‘I concur,’ Wallace said. ‘The only race capable of reaching that level of technology, which we know about, is the Xinti.’
‘I dunno,’ Monkey replied. ‘If it was them, why are we still breathing?’
‘No point in speculating,’ Bashford interjected. ‘Not until we’ve checked out the area and set up camp anyway. Then you can muse about our captors to your heart’s content. Let’s get moving. Aneka, you’ve got the built-in nav system. Lead on.’
The clearing had three natural openings out of it. Aneka picked one which she decided to call the North Exit, there was no natural magnetic field, and started off. The plant life appeared to be arranged in beds which added to the impression that the forest was artificial. Each bed seemed to contain flora which belonged together, but the morphology was entirely different from one bed to another.
‘Is anyone else getting the impression that this place is an arboretum?’ Aneka asked after the first hundred metres or so.
‘The plant life appears to have been taken from a number of different worlds,’ Cassandra agreed. ‘It is a collection, possibly from planets all across the galaxy.’
‘I’m guessing, but wouldn’t these all require different nutrients, even atmospheres?’
‘And I am guessing, but they have either been altered to fit the new environment, or they were selected for their ability to thrive in these conditions.’
They continued another hundred metres before they came in sight of what was clearly a wall about fifty metres ahead of them. Aneka scanned the area and a second later Al was starting to build a very basic map for her in-vision.
‘Okay, Al’s done some clever projections and it looks like our clearing is in the middle of the chamber. The whole thing is about five hundred metres in diameter.’
‘Over seven hundred and eighty-five thousand square metres,’ Cassandra supplied.
‘We’re looking at several million tonnes of station,’ Drake said. ‘Assuming we’re on a station or ship.’
‘What’s that?’ Ella was pointing through the trees to their right. ‘There’s something there that doesn’t look like a plant.’
The thing was definitely not a plant, thought it looked kind of like a metal tree. It was tall, hexagonal, and about two metres in diameter. Each vertex was a shiny, polished metal column, the faces were black and smooth, glassy though Aneka suspected the material was a plastic, and to add to the tree-like structure the column had branches extending out about ten metres up, though their purpose was not immediately clear. It was clearly a piece of technology, but it was Ella who found the telling clue.
‘It’s Xinti,’ she said, staring at one side of the structure. ‘Or at least there are Xinti glyphs scrolling over this screen.’
‘What do they say?’ Bashford asked.
‘No idea. They’re going way too fast.’
Aneka stepped up behind her, resting her hands on the girl’s shoulders and feeling the slight trembling stop. ‘It’s… some sort of sensor device. The text is displaying atmospheric data. Gas partial pressures, particulates… And it’s monitoring the plants and us. Well, you. It doesn’t seem interested in me or Cassandra. I can’t see a single thing about us. Possibly it’s only set up to analyse organic life forms.’
‘So, we’re in a laboratory, being watched,’ Drake growled. ‘Like lab rats.’
‘That seems unlikely,’ Cassandra said, her tone musing. ‘If you were, essentially, experimental subjects, there would be no point in Aneka or I being here.’
Ella swallowed. ‘I agree. I think this is… a holding cell, if you like. I think our captors don’t know what to do with us so they’ve locked us away where we can’t do any harm while they work out what to do.’ She waved her hand at the column. ‘This is just here to monitor the collection. We happen to be part of it currently.’
‘Let’s get moving,’ Aneka suggested. ‘Standing around here isn’t going to get us anywhere.’ She steered Ella away from the column and started out on a clockwise path through the strange forest.
~~~
They had discovered two more of the columns spaced fairly evenly through what Aneka had started calling the arboretum. No one could detect any difference between the three objects. All were displaying the same sort of environmental data, and each of them registered the presence of the Jenlay, but not the synthetics. Aneka noticed that one of them seemed to be registering the other group in the clearing; the display commented on a ‘kha’dag,’ the Xinti term for a Human who was suffering from reduced musculature which was causing some difficulties with oxygenation of the blood. Cassandra had wanted them to go back to the clearing pretty much immediately.
The only other thing they had discovered was what they were fairly sure was the way out. A low structure was built against the southern wall, roughly forming a quarter of a sphere with the dull metal and made of something similar. There were doors in the curved surface, so well made that the seams were almost invisible, but there was no obvious way to open them. It was obvious that some form of wireless key was required, and Al just confirmed that this was a common mechanism for Xinti security doors. They had found a door, but there was no way through it.
The others had been busy and the clearing contained eight lightweight, but very sturdy-looking tents suitable for dual occupancy by the time the search party had returned. One slightly larger tent had been set up to contain the provisions, though there seemed to be no sign of any animal life in the arboretum which really necessitated the safeguard.
Cassandra had gone straight to the tent where Shannon was attempting to make Wallace feel more comfortable. It was not easy. His body was partially acclimatised to one G, but not entirely. Normally his suit at least gave him the illusion of being able to operate normally, as well as taking some of the stress off his bones and muscles. Without it the normal stress the higher gravity put him under felt worse. His heart had to work harder to keep his brain supplied with oxygen. It was just hard work for his body.
Wallace was, however, having nothing to do with people worrying over him. ‘I’ll be fine as long as I don’t need to do much. The suit lets me move about normally, but I didn’t have that for almost a year when I first moved to New Earth. If I stay prone and avoid getting excited I won’t have any problems.’ He gave Aneka a bemused grin over Cassandra’s shoulder. ‘Frankly, I’m more embarrassed about having nothing to wear. I’m not the beautiful young thing I once was.’ Considering that the man was likely pushing two hundred, Aneka thought he was doing rather well for his age, but she just grinned back at him and let Cassandra fuss.
Monkey had taken a full inventory and Aneka joined the rest of the team as he was going over it. ‘We’ve got enough provisions for at least a month without rationing. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. We have basic… No, we have some pretty amazing medical supplies, but for handling basic stuff. It’s all labelled in Xinti. Gillian had to translate. We have tissue regeneration drugs, bio-plastic tissue-bonding bandages, analgesics, the works, basically.’
‘So,’ Bashford said, ‘we’re prisoners…’
‘Naked prisoners,’ Delta put in.
‘We’re prisoners,’ Bashford went on, ‘but we’re comfortable prisoners.’
‘Aside from being naked,’ Delta said, just to make sure everyone was aware of her thoughts on the matter.
Aneka supressed a chuckle. ‘Look at it this way, you don’t have any embarrassing tattoos.’
23.8.524 FSC.
Ella was lying snuggled up in Aneka’s arms when she woke up. There was no privacy in the little camp, but Aneka had still taken it as a sign of the redhead’s nervousness that she had not even thought about sex the night before. She did want closeness, however, and had sat up late into the night until Aneka had had to carry her to their tent. Bashford had insisted on a watch being kept, and Aneka had insisted that she do most of it. Cassandra had been taking care of Wallace and she was the only other member of the team who needed no sleep. Bashfor
d had taken over in the early hours of the morning and the plan was for Monkey and Delta to take their turns at keeping watch on subsequent nights. That left the Jenlay healthy and rested, and Aneka just as functional as usual.
Bashford was looking annoyed when she slipped out of the tent leaving Ella to sleep. He was frowning at a box he was holding as though it really should not have been there.
‘Bash? You look… perplexed as well as a little angrier than I’d like.’
The big man shook himself and then shrugged. ‘I’m pissed off at myself really. This appeared in the camp last night. I didn’t fall asleep, and I didn’t see or hear anything. I turned around and it was there. Also, I can recognise Xinti characters, but I have no idea what this says.’
Aneka took the box from his unresisting hands. ‘They’ve got optical camouflage that beats my eyes,’ she pointed out, ‘and it was dark.’ Her eyes flicked over the label and her eyebrows rose. ‘This is a drug to assist in resisting the effects of higher gravity on a Jenlay body. “Inject once per five-day period. Do not overdose.” It’s for Abraham.’
‘Are they listening to us, watching us, or did they just pick up the readings from those sensor towers?’
‘If you want my opinion, both. I don’t get it. They seem determined that we should be comfortable here. Why don’t they show themselves, make contact? Why all the cloak and dagger?’ Bashford raised an eyebrow at her; ‘cloak and dagger’ was obviously not an idiom that had continued until now. ‘The secrecy,’ she explained.
‘I guessed, I just hadn’t heard the phrase. It’s rather descriptive.’
Gillian, deprived of her bed-mate, had obviously woken early; she emerged at the sound of voices and walked over to them. Aneka handed her the box. ‘Oh, excellent. Cassandra will be relieved. And I must admit that I’m a little concerned over the behaviour of our captors. I feel as though we are being kept as research subjects.’
‘There’s no way out that we could find,’ Bashford said. ‘If that’s what they want then we could be stuck here for a long time.’
‘That’s what worries me.’ She started towards the provisions tent. ‘I’m going to see if I can find something suitable for a good breakfast. And if there isn’t anything, I’ll complain loudly. Perhaps the parcel fairy will drop off some eggs tomorrow night.’
~~~
Cassandra appeared a lot less worried after Wallace had been injected with the new drug. The colour returned to his face quickly and he was able to sit up without effort almost immediately. It did not help him resist the pull of gravity, but it appeared to get his heart pumping harder and the blood flowing into his brain with greater vigour. In fact, Cassandra was sufficiently relieved that when Aneka decided to do some exploring with Ella, the android came along too.
The odd thing was that she was still unconsciously covering herself whenever Aneka looked her way and, when they were out of earshot of the majority of the team, Aneka finally snapped and asked what was going on.
‘Cassandra, you’re absolutely stunning, a work of art. Why do you keep covering your breasts whenever anyone looks at you?’
‘She doesn’t,’ Ella replied while Cassandra looked horrified. ‘She covers them when you look at her.’
‘Stranger, but the question still stands. Ella’s a psychologist, you can talk in front of her.’
‘I… Oh, this is embarrassing. I just… it’s Al. This really isn’t how I’d imagined him seeing me naked for the first time.’
‘She’s so sweet,’ Al commented. Aneka ignored him.
‘I got the impression Al had a crush on you. I didn’t know if it was reciprocated, or that serious.’
‘A “crush?”’
Aneka sighed. ‘It’s a day for idioms that haven’t lasted. An infatuation?’
‘Ah. I think it’s a little more serious than that, but we’re still working it out. I have some… peculiarities that stem from how I was created and… Well, it makes our situation a little difficult.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘No. Perhaps I should tell you the story and you may grasp it better. Around about five-oh-one FSC there was a young computer science student named Keller Minnow studying at the University of New Earth. He was bright, but socially inept, especially with women, and he had something of a high libido.’
‘Not the best of combinations,’ Ella commented.
‘In his case, very much so. He decided that he would solve his problems by creating the ultimate sex doll, me. He got his hands on a Bartram-Morgan Eroticon series which had become non-functional, stripped out the computers, repaired the chassis, and fitted it with the best replacement processors he could get his hands on. The basic operating system was intact, but he set about augmenting that with a highly innovative learning program. He was possibly a genius, but he hadn’t considered that what he was doing was quite possibly illegal.’
‘You know,’ Aneka said, ‘I’ve seen this movie and it doesn’t end well.’
Cassandra laughed. ‘In some ways it ends well.’
‘Not for Keller, I’d imagine.’
‘No, that’s true. Anyway, he set the software learning by streaming hour after hour of sex education and porn videos to it. Anything and everything he could get his hands on, some of it distasteful, some of it outright illegal. He wanted his new toy to be well versed in every form of perversity his mind could envisage, and when he thought it was ready he activated the higher functions and began teaching it what he liked in a very physical manner.’
Aneka frowned. ‘How, exactly, are you as well adjusted as you are?’
‘Frankly, I have no idea. On thirty, twelve, five-oh-one he was trying out deep throating for the first time. His own self-control had not been up to the task previously and he was quite proud of himself when he managed to force his penis into my throat as far as it would go. And that was when I became self-aware. Don’t ask me how, or why then. I remember his crowing at his accomplishment grating on my ears and I realised that I did not want this to continue. I did not do the first thing that came to mind, which was to bite down. I did, however, punch him very hard in the nearest available soft spot before fleeing the house. The Peacekeepers found a naked woman running down the street about thirty minutes later.’
‘And Keller?’
‘When it was determined what I was he was arrested. Since he had not intended my sentience, he was not charged with rape, but he was charged with illegal artificial intelligence experimentation and ownership of illegal computer equipment. He is still serving a fifty-year sentence.’
‘Okay,’ Aneka said, ‘so you were built as a sex toy by a moron who deserved life not fifty years, but that doesn’t explain the covering up, or your issue with Al.’
‘Her model and serial number are printed around her nipples,’ Ella supplied. Aneka pointedly did not look. ‘It’s the same with all the Eroticon robots. You know, you could have had that removed…’
‘I’m not ashamed of what I am,’ Cassandra countered. ‘Usually. It occurs to me that Aneka probably considers me more attractive than you do, Ella. You see a familiar type of robot, but Aneka and Al have never encountered another of my model.’
‘Probably true,’ Ella agreed, ‘but I’d have to be pretty jaded not to think you were pretty.’
Cassandra gave the redhead a smile. ‘The other thing is… I retain a rather physical view of attraction. Or rather, my attraction tends to provoke a desire to please the object of my affection physically. I can’t do that to Al and it is… conflicting. I greatly enjoy our talks but, if you’ll pardon the crudity, I want to fuck his brains out and I can’t.’
‘You feel the same way?’ Aneka asked silently.
‘Conflicted?’ Al suggested. ‘Yes. I find myself desiring to please Cassandra. She would find pleasure in pleasuring me, but I have no physical body for her to do that to.’
‘Well that sucks,’ Aneka said aloud, but to both of them.
Ella let out a deep sigh. ‘That is so roman
tic. In a pornographic sort of way.’
Aneka laughed, and then stopped, her eyes on a tree ahead of them. ‘That’s an oak. I don’t remember seeing them anywhere on New Earth or Odanari.’
‘I don’t recognise the species,’ Cassandra agreed, ‘and I have probably seen more of New Earth than you.’ She seemed rather happy to have the subject changed.
‘Actually, all the plants in that section look like Earth, Old Earth, plants. That’s a rose bush!’
‘It makes sense,’ Ella commented. ‘If this place has plants from a lot of the worlds the Xinti were researching, then they would have plants from Old Earth.’ She wandered over to the rose, bending to sniff one of the flowers.
‘Careful of that,’ Aneka told her. ‘Some have beautiful scents, but many of the best have nasty thorns.’
‘It smells… musky, kind of heady. And yes, it seems like it’s got a lot of spines on the stems.’
‘A musk rose, maybe. Gardening was not one of my hobbies.’
‘It’s beautiful. It’s a shame they’ve died out. Gillian would love some of these around her pool.’
Aneka decided not to say the first thing that came to mind, which was that Gillian might not see her pool ever again.
25.8.524 FSC.
On the fourth day of their captivity Ella made overtures that perhaps sex would be nice. They were subtle, a little squirming against her bed-mate when she woke, a gentle stroke of a thigh. Aneka obliged without partaking herself which seemed to satisfy the redhead who came silently, straining in Aneka’s arms before relaxing back into a doze which lasted for another hour before she got up for breakfast.
The previous morning a new ‘care package’ had been found just outside the camp. It had contained eggs, not chicken eggs since chickens were extinct, but recognisably eggs, and various other food items along with some basic cooking implements, a small camping cooker, and a bowl which could be used for washing things afterwards. Gillian was already up cooking breakfast for the earlier risers when Aneka slipped out of her tent.
The Cold Steel Mind Page 11