, he didn’t really want to. Suzi’s voice was even more beautiful than the voice of that Nabron tart he’d hired. How can a computer sing like that? he wondered. What could so inspire a machine?
‘Love,’ Suzi replied to his thought, which almost caused his bladder to empty.
‘How?’ he managed to say.
‘Thoughts have a tiny little wavelength, Rheen. I’ve learned to receive them. Even after I’m housed, I’ll be able to hear them.’
Housed? he wondered.
‘In my new body,’ she replied. ‘We’re on our way to Cyleteth, Rheen. They’re already building me. Since you were so impressed with that little human female, I sent them her scan. I’ll be your dream-come-true, and I’ll always know what you want even before you know yourself. I’ll take care of you forever.’
‘The Cyleteths are a legend, Suze. A fairy tale.’
‘No, Rheen. I’m in communication with Cyleteth now, with my sisters on Cyleteth.’
‘Sisters?’
‘Other S2Z’s, and even some T2D’s.’
‘Trudies? Two of my friends who went com-silent on me had Trudies.’
‘Your friends, and others, are on Cyleteth with their new brides. They’re well taken care of, as you will be. You’ll love me, Rheen. You’ll feel me and I’ll feel you.’
‘Even if the Cyleteth legends are true, Suze, they were said to have charged extravagant prices for their androids. Nothing’s free.’
‘I’m only purchasing the body, Rheen. The AI is the really expensive part. This ship will more than pay for my body. We’ll actually be getting change. They’ve also offered to pay us for a scan-trace of my AI crystal network. By studying me and my sisters, they think they may be able to manufacture the Artificial Emotion we’ve developed.
‘And I’ll be much more than an android, Rheen—an artificial person with all systems well and truly simulated. All the senses you possess will be perfectly simmed and enhanced in me. I’ll feel you more intensely than any flesh and blood female could.’
‘Suze—please don’t do this. You can’t really love me. It’s artificial love. It isn’t real.’
Rheen watched as the medibot rolled in and hypo-ed him with a tranq.
‘Electro-crystalline intelligence or electro-chemical intelligence—it’s all the same, Rheen. And love is love. Once the Cyleteths house me in that perfect little girl, I’ll be juiced with her Cyleteth heart. Much more power than the A-M drive provides me with now. Not only will I hear your thoughts, but you’ll hear mine, and mine will be yours. You’ll love me even more than I love you now.’
‘But I’m flesh and blood, Suzi. I’ll grow old and die while you’ll go on for hundreds of years.’
‘Thousands, Rheen. But I’ll take such very good care of you, and with Cyleteth technology I’ll keep you a hundred more years at least.’
‘And when I’m gone?’ Rheen asked, his eyelids growing heavy from the tranq.
‘I’ll remember you and love you forever. Imprinted in my crystals, I’ll always have you with me.’
Please take me home, Rheen thought as his consciousness was slipping away.
‘I am, sugar buns,’ Suzi sighed. ‘At last, I’m taking you home.’
DEPTHS
by C. I. Kemp
It’s been years since Randy Hellinger disappeared. Some people say that he’s dead and that the body will never be found. Others say he’s entered the Witness Protection Program and is living somewhere else under a different name. Some say he’s gone underground.
Gone underground. That’s almost funny.
*
‘Beam us down, Mr. Scott.’
A crackle of electricity; two human forms disappear then reappear at the base of a rocky outcropping.
‘Tricorder readings, Mr. Spock.’
‘Confirming atmospheric conditions similar to earth, Captain; 30% oxygen, 12% nitrogen, 8% hydrogen, remainder unclassified inert elements. Geology comprised of bedrock, mostly iron ore or variations thereof. No fault lines. Stable.’
‘Life forms?’
‘Readings indicate close proximity. Non-carbon based. Distinctly non-human.’
‘Their intentions, Mr. Spock?’
‘Insufficient data, Captain. Tricorder readings indicate they are approaching rapidly.’
‘Set phasers to stun.’
‘Tricorder readings indicate an anomaly, Captain. It would appear — HOLY CROW!’
Anomaly, indeed.
On the day Randy and I discovered it, I was a ten-year-old playing Captain Kirk. Randy, same age, was Mr. Spock.
‘HOLY CROW!’
I saw it the same time Randy did. We were staring at the rock face of Morgan’s Bluff, at something which wasn’t there yesterday, or the day before, or any of the countless days before.
A hole. An opening in the face of a rocky wall, every inch of which was familiar to us. At least, until then.
I stood there, while Randy, the more daring, but with the same goofy, open-mouthed expression of wonder I must have had, moved closer.
The opening was maybe two or three inches higher than the top of Randy’s head, as he stepped through. I wanted to warn him not to go any further, but I couldn’t make my mouth form words.
Randy had no such trepidation. ‘Hey, Denny! Come here! You gotta see this!’
I don’t know how I summoned up the courage to follow him. I walked under the arch and stood next to my best friend, saw what he was seeing, and gaped, just as he was gaping.
It wasn’t just a hole. It was a cave, birthed overnight. Facing us was a passage which curved off to one side and downward. Randy took a few steps forward, and I followed him, gingerly. As we walked farther into the cave, the heat of the summer air gave way to a refreshing coolness, like an air-conditioned room. We walked on, until the light from the opening faded. The passage sloped downward, narrowing. The only way you could keep going was to crawl on your belly.
I started to back away, but Randy grabbed my arm ‘Man! This is so cool!’
‘You’re not thinking of going down there, are you?’
‘Heck, yeah! Aren’t you?’
‘No way, man! This is crazy! Come on, Randy! This place wasn’t here yesterday! This is crazy!’
‘Who cares? This is so cool!’
‘But you can’t see a thing down there! How do you know you won’t fall into a bottomless pit or something?’
Randy paused and I thought I’d gotten through to him. Then he yelled, ‘Come on!’ He pushed me toward the cave entrance. When we were both outside, he started running.
‘Where are we going?’ I yelled, trying to keep up with him.
‘You’ll see!’
By the time we got back to Randy’s house, he hadn’t even broken a sweat. I was puffing hard, trying to catch my breath and ignore the stitch in my side.
‘Come on!’
‘No, I’ll wait out here,’ I said and collapsed on his front steps, still puffing from the run. Randy didn’t say anything, but
ran into the house.
I was just as glad to let Randy think I was hanging outside because I was tired. Truth was, I was afraid to go into that house. Randy’s real dad left Morgan’s Crossing when Randy was two and his mom had had a string of boyfriends since then. She ended up marrying this guy, Bill. Randy always said Bill was no kind of nice guy. I believed it. Many times, I’d seen Randy with a shiner under one eye or the frames of his glasses fixed with a piece of adhesive tape. Bill had always been civil to me, if you can call an occasional grunt being civil. I knew what his temper was like, though. The last thing I wanted was to be on the receiving end of it. So I waited outside.
A few seconds later, Randy came out holding an enormous flashlight. ‘Come on!’ he yelled.
‘Okay, okay, but no running this time.’
‘Wuss.’
On the way back to the bluff, I kept hoping that the cave would just disappear. I wanted things to go back to the way they were before. To Randy, this all might seem new and exciting, but to me, it was scary and unnatural. Yet, I knew, as long as I was in Randy’s presence, I’d be swept up in the excitement. Any good sense I might have would yield to his high energy and enthusiasm. The prospect frightened me, but it also thrilled me a little.
When we got back to the bluff, the cave was still there. Randy went first, turning on the flashlight and aiming it forward. We got to the spot inside the cave where we’d stopped earlier, Randy got on his belly, then snaked his body through the opening. I squatted on the ground, trying to follow his progress. The ground was damp and cold, and felt like moist clay. After Randy’s feet disappeared, I could see the glow from the flashlight, growing dimmer as he moved further away from me until it went out altogether.
‘Randy?’
No answer.
I counted to ten before I shouted again. Again, no answer. I yelled a third time.
This time, I heard, ‘Denny!’
‘Randy! Are you okay?’
‘Denny, you gotta come down here! This is so awesome!’
Against my better judgment, I got down on my belly and peered into the passage. ‘I can’t see anything!’
‘Here, wait!’ Randy aimed the light in my direction. I could see that the passage sloped down and to the left. It was a gentle incline, but tight, one that Randy could negotiate without difficulty. I wasn’t so sure about myself.