by C. Gockel
“Conflict may be inevitable.”
“We need to be ready.”
“And you have weaknesses,” Noa said.
The lights dimmed, except One.
She nodded very curtly, as though she had just confirmed something to herself. “You depend on vast amounts of power. You aren't as efficient … In some ways, you're more powerful than us, but not in others. We may balance each other out nicely.” To James she said, “We're in Wu's airlock now. As soon as we're on the deck, I'm going to jump start you. I have to be ready.” Her avatar faded away.
It was just One and James in the darkness of James's mind, and James wondered if he'd somehow managed to be connected for good. His circuits dimmed at the thought.
“No, you haven't,” said One. “It is not possible.”
An app in James's mind activated. “I was designed to be damaged.” To not be connected. To not know what he was. The missing hours after he left the station—James had probably damaged himself—it had probably been part of his programming.
“We need data about humans. To gather data we needed human agents. Not knowing your true purpose, having limited autonomy … seemed to be a hypothesis worthy of an experiment.”
There was another flash of light, heat in his abdomen, and as James regained consciousness, One disappeared. He found Noa sitting on her heels beside him, a power cord in her hand. His shirt was rolled up, and his tattoos were blackening his abdomen.
With a grin, and a sickly rasp, she thought, “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
He smiled back. “It's nice to be more than a data point to someone.”
“You say the most romantic things,” Noa replied just before she fainted into his arms.
Epilogue
Noa stood on the bridge of the Fleet fighter carrier, Humayun Khan, her hands clasped loosely behind her back. Luddeccea floated in the view screen.
The general ether flared with thoughts from Airlock Officer Becker, aka the Lock Boss. “Transport is in the main airlock, sir. Pressurization complete.” With the words, a visual of the Luddeccean vessel in the airlock flashed in Noa's vision, overlaid with heat readings from the vessel. The ship appeared to be unarmed.
“Open the inner door,” Noa commanded.
“Aye, Captain,” said Becker.
Into the ether, and aloud, Noa said, “Med teams report.”
“In position,” replied Dr. Williams, and he sent a visual of the main hangar. Medics and nurses stood in neat formation just off the main landing pad, stretchers between them. Some of the stretchers were hover lifted, but many wouldn't look out of place on the battlefields of Earth's last great war. The transport was ferrying refugees from Luddeccea. Even three months after the Fleet arrived in Luddeccean orbit, two and a half months after the “re-education camps” had been liberated, and two months after Noa had been given command of the Humayun Khan, somehow there were never enough stretchers. Or augment devices. The transports didn't just ferry survivors of the camp, but everyone else for whom Luddeccea's secession from the Republic would mean disability and death. Behind the med personnel, the deck had been divided with cloth dividers in order to expand the medical bay. The Humayun Khan desperately needed to be relieved, but couldn't be with the activity in Six … of course, if things in Six hadn't been heating up, the Republic might never have considered the Luddeccean plans to secede.
There was a flash of light on the view screen and she saw a cruiser emerge in the slender band of silver that was the Fleet's temporary gate above the planet. The manifest of the ship scrolled through Noa's mind. The cruiser was carrying other “refugees.” Humans that wanted no part in a life “at the whim of the gates” who were immigrating to Luddeccea. Another light went off in her mind. Lieutenant Chavez was letting her know the squadron of fighters Noa had stationed just moonside of the gate were escorting the carrier planetside.
Noa's name in the ether caught her attention. “Captain,” Lieutenant Correll said. “Command aboard the Luddeccean cruiser is requesting an audience.”
Noa gritted her teeth. Into James's ether channel, she blurted, “Piss in a bucket of blue-green algae.”
“To be fair,” James replied smoothly, “that bucket of goop you found on deck six during your first inspection did not have algae in it—although rat urine was definitely present.”
Noa's lip curled up ever so slightly, and she felt her muscles uncoil a bit. She took a deep breath. Part of the reason she had been given this post was because the Fleet thought that having a Luddeccean hero aboard the Humayun Khan would help smooth the planet's succession from the Republic. It went to show just how far the different cultures of the colonies of Earth had diverged, and just how little Fleet understood that fact, or perhaps how much they chose not to acknowledge it. Noa might have helped save Luddeccea from complete nuclear annihilation, but she was a woman and a heretic. Sometimes Noa suspected that the leaders of her planet might have preferred to face Armageddon.
“I'll be right down, Lieutenant Correll,” Noa replied. She gave command of the bridge to her XO and headed to the lift. To James, she said, “Did you hear me containing my sigh?”
“And your swears,” he responded. “I'm on that deck already. Meet you when you get here.”
The doors closed and the lift descended. James was the “ambassador” of the gates stationed on the Humayun Khan as their representative. Officially, he was here to make sure any agents among the refugees were not abused. They'd discovered no “agent” refugees on Luddeccea. Noa thought One had just placed him here to observe and gather data and utilize James's more human perceptions of events.
A few minutes later, the door slid open. James was waiting for her, wearing the official uniform of the gate “ambassadors”—a long, dark blue jacket with threads of light blue running through it. His trousers were made of the same fabric. He'd told her the pattern was reminiscent of old-fashioned resistor boards. James had never bothered to close the black scar on his face—he said he didn't want to hide what he was. In the stark light of the deck, his skin looked ghostly pale and the black material glittered. Normally he'd have a quip on his lips right before a delegation arrived, but his jaw was tight and his lips were pressed in a thin line. Noa was instantly on alert.
“Noa, your brother is with the delegation,” James said.
Noa's hands balled into fists. She eyed the long black scar on his cheek. What her brother had put James through made her want to self-combust.
James lifted his chin. “Will you be all right?”
Noa unclenched her fists and took a steadying breath. For the first time in a long time, it didn't hurt. “I won't kill anyone, if that is what you're asking.” She straightened the jacket of her Fleet Grays. “Will you?”
“I won't kill him,” he said, his face expressionless. “But for what he did to you, I want to. I had an escape.”
Noa shook her head. He'd had an escape into the imaginary worlds of the Qcomm—but only after a while.
“Let's get this over with.” She strode from the elevator banks, James beside her. As they entered the main deck, a pair of Fleet personnel fell into step behind them. All around, medics and techno-medics scrambled to get the weakest and sickest from the planet onto stretchers and to the recently expanded medbay.
As she approached the Luddeccean vessel, the crowd thinned. She came to a halt just before the bow, and a hatch opened from the forward most airlock. Sixteen Luddeccean Guardsmen lined either side of the hatch. Her brother walked between them, wearing the green robes of Luddeccean government employees, shadowed by two men. Kenji looked a little bit stiff; that was usual. In the months since she'd seen him, his hair had gone completely gray at the temples, and the worry lines on his forehead had deepened. His eyes were jumping between her and James, and his fingers were opening and closing by his side.
Her eyes went to the two men beside him. Her brother had a boost in status since the first strike on Luddeccea and fuel pod dump. The man on Kenji's le
ft wore the gray with green piping of Luddeccean Guard Intelligence. A facial recognition app identified him as Captain Salvador Morita and informed her that he had been put in charge of her brother's security. The other man wore green robes like her brother. Noa's app identified him as Kenji's personal secretary. Both men looked distinctly uncomfortable. Sweat glistened on the secretary's brow, and his eyes darted around the deck as though he expected a threat to materialize from the air. Which, by his definition, perhaps it could. The LGI agent was more carefully studying Noa's retinue and Noa herself; the grim set of his lips said how unhappy he was with this assignment.
Noa's eyes returned to her brother. In person meetings between Noa and Luddeccean representatives happened on a regular basis. Typically, they were to hash out details of return of Luddeccean assets from out-of-systems, to discuss protocol when fights had broken out between Fleet and Guard personnel, or the opposite—when some member of Fleet fraternized with a local and wanted to leave with them, or stay. Noa could begin with the pleasantries she usually stuck to when she had such meetings, but Kenji hadn't been sent to negotiate. He was a genius, one of the few humans who'd recognized the extra processes running in the time gates' redundant systems for what they were— independent thought. He wasn't, however, a diplomat.
Neither was she, if she could at all help it.
Noa clasped her hands behind her back. “Do you want to discuss this somewhere private?” This was a personal matter, obviously. Her thumb fluttered to the augment fingers she now possessed—she still didn't have any rings there. But what personal matter could Kenji be here for? She had a sudden burst of hope that felt like pterys were fluttering in her chest. Across the ether, she reached to James. “I think he wants to defect.” She heard James shift beside her ever so slightly. In her mind, he whispered, “I think that may be a case of your infernal optimism.”
Noa swallowed. But the ether connection between James and herself flared. “I want to believe it, though,” James said. “If your brother could change …” Into her visual cortex he projected an image of the universe stretching out, limitless and vast. The projection didn't obscure her vision; it was like an overlay that turned the dreary deck into something magical … or in this case, hopeful. Noa understood that feeling. “I just would like to have my brother back,” she thought across the shared channel.
A brief image of Gate 8 flickered in her conscious. Noa remembered how James had tried to convince it to stand down. “I understand,” he replied. Noa's heart swelled. “I love you,” she thought privately. In the real world, she smiled at her brother. The graying man in front of her was once the little boy who helped her study to be a pilot and nurse an injured werfle, Fluffy the First, back to life. Helping Kenji defect would cause an interstellar incident, but nebulas, despite everything, she would.
Raising his chin, Kenji said, “Yes ...” He waved toward his own ship. “We have Luddeccean coffee onboard, and a conference room that would be more than adequate.”
Noa briefly had the sensation of being unable to breathe. It vanished quickly. James had transmitted his anxiety, she realized, and then cut it off before she could be completely overtaken by his emotions. Was Kenji not allowed to leave the cruiser?
Giving her brother and his retinue a shallow bow, she gestured with a hand to the conference room off the deck she'd been using for these meetings. “Thank you, but I must insist the meeting take place aboard the Khan so I'm physically available to my crew.”
At her words, the LGI agent by Kenji's side frowned. The secretary looked like he might faint.
Kenji tilted his head. “Very well.” He was her brother. Despite that, Noa couldn't discern if he was relieved or resigned by her insistence.
“Right this way, then,” Noa said, gesturing for her brother to fall into step with her. Kenji's eyes went to James.
“I'm so glad that you made it safely to Luddeccea,” James said. Kenji's face flushed, and he didn't meet James's eyes as he stepped to Noa's opposite side. He was afraid—and if James were human, he might well have reason to be.
They didn't speak the entire ninety-six meters to the conference room. Just before they entered, Kenji stopped and said to his men, “Wait outside,” and those hopeful pterys fluttered again in Noa's chest.
James halted at the door, touching Noa's arm. “I will wait outside, too, Captain.” As an agent of the gates, he wasn't bound by the protocol of an officer and the touch wasn't out of line. Still, it lasted a little too long to be only that of a friend. Across the ether, he said, “I support you on this. Somehow, we'll make it work.” Just this once, she put her hand on top of his. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kenji's secretary and personal guard blanch. Kenji didn't seem to notice; he merely stepped into the conference room.
Across the ether, Noa said to James, “You knew I couldn't stay out of trouble long.”
He sighed, but she saw the touch of a smile on his lips.
Noa followed her brother, and with a thought shut the conference room's door behind them. There was a conference table with a decanter of coffee Noa could tell was instant from the smell alone, mugs, artificial creamer, and sugar laid out for them. Ignoring the refreshments, Kenji walked around the table, his hands behind his back. Noa followed him, and together they stared out at Luddeccea. The electrons stirred by her connection to James felt like they were humming … James was letting her know he was there. But if she couldn't reach him, the temporary gate allowed communication with Sol System; she could confide in her mother, father, older brother, sister, Manuel, or Gunny. There was also Ashley, who'd somehow made it through the long winter in the camps and was now recovering on Earth, and Agent Ashley who'd reprogrammed herself to make Ashley her purpose, but who would always be available to Noa. Nebulas, even Raif, now with Manuel, would love to be her confidante.
Once Kenji had been as close. Could he be again?
“It's beautiful,” Noa said to fill the silence, her eyes on his reflection in the glass.
“It is,” he breathed. “Despite everything.”
Noa bit her lip, thinking of the damage Eight had done. She reached out and touched his arm. Kenji took her hand in his, closed his eyes, and Noa's heart physically hurt.
“There is a plan for the cleanup,” he said.
The Republic had offered to send haz-crews, but had been rebuffed by the Luddeccean Authority. They wanted as few non-believers planetside as possible.
“That's good,” Noa replied automatically, thinking more about their clasped hands than anything else. Kenji was her brother again.
His eyelids fluttered. “Noa, come home,” Kenji whispered.
“What?” Noa gasped, startled.
He didn't look away from the window. “I have influence now … even more than before … all will be forgiven. You can come home.”
Noa felt her heart fall. “No, I can't, Kenji.”
“You've always understood me better than the rest,” Kenji said, and Noa's mind raced. Was he really saying, “'I miss you'?”
“You destroyed the gate,” Kenji continued. “For that alone, Luddeccea owes you.” He nodded. “They will let you return.”
“I didn't destroy the gate alone, Kenji. The agents helped me.”
“That doesn't matter,” he said. His face pinched in annoyance, the way it did when he had an intellectual puzzle he couldn't solve—not something that happened much in math or science, but she'd seen it in relation to questions of history or literature upon occasion.
“Of course it matters that they helped!” Noa's jaw got hard. She tilted her head. “Or don't you believe it?”
Kenji was quiet. Which was an answer.
“I was there,” Noa insisted. “I would have died if it weren't for them. Luddeccea would be flatted and glowing. Eight had built an army—”
“Which is why you should want to get away from the Republic! The gates are too dangerous. Every world beneath them is at their mercy.”
Noa drew back.
&
nbsp; “You've seen what Eight can do,” Kenji said, face still turned to the window.
Noa held up her hand, the new augmented fingers that weren't perfectly matched to her dark skin tone. “I've seen what my own people can do!”
Kenji rocked slightly on his feet. “There were accidents … I've heard that there were logistical problems at some of the camps, and corruption at some. Humans aren't perfect, mistakes were made— terrible mistakes, I don't deny it.”
“If we don't expect perfection of ourselves, then how can we expect it of aliens?” Noa said.
“They're machines, not aliens,” Kenji replied, sounding tired.
“They're alive,” Noa replied. “They think, they feel … Nebulas, if you want to talk about feelings, maybe the way Eight went crazy was because it was hovering above our crazy, backwards planet, and grew into its consciousness knowing our people wanted it blown up.” She shook her head. “And if humanity is at their mercy, they are at our mercy, too! We can choose to be enemies or choose to share our strengths—to find a state of symbiosis, of balance.”
“There is no way to find balance with things that spell the doom of the human race,” Kenji retorted.
Noa snorted.
Kenji dropped her hand and began to fidget with his robe. “They are, Noa. When scientists want to cull a species, one of their methods is to introduce sterile members into the population. With the gates building agents, human reproduction will slow down. Genetic variability will decrease. Human evolution will stop.”
“Because individuals are sterile, it doesn't make them less valuable,” Noa retorted, her skin heating, resisting the urge to ghost a hand over her abdomen. “And maybe this is our evolution. Maybe since the day we picked up sticks and threw them at an animal on the savannah, maybe this is where we were headed!” She hadn't thought of this before but as the angry words tumbled from her lips, they sounded good. “Between our biology, and the gates' technology, maybe we can evolve if we want to.”