by Marie Dry
She motioned to the symbols. “What does that say?”
“It tells me where we are going.”
“I’d like to learn to read it. I love learning new languages.” She’d have to hide that, with her memory, she’d be able to grasp it much faster than he’d expect. If he knew of her eidetic memory, he’d be more careful in allowing her access to their language and computers.
“You do not need to be able to read it.”
Well, they’d just see about that.
After dizzying turns, judging by the way the symbols flashed in different directions, going upward and, she suspected, sideways a few times, they exited onto an empty space with glass instead of gray panels. She’d half expected an observation deck, with large windows, but not this. One moment she stood on a solid deck, and the next a hundred mile drop opened beneath her feet. She screamed and tried to step back. Her back hit the door that had closed behind her. Her sense of safety, of having something firm beneath her feet disappeared. She braced for the fall. Nothing solid protected her from the empty space beneath her. Her feet cramped, and her toes curled up into her shoes. She couldn’t get more than a whimper past her lips. Her lifeless body would be vaporized when it entered the Earth’s atmosphere--if it didn’t drift into space.
“It is quite safe.”
Aurora pressed against the door, her legs giving way beneath her. She landed on the fragile glass floor with a soft thud, instinctively bracing for cracks to appear. “Let me out, please, let me out.” The deck beneath her feet was made from fragile glass. Like the shuttle that brought them here. Every time she moved, there was a faint crackle as if the glass wanted to shatter. “What’s wrong with you people? Don’t you know that spaceships must be sturdy enough to withstand meteors bumping into them?”
“This ship is strong.”
“We’re standing on glass, fragile glass.” Why couldn’t he understand what she was saying and get them off this horrible floor? “It can’t take both our weights. You must weigh a ton. Please open the door.”
He started to reply, and she just knew it was going to get worse. She also knew the moment he decided not to tell her whatever it was.
***
Balthazar couldn’t fathom his human. “The deck cannot break from our weight. It can withstand a meteor impact, depending on the velocity of the ship.” It would be better if she didn’t know that it was a force field and not glass beneath her feet. She was a remarkable human, but he sensed that knowing she only had what amounted to an energy field beneath her feet would distress her even more. He forced her gaze back to the deck, taking hold of the back of her head and pushing it down. “First, you will look at your Earth and stop missing it.”
The president had impressed upon him the need for Aurora to return to Earth on a regular basis. Balthazar wasn’t about to let her go back, but he would ensure she didn’t miss it to the point she withered away like the president said she would.
“I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it, let me out.” She pushed at him with her insect-like hand. Her eyes were opened wide and appeared white, and her body trembled against him.
He opened the door and, before he could help her, she stumbled through and collapsed on the deck on the other side. She sobbed and clutched the solid deck beneath her.
It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to tell her that it could also become transparent.
“You monster,” she screamed at him.
He didn’t understand why she called him a monster when she was the one reacting unreasonably.
“You should trust me,” he said and drew her upright.
“Trust you. You shoved me into a room with a glass deck that could crack any moment,” she screeched at him.
Shrugging off his hold, she brushed at the deck and muttered about creepy ships flown by even creepier aliens. She pressed her hands against the wall and pushed upright. Did she assume his hearing was as weak as hers, and he wouldn’t hear what she called him?
“You will do it each morning and will get used to the sensation.” He took her arm in a firmer grip this time. She wouldn’t shake him off again. Her arm was thin under the wide sleeve of her dress. He could feel the fragile bone. “It is time for breakfast.”
He took her to the empty cabin, where he had a table and two chairs placed.
Aurora carefully stepped into the cabin, as if expecting the floor to drop away beneath her. Balthazar was pleased to see his orders had been carried out. The table was laid with two plates with fried eggs, toast, bacon, and croissants.
She gave the food a wary look he didn’t understand. It was all Earth food. He wanted to show her that he could care for her at an optimum level.
“Have you thought about kidnapping a cook?” she joked. Then she bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sure your cook isn’t used to cooking Earth dishes. I’d be happy to help him.”
“He will learn.” Balthazar sat down and put food on a plate for her and then served some eggs and bacon for himself. “You are my human. You will spend time with me and not him.”
She was too valuable to be left alone with any of his cyborgs.
She smiled at him. It looked odd with her square white teeth and full lips. “Of course, I merely wanted to help.”
“I will take care of you, keep you functioning at prime levels.”
“Thank you.” She sat with her hands folded demurely in her lap, her eyes downcast. Still, he had the impression that she was laughing. “Would it be possible to get some coffee?” she asked.
He got up, and she grabbed his arm with that soft hand with its many fingers. It felt as if a spider had landed on him. “The president didn’t know I like coffee.”
Balthazar sat down again, even though he suspected she lied. He ordered coffee to be brought to them, still tempted to pay the president another visit. Fifteen minutes later, his cyborg brought two steaming mugs of coffee.
Instead of eating, she moved the food around on her plate. She’d done that last night as well. She needed more fuel for her body. Her bones were dangerously fragile. Several times, she looked up at him and opened her mouth as if to speak. Then she looked down at her plate again. She finally looked up. “I need to ask you something?”
“You may ask.”
She bit her lip and then leaned toward him, her pink palms held out to him. “Balthazar, my sister is held captive on Earth.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know. I was searching for her when you demanded I come here. I was so close to finding her.”
“Why was she taken?”
On Tunria, naturals were made to disappear all the time. Humans might come in many colors, but they were not divided between clones and naturals.
Aurora avoided his eyes. She shuddered. “When I was fourteen, my parents sold me and my sister to a very powerful man.”
He would find this man who made her shudder like that. “Humans sell their offspring?” Such behavior was utterly repulsive. No cyborg would ever betray their own kind like that.
“No, my mother had a gambling addiction, and my father a drug habit--a bad combination for me and Ter.”
“Ter is your sister? Why are you free, and she is still captive.”
She flinched, looked him briefly in the eye, and then gazed down at her clasped hands. “We were going to be moved to another location, and we planned to escape. We’d agreed that we wouldn’t look back. We’d just run and keep running. By the time I realized she’d stumbled, I was too far ahead of her.” Two wet trails ran down her cheeks. “I kept running.”
If he didn’t have cyborg hearing, he would’ve missed her confession. “Why are you telling me this?”
She belonged to him. He wouldn’t allow her to have another family.
“Please, Balthazar, I need you to find her for me.”
“No.” He took a large bite of bacon and chewed. It still felt awkward. Before Aurora, he hadn’t had to chew.
Aurora’s face turned red. “Wh
at do you mean no?” she almost shouted. “You bastard, you emotionless bastard. I’ve searched for Ter for years, and now that I have a good lead for the first time, you make me come here.”
He didn’t like the way her heart rate increased. “Calm yourself, human.”
“No, I will not clam myself. You have no right to come here and upset everything I’ve worked for.” Her eyes glared at him through her tears. “I have to find her.”
“I do not do your bidding.” She was his human. If she found this sister, she wouldn’t want him anymore.
She curled her lip at him. “So you will keep me captive here and won’t care that I miss my sister every moment. That she might be in danger?”
“Yes.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she pushed her plate away. “Please, Balthazar, surely, you have the technology to do a search.”
Her attachment to this sister deeply disturbed him. “No.”
“Then let me go to Earth and find her. I’ve got some good leads. I promise I’ll come back.”
“You will stay on the ship.” Soon she would forget about this sister and belong only to him.
She held out her hand, palm open. “You can trust me, Balthazar.”
“I know I cannot trust you.”
He contacted his second on their internal frequency. Nebuchadnezzar entered, carrying all the contraband they’d found in her luggage.
Her throat moved when she swallowed, staring at the packages neatly marked Explosives. Did the humans think cyborgs couldn’t read? Next to it, Nebuchadnezzar placed the recording devices, putting them down one by one.
Her face changed color, became as white as the trunks of Kefu trees in winter on Tunria. “What are you going to do to me?” she whispered.
CHAPTER 7
Aurora stared at the explosives and the recording devices the other cyborg placed on the table with deliberate movements, each device spaced exactly apart. How did the president think she was supposed to win these cyborgs’ trust with this in her luggage?
She held her breath while she waited for his answer. The silence lengthened, the other cyborg left without a word being spoken between them.
Would he believe her if she said she didn’t know about it? It was worth a try. She widened her eyes, tried to look innocent. “I’m sorry, Balthazar, I didn’t know this was in my luggage.”
“If you did not put it there, how did you know we found it in your luggage?”
She should’ve stuck to the truth. “I’m sorry, Balthazar. The president told me about it just before we stepped through that weird doorway.”
He didn’t say anything, continued to stare at her.
“With all the excitement, I totally forgot about it. I didn’t even notice it when I went through my luggage.”
“I will take you to your room.”
“What does that mean? Are you angry with me, are you planning to punish me somehow? Confine me to my quarters?” Aurora could’ve kicked herself. No need to give him any ideas.
“You will not be punished. This time. You will eat, and I will take you to your room.”
She took a few bites and forced herself to swallow some of the pulped mess on her plate. The sloppy texture and nerves made her stomach turn. “I can’t eat anymore.”
He stood and took her arm, and she was back in her room, left alone, minutes later.
***
Aurora had read about cabin fever, but the reality was something she never could’ve imagined.
Balthazar allowed her out once a day to look at Earth through that hellish glass floor. Afterward, he brought her back to the cabin. At night, he slept beside her, although he didn’t touch her and mostly ignored her. He slept, lying on his back, so still that she sometimes touched him to see his tattoo move to her hand. It reassured her that she wasn’t in bed with a corpse.
They ate their meals here and slept here and talked here, and she was ready to climb the walls. It had been three weeks ago when he confronted her with the explosives and listening devices in her luggage. With no night and day and no seasons, she was fast losing track of time. There was no sun coming up and setting, no brisk breezes or stifling humid nights. Nothing that told her body about seasons. And she missed it.
Aurora took out her nail file and went to the wall behind the bed. She had to keep track. Had to at least know what day it was, how many days she spent up here. If she made twenty scratches and kept it up, she could have her own calendar. She pressed down as hard as she could and half expected the nail file to break. Instead, she easily scratched a groove into the wall.
The wall shrieked, the sound so loud and nerve jangling she dropped the file and covered her ears and stumbled away from the wall.
Balthazar came through the door at a dead run. He looked at the wall and then glared at her. “You dare to try and sabotage the ship. You cannot gain access to the ship’s systems by cutting into the walls.”
“I wasn’t--”
The ship continued to shriek, and she clasped her ears again.
Balthazar’s eyes narrowed, and there was sudden blessed silence. “Explain yourself, human.”
“I was trying to keep track of the days and weeks passing by. That’s what people who were imprisoned used to do in the old days.”
He stared at her, and she had no idea what he was thinking. Did he believe her? She hid her trembling hands in the folds of her dress and tried to look brave.
“You are not imprisoned.”
“Really? What would you call it?”
“You are not imprisoned. I will return to work, and you will not make any more scratches.” With that, he left.
Glaring at the door, she got out her suitcase and scratched out two rows of seven scratches. A third row with six. She would keep track of time somehow--if she didn’t go stir crazy from cabin fever and boredom first.
He would come and have lunch with her today, and she was determined to get him to agree to eat in the mess hall. Every day, she asked him to let her go to find Ter or for him to search for her sister. Every day, he refused.
She didn’t fare much better with the president. Balthazar allowed her to talk to him each week, but the man was cagey on the subject of her sister as well. An hour later, she moved to the wall where the president’s image would appear anytime now. Obviously, Balthazar monitored them from wherever he was on the ship, but he never bothered to be present when they talked. She didn’t trust the president not to use her sister to force her to harm the cyborgs.
The president’s image appeared on the wall. “Aurora, how are you,” he said.
“I’m fine, Mr. President.”
“Any news?”
He asked that every time. As if something could’ve happened since the last time he talked to her. She was trapped in this opulent monstrosity day in and day out. What exactly did he expect her to report? He’d instructed her to talk to Balthazar about peace during their last conversation, but she had the disturbing feeling that he wanted war. That he wanted to defeat the cyborgs. That he wanted to follow up a victory with their heads put on pikes in a savage display of dominance. He made a slight motion with his hand. Trying to be subtle.
“Don’t use the picos yet. We need information from him first.”
She didn’t want to think what Balthazar would do if he caught them communicating in secret.
She nodded and was about to ask about the weather down there, desperate enough to want to experience it second hand when his image winked out. She sighed. Balthazar allowed them fifteen minutes and then cut the connection.
Balthazar came through the door two hours later, and they sat down to lunch. She waited until the cyborg that served them had left before she made her request.
“Please can we eat with the others?”
“Why?”
“I am going stir crazy, Balthazar. I’ve got nothing to do here. I’m used to working long hours, and now all I do is sit around. I can’t take it anymore. I think my spirit will die if I have to be tra
pped in here much longer.”
He sat down his knife and fork. “You believe humans have spirit.”
Please, she prayed silently, don’t let this become a weird discussion about souls. “Try subjugating us, and you will find out with how much spirit we can fight.”
“Our weapons are more advanced. You cannot fight us.”
“We will fight, with whatever we have, even if we have to pick up rocks and throw them.”
“That would not be a logical course of action. You cannot hit our ship with rocks.”
“That is the human spirit, and against that, you cannot win, no matter how powerful your weapons are.” She hoped.
“If the people of Earth do not comply, humans will die,” he said matter-of-factly.
Once when she wanted to build a school in an area of New York no one dared venture, she had to meet with the crime lord in control of that sector. She had to smile and make nice to get his cooperation, while her skin broke out in chills of revulsion and fear--while she wondered if he had Ter. Those same chills covered her skin now when she looked into those inhuman eyes.
If she didn’t find a way to stop him, he’d kill the human race with machine-like efficiency.
“Are all Tunrians this aggressive, or did they create you specifically to make war?”
His body tensed, his eyes staring at her, unblinking. She resisted touching her hairpins. She didn’t have to force herself to stop eating. The food turned to sawdust in her mouth. Her question had triggered something that might leave her dead.
Those slit irises sliced through her. “Never again call me Tunrian.”
“All right, but please make me understand, Balthazar. Why do you hate your own people?”
“They are not my people, merely our creators. They betrayed us.” He fixed her with a look that turned the tasteless food in her mouth sour. “I killed many of them for their betrayal.”
Did his voice contain a warning? He had to suspect that she would try to help her people. If he found the picos in her hair, after he’d already found the explosive and recording devices, he’d go ballistic.