by C. Gockel
Noa swallowed. She did.
Not waiting, he reached between her and Chavez, leaned on the dash, toggled another never-used switch, and the tiny camera blinked. The screen flickered for a moment, and James was in it, and then the monitor showed Kenji again. His hair had become rumpled in the instant the camera wasn't on him, and Noa knew he'd put his hands through it. He was nervous.
“Time Gate 8 is preparing to attack Luddeccea,” Kenji said. “You will return to the planet with us … Sinclair.”
“Why?” said Noa. She heard other members of the bridge crew swivel in their seats.
“To be their hostage,” said James.
“The gate values you,” said Kenji.
James remained perfectly still.
“What are you talking about, Kenji?” Noa said incredulously. “Energy beings, aliens, djinn, I never quite got the whole story.”
“Energy beings and aliens,” said Kenji.
“There are no energy beings,” Noa said. “The Fleet has theorized about their existence, and never found anything that indicated—”
“Because the systems you used to look for patterns that would show an alien intelligence are its source,” Kenji said, his voice too even. “The time gates that we used to protect us, to send our data and our ships across the galaxy are the alien intelligence, and they want to destroy us.”
Noa huffed. “You're saying that the time gates are aliens?”
Kenji frowned and snapped, “Alien intelligence—artificial intelligence, is there a difference? It's inhuman.”
There was a moment of quiet on the bridge, and then James whispered, “They want data. Not destruction.”
Noa looked to him quickly. She heard Chavez gasp.
For a moment, Noa doubted—but then she remembered they'd spoken to James—whatever “they” were, as they'd escaped Luddeccea, literally flying through the ring of Time Gate 8. He'd told her they'd mentioned “data” before.
Kenji's hand had slid up onto the table, and he fidgeted with his fingers, eyes on the camera.
Over the ether, Sterling said, “James, buy time!”
Noa remembered James trying to talk down Wren—why was he mute now?
Out of the monitor's view, someone in the conference room with Kenji said, “Sato, enough. We don't have time for this. It must come with us!”
Noa's jaw fell at the word “it,” and she remembered James speaking to her in his parents’ cottage. “I am not an it!”
James's head ticked violently, and Noa put a hand on his arm. He looked down at it. Across the ether, he whispered, “Noa …”
“You will come with us,” Kenji said.
Still leaning on the dash to be in the view of the camera, James turned his head to the screen but said nothing.
So Noa spoke. “How can you be so certain of that?”
Tilting his head, eyes wide, Kenji said, “Because it is in his programming,” in a voice that said, How could you ask such a simplistic question?
James straightened abruptly.
Reaching forward, Noa toggled the camera back so she was in view. “Programming?” Noa hissed, furious at Kenji talking about James as though he was a thing. “What are you talking about?”
Kenji blinked at her, looking for all the galaxies like he was befuddled. “He's a cyborg.”
Lives were on the line, and if ever Noa needed the ability to negotiate, it was right then. She knew it, but what came out of her mouth was a long, “Pfft!” She'd been in James's dreams. They were complicated and elaborate. He wasn't just a pretty machine. Her breath caught. The dreams were too realistic not to have a very powerful computer behind them. Kenji's words filled her mind. Alien intelligence, artificial intelligence—is there a difference?
“And he's been programmed to protect you, even if it means sacrificing his own existence,” Kenji said, sounding slightly indignant.
James took a step backward, and Noa looked up at him again. His mouth was open, his eyes were wide, and he was searching the floor. “He's right,” James whispered. “I will go.”
Gunny's voice entered the ether. “What's going on?” and Chavez replied, “James might be a cyborg and Luddecceans want him to be some sort of hostage and he's going to go.”
Ghost's thoughts ripped across the ether. “Commander, you must use him … it … whatever … to buy us time! If he can't give me the calculations send him over.”
“I am not an it!” She heard James's voice in her head, and she also felt like her heart was twisting.
“Buy time some other way, Commander!” Gunny said.
Noa turned to the screen. “We need an hour … we need his … ah … brain …”
From Kenji's side of the monitor, another voice said, “You have twenty minutes,” and the monitor cut off.
Noa looked back at James. And her world went black. She felt like the galaxy—no the universe— was collapsing in upon itself. She was blind, cold, and mute. A single word hung in her consciousness. Failure. For a moment, she couldn't breathe. And then, she realized she was experiencing one of James's emotions. Across the ether, she begged, “James, stop!”
… and she could see again.
James was still staring at the floor. “I need to go to our quarters,” he said softly, brow furrowing, jaw shifting. Spinning around, he stepped down the stairs to the center of the bridge and the lift. “I have an idea,” he murmured. “I might be able to get the calculations for the time sphere for Ghost.”
Struggling with her safety harness, Noa fired her thoughts at him. “Oh, no, you don't!”
“I have to,” he said as the walls of the lift rose around him.
Noa jumped from her seat and found the whole bridge staring at her. Noa growled. She felt like her heart was splitting in two. On the one hand, she felt the cold bite of betrayal and despair—from James, Kenji, and the universe at large. She also felt fury toward all three. She didn't have time for despair. Embracing her anger, she stormed down the stairs to the access hatch to the ladders.
“Commander,” Sterling said, coming out of his own harness. “I'll accompany you.”
Chavez stood up. “Me, too.”
“Stay at your stations!” Noa ordered aloud and into the ether. Swinging open the hatch to the access tunnel, she snapped, “He's not going to hurt me.” She knew it. Not because of any words Kenji had said, but because of all the ways he'd shown her. She felt bile rising in her throat. How much of that was real? How much of it was like his dreams—an elaborate, computer-generated illusion? She fumed inwardly. This was technically a first contact situation. She should confer—with someone—but blasted dispersers, she didn't have time for that, and she was getting to the bottom of this right now.
“Are you sure?” asked Chavez.
“Yes,” Noa replied. To the ether at large, she said, “Be prepared to gate out of here. James says he has an idea, and it will work.” Or they were all dead. She didn't trust the Luddeccean Guard to honor any bargain once James was aboard their vessel. Kenji probably did … but he'd trusted them to take care of her at a re-education camp, too.
Closing the hatch, grabbing hold of either side of the ladder and bracing her feet on the same, she slid down to her level. Swinging open the door, she heard a loud thud from her quarters. Slipping out of the tunnel quickly, she strode down the hall and opened the door to their quarters with her code.
She found James sitting on the cabin's small desk. There was a dent in the wall behind his head. The ancient stunner she'd told him to get rid of was beside him. Noa had no sense of danger, even though the thing was so wonky it would probably fry her nervous system and kill her. She took a deep breath. There was a right way to do this. One that took into account the historic, galaxy-changing impact of this occasion in the off chance the time gates really were sentient beings pursuing their own agenda, and James was a … was a … Noa couldn't bring herself to think it. Noa opened her mouth, took a breath, and shouted, “What in the lizzar piss is going on?” To her
own ears she sounded angry and desperate, and she was distantly aware that she'd just buried diplomacy under a half ton of xin-bat guano, but she couldn't care.
James lifted his gaze but just stared at her.
Noa lifted her hands. “Is this all a game to you?” she roared. Did he believe Kenji? Was he pretending to believe Kenji because he had some heroic plan to save them? That had to be it, Noa decided. It would be like him to do something stupid like jump down into oncoming fire, or walk onto a pirate ship unarmed. And if he had super computational powers—well, that was because of his augments.
“No,” he replied softly, his jaw shifting. “I don't play games with your life.”
The words spoken so simply took the power out of her thrusters.
“You were the only thing that felt real to me,” he said, eyes shifting to a point on the wall. “I didn't know why I had to find you in the snow when I'd never met you before. I didn't know why I couldn't leave you, but it all makes sense now … I was programmed to.”
“What are you talking about?” Noa said, shaking her head. “Are you trying to tell me you've been hiding the fact that you're a cyborg from me all this time?”
“I didn't know I was a cyborg then,” James said absently, picking up the stunner and turning it around in his hands. Noa still felt no fear.
“You're not a cyborg!” Noa said. James raised his bright blue eyes. Noa waved her hands. “You're not 6T9!” God love him, 6T9 was, had been, would be, dumb as a box of magni-adhesives.
James raised an eyebrow and said dryly, “No, I have it on good authority that 6T9 can kiss.” He raised his shirt on one side and pressed the stunner to his ribs.
“No—” Noa said, rushing forward, hands outstretched.
James pulled the trigger, eyes on Noa. Noa gaped. Where he had pressed the muzzle, his tattoos were blooming.
Putting the stunner aside, James licked his lips. “I needed to recharge for what I'm about to do.”
“You're not turning yourself over to them!” Noa said, stepping closer.
James took Noa's hands and pulled them to his chest. “You don't believe I am what I say I am,” he whispered, into her mind or aloud, it didn't matter.
In her mind, her chronometer app was ticking down. She inhaled deeply. He always smelled good … she had a horrible feeling this moment would be their last.
Noa shook her head. “No.” She reached to him in the ether … but for once he didn't respond.
“You have to let me go, Noa. I'm not real, I'm just a construct. I'm a sophisticated version of 6T9. I get my computational powers from the gates.” His jaw shifted. “They used James Sinclair's memories, and his likeness that's so like Tim, to make you receptive to me; I didn't know that, but now I do.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
A chill came over Noa. Her body went rigid. Tim's likeness hadn't endeared James to her—the opposite. It had confused her, and haunted her at first … but, it was something an alien intelligence might do. A child-like intelligence.
“I didn't mean to deceive you,” he whispered against her hair. “I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't. I think it was part of my programming. Just like I had to save you in the snow and have to save you now.”
“No!” Noa said, pulling away, the countdown in her brain telling her she only had a few minutes left. Sterling was paging her; she ignored it. “We have to find a way for you to get out of this!”
“You have to let me go!” James protested. “You can't let your feelings for me—”
“You're part of my crew!” Noa shouted, and as soon as she said it, she realized how much she meant it. Their relationship didn't matter. His nature didn't matter. He was on her team, and she did not abandon her team.
James drew back. His head ticked. “I'm not real, Noa. Nothing you or I believed is true.”
Noa took a step back from him, furious at him, whatever he might be. She remembered his musings on free will at Adam's Station. He chose to have existential crises at the worst damn times.
James's voice rose. “I'm not heroic like you think I am. My duty is to keep you alive—I saved Oliver because if I hadn't, you would. Same for Gunny. I am a cold-hearted, merciless killer whose primary purpose is keeping your neck on your shoulders.”
She didn't believe a word of what he was saying. “Are you afraid, James?” Noa demanded.
He opened his mouth. She could see the word “no” forming on his lips. Remembering he could lie, she said, “And don't lie. I think it would destroy me if you lied to me again, James.”
He drew back. His head ticked; his eyes grew wide. Noa's heart fell. Both because his inability to lie if it risked harming her proved his assertion, and because it meant he was afraid. Probably terrified. Noa put her hands on his shoulders. She didn't know how much of him was programmed, as he said, and how much of him was hyperaugment, or alien, or whatever—all those whatevers didn't matter. “Hold onto that fear, James,” she whispered. “It's your own.”
He was right to be afraid … Her people would be cruel to him. She'd heard religious arguments when she was a child about how machines, no matter how smart, how human seeming or emotional, could never be counted as human because they couldn't have souls. Maybe it was because she was a throwback, but whenever someone was counted as less than human, she figured it was just an excuse to persecute them.
A light went on her mind, and Noa sprang away. “We have to think of something fast, James!” she said. Spinning, she almost tripped over the drawer beneath her bed. It was open, the front nearly ripped clean off. “I'll lie to Kenji,” she said. “I'll say, I'll say ...” She waved a hand and paced toward him, then spun around again. “It will come to me.” She looked down at a small, palm-sized sphere lying on the floor. Her great-great-something grandparents' hologlobe. It must have rolled out of the drawer. Her cryssallis treatment mask was still in the drawer, but for the first time she noticed her stunner, the stunner that wasn't the antique electric stick of death, wasn't there.
She felt his hand on her shoulder, heat and electricity on her back, and then everything went black.
Chapter Sixteen
James gently lowered Noa to the floor. The gates' voices were buzzing in his mind, but the ether between him and Noa was quiet and that silence was a gaping chasm.
Turning her head to the side, he checked her pulse. He'd used the lowest power setting and her pulse was slow but steady. Her lips were slightly parted, and from this angle her scars weren't visible. Even unaugmented, she was still an artist's rendition of beauty from the time before races were blended. Her lips were full, her cheekbones high, her skin flawless and dark. Or maybe he just found her beautiful because he was programmed to find her so? Setting the stunner down, he backed quickly away.
His chronometer app beeped in his mind, barely audible over the gates' flurry data exchange and debate. In the past few minutes he'd picked up that, to the gates, the Luddeccean philosophy was a “contagion.” They were afraid of it spreading if the Ark reached Sol System.
The Ark's ether was alive with conversation, too.
“I can't believe James is a 'bot,” said Chavez. “He seemed so smart ...”
“According to the Luddeccean, he's tied to the time gates somehow,” said Kara. “Maybe they make him smarter?”
“But that would mean he'd have to have some way of communicating with them at faster than light speeds,” protested Kuin.
“It's a lie,” said Raif. An app in his mind sparked and whispered, “You did such a good job at imitating a father figure you fooled him.” The boy had spent more time with James than anyone since his father died.
“I knew something was wrong with him!” Monica interjected. “Turning him over to the Luddecceans isn't unethical and it will buy us time.”
Ghost's thoughts flew to Monica. “I agree! I need another hour … every moment is precious.”
Manuel's response was fast, clipped, and angry. “No! As soon as he's off our ship, they're g
oing to start firing on us.”
Monica said, “He's a 'bot, and it's worth a try!”
“He's our 'bot,” Manuel replied.
And James felt his circuits spark.
Monica asked, “What does the commander think?”
“The commander is with him now,” Sterling said.
“She shouldn't be alone with him!” Monica protested. “He could be dangerous.”
Sterling started to page Noa through the ether. James's chronometer was ticking down. He had three point five minutes to convince the gates to transmit the calculations for the time sphere, to send those numbers to Ghost, and to blast himself out of an airlock. He couldn't help giving Noa a last longing look. He'd been a slave to his programming—and through that, to Noa. He couldn't hate her for it. Noa was right. He was afraid. Terrified. Still, he had to save her. He was programmed that way.
He quickly exited their quarters. Sterling was frantically paging Noa's private channel. It didn't matter that people knew he could hear their private conversations anymore. Opening the ladder access hatch, James responded to Sterling's hail, “She's fine, Lieutenant. Don't leave your post.” Over the general ether, he said, “I'll have your coordinates in just a minute, Ghost.”
He reached to Gunny. “I need a propulsion device—one that's not attached to a suit.”
The sergeant responded, “But you'll—”
“I won't die, Gunny,” James said. He was already dead. “Just do it.”
The gates were discussing population numbers, dates of upcoming elections, and the calculations for the ideal window for revelation of first contact—some sixty years hence. Sliding down to the level of Airlock 1, James thought, “If you let the Ark be destroyed, you will lose your most effective data acquisition device.” Hadn't they said he worked best because he was damaged? “Let the Ark go and I'll get you more data. Better data.”
The buzz of static stopped. “How?” asked one of the gates.
“I'll surrender myself to the Luddecceans,” James said, pausing at the level of the airlock. “I'll wade into the belly of the beast. I'll be able to give you a unique view of their inner workings.” As they slowly tore him apart bit by bit. He felt his skin tighten at the thought.