And yet she kept going, straight through the desert. She’d roughly calculated her position; her onboard maps said there was a small village in this direction.
She didn’t know what she’d do when she got there. She knew she should report in to Sector 15 Command—that was her only mission now—but she kept exploring options to do so without really deciding on a plan she liked. She fretted over this; she was usually very fast to weigh possibilities and make decisions.
Her sensors picked up their truck before it was even visible, and she went on alert. She checked her weapons, unsure what Jassalan intended. She had some charge left in one of her pulse cannons, and two working dart missiles in each wrist. It wasn’t everything; half her systems were wrecked and her rifle had been damaged in the crash. It would have to do.
The truck roared up beside her, and Payl grinned out at her.
“Hey, Kay,” she called, turning the rhyme into a little two–note singsong. “Need a ride to town?”
§
“Jass’s mad,” Payl said as they bounced along. “But it’s her own fault.”
Kay had to agree, but said nothing. Payl was clearly getting some kind of thrill out of doing what Jassalan wouldn’t like.
“She told me about it,” said Payl. “She should know better.”
“Agreed,” said Kay coldly. Payl blanched at that, so Kay tried to pick up the conversation from there. “Did you know her? The woman Jassalan thought my body came from?”
“Sure,” said Payl. “I was married to her.”
“You were?” exclaimed Kay, surprised. “But—”
“She died a long time ago,” said Payl. “I let her go. Jass… can’t.”
“What was she like?” asked Kay.
Payl smiled a small, wistful smile. “Dees was… amazing. Quiet, kind and generous. She believed in a lot of causes, believed in service. Her death was bad for Jass; it’s why she dropped out of the Army. It’s probably why she asked me to come with them to Ianas; I think I’m some way of keeping a piece of Dees close. Do you really not know anything at all about who you—ah, who your body’s from?”
“No,” said Kay. “But I could.”
“You could?”
“It’s a file in my core,” said Kay. “I’ve never accessed it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not that person,” said Kay flatly. “I’m me.”
“Oh,” said Payl. “I think I get that.”
A long moment passed. Payl drummed her hands on the steering wheel.
“So, are you okay?” Payl asked at last.
Kay didn’t know what to say to that. People had never asked her that. “Yes,” she said at last. “I think so.”
“You think so?” Payl said jokingly. “Don’t you have sensors and all that inside to tell you?”
Humans so rarely understood, thought Kay. They were a mess, a whirling maelstrom of emotions. Kay and other Synthetics seemed like a placid pool by comparison, but still she had her tides, and her ripples, and even feelings humans seemed to lack.
Among others, there was a sort of beyond–certainty that she seemed to feel only with her synthetic parts. It was a cold and awful feeling, and she’d never succeeded in explaining it to humans.
“So where were you heading? I mean, after town,” Payl said. “Where next?”
“Sector 15,” said Kay. “I have to report in.”
“How’re you going to get off–planet? Spaceport’s in Tarthe, that’s halfway around the planet!”
“I’ll call for a pick–up,” said Kay moodily. “Someone in the village should have an off–planet setup. They’ll evacuate me.”
“Will they? They didn’t seem to want to come for you before.”
“They will,” stressed Kay. “That was a specific set of unique circumstances. It’s a simple matter of going to the village and contacting them; they’ll be by to pick me up soon.”
“If that’s true,” said Payl. “Then why didn’t you do that when you were stranded?”
“I don’t know. I was waiting for them to come,” said Kay softly. “I was so sure they would.”
The truck drove on through the dusty flatness.
§
They pulled into what passed for a town, a cluster of pre–fab buildings grouped around moisture–collection stations.
“You go make your call,” said Payl. “I can bring you back home after, if you want.”
“No, thank you. I’ll wait here,” said Kay.
“Yeah, I understand that,” said Payl. Her constant smile flagged a little. “It’s been good to talk to you. I’m sorry Jassalan acted like she did.”
“I… I’m sorry about your wife,” said Kay.
Payl nodded. “Yeah. Hey… Dees was big on making her own choices. Even if part of you is her, she’d want you to do what’s right for you. Okay?”
“Thank you for picking me up,” was all Kay could think of to say to that.
Payl’s smile grew wide again. “You’re welcome! Find the rain!”
Kay must have looked puzzled, because Payl added, “That’s what we say when we hope someone gets lucky. There’s never rain!”
With that, Payl roared out of the village, and Kay was alone again.
§
She found her way to the store/comm shack and asked the man at the counter about an off–planet communications system. He glared at her; she couldn’t hide what she was, or her Sovene Army markings.
“I can pay,” she said hurriedly. She removed the currency she kept for emergencies. It seemed thin and paltry, but the storekeeper’s eyes widened.
“It’s expensive,” he warned. “Very expensive.”
She thought, then removed one of the sensors from her leg. It was full of valuable electronics and a few precious metals, even if it wouldn’t work without her input. He frowned, but he pointed the way to a console in a booth. She went inside and located the code for Sector 15 Command in her file system.
Her fingers hesitated.
Thirty–seven days in the heat and dust. Thirty–seven days of waiting patiently next to the rotting corpses of her friends, her systems damaged, her long–distance voice silent.
Thirty–seven days of being utterly alone for the first time in her life.
Why didn’t you come for me?
There was a knock on the outside of the booth. “I’m using this,” she said.
“Come out of there,” said a voice she didn’t recognize. “Now.”
She scanned and found six humans, all armed. They’d come quickly from the street and the back of the store.
She could fight, she could probably hurt them badly enough to escape, but what was the point?
Kay stepped out of the booth, hands raised.
§
They were going to kill her; she knew it with that cold, absolute certainty. There was no escape. Their leader, a man named Bolus, had ordered her tied her up in the back of the store with ropes and metal bonds generating electromagnetic fields to dampen her electricals. They’d been prepared.
Bolus sat on a chair in front of her. They’d kept her waiting for hours before he came back to see her. She saw only death when she looked at him. He was young, with beady, hate–filled eyes and a bushy beard worn in showy defiance of Sovene fashion and hygiene.
“So you’re a spy,” said Bolus. “Sovenes are coming back. They promised they wouldn’t, but here you are.”
“No,” she said, her voice badly slurred from her bonds’ interference. “I was part of a unit sent out before the evacuation. We were caught by a bomb.”
Bolus laughed. “One of mine, I hope. Good! Dead Sovenes, everybody’s happy. So what, you just waited? Like a good little drone? Ha! I bet you’ll just sit there while we peel you apart.”
“I have no technology you can use,” said Kay. “My systems are integrated; they won’t work without my brain.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” said Bolus. “We’ll take you apart because we can. And be
cause it’s all the justice we’ll ever see from the Sovenes.”
“Justice,” repeated Kay dubiously.
“Yes, justice!” said Bolus, suddenly angry. “For Gorodan, and for Yellow Sands! There were children there! My brother was there.”
Kay had been at Yellow Sands, not long after. She pictured the long field in her mind, and the blood flecks on the prison wall they hadn’t quite been able to wash away.
But she also remembered such kindness. Soldiers giving kids the last of their rations, her unit taking in a family for a week, building schools and roads and sewers… she remembered that, too.
“It’s… complicated,” she said helplessly.
“Sure,” said Bolus.
“You’d be just like us,” said Kay, trying one last desperate tactic.
“I know,” said Bolus grimly. “Like you said. Complicated.” He opened the door, and his people filed in. The shopkeeper was among them.
“We’re ready,” said one.
“Good.” Bolus turned back to Kay. “It’ll be in the square out there.” He jerked his head at the window. “It’s no small thing to kill a Sovene Synthetic. We’ll put your armor up around the village, so people know not to mess with me and mine.”
There were nods all around.
“You’ll serve a purpose,” said a woman. “The provisional government is useless; criminal gangs and warlords are everywhere. When you left, you left anarchy. We need to be safe.”
“I could keep you safe better if I was alive,” slurred Kay.
“I doubt it,” said Bolus fiercely. “And even if so, who cares? I’m the head man around here now, and what I say goes. You’re gonna get dismantled. Is that death for you? Or are you already dead? Huh. Only the Sovenes would dig up the dead and make them fight.”
§
The light was bright, worse thanks to the magnetic fields dampening her vision.
“You scared?” Bolus taunted, as they strapped her to a pole. “Mighty Sovene! You scared?”
“Yes,” said Kay truthfully, her voice disintegrating into static.
The crowd murmured as Bolus’s people brought plasma cutters to take her apart, one slice at a time.
She tried to replay good memories. But they turned into bloody fields, stone prison walls, and so much else.
“I’m… sorry,” she said to one of them.
He stepped back a pace, and looked at his companion.
“I can’t do this,” he said, shutting down the plasma cutter and dropping it. “Look at her, just sitting there…”
“Damn it!” said Bolus, picking up the plasma cutter. “It has to be done! We have to be strong! The Curvatene boys will come through here and kill everybody if we’re not strong enough!” He tried to hand the cutter back to the man. “Do it. Make it quick and painless. Remember, it’s just a machine. It doesn’t care if it’s alive or dead.”
“I care,” said Kay. The words were barely audible. Only the man and Bolus heard them.
Bolus sighed and raised the cutter himself. He switched it on, and it hummed menacingly to life.
But at that moment there was a thunderous blast and the roar of an engine, and Kay saw Jassalan’s head over the sea of faces. She was riding in the back of the truck, manning a huge mounted gun. Payl was driving, and Liss and Yago leaned out the windows, rifles in hand. “Get back!” Jassalan hollered as the crowd parted. “Go on! Bolus, get away from her!”
“Well,” said Bolus. “Always knew you’d turn back to the Sovenes in the end, Jassalan.”
“They abandoned her,” said Jassalan. “You can’t just kill her in cold blood! She’s done nothing to you.”
“She’s got no blood! And she’s no innocent, you know that. The Sovenes are all guilty!”
Jassalan shook her head. “Get away from her, or I blow you to bits.”
Bolus gave her a cocky grin. “Yeah?” He strode up to the vehicle, arms spread. “Go ahead.”
The village took a collective breath.
Jassalan shrugged and blew him to bits.
§
“I think that’s got it,” said Liss, tightening a bolt and running a scanner over the new connection. “How’s it feel?”
“Serviceable,” said Kay.
Jassalan stood in the kitchen door, nodding. “Good work.”
They’d scrounged the parts out of the village’s salvage yard during the aftermath. Liss, who was some sort of mechanical genius, had managed to cobble together enough old electronics to mend Kay’s broken long–distance communications equipment. It took weeks and she’d grumped the whole time, but by the time she was done she would wink at Kay when she thought no one else was looking.
When Kay tried to thank Jassalan for saving her, she only shrugged and said, “Payl likes you, she ran home to get us as soon as she found out what was going to happen. I couldn’t just let them kill you.”
Liss had pointed out wryly that she’d killed Bolus, and Jassalan sighed. “It’s never simple,” she said at last, her eyes heavy with something that might have been regret. The matter dropped.
“So, you’re set,” said Liss. “You can call off–planet. It’s all connected back up. You can call for rescue, get off this dirtball.”
“Though you don’t have to,” said Payl. “If you don’t want.”
Kay thought of the sequence that would open the channel. Payl’s smile was tight. Jassalan looked away.
Kay pondered that sequence. She could go home. She could see the Army again, have a mission again.
She glanced at Payl, then at Jassalan. The Army hadn’t come back for her.
But these people had.
“It’s… not working,” Kay lied. “I can’t get through. Maybe it’s not strong enough.”
“Well,” said Jassalan, not buying that for a second. “You’ll just have to stay here until we fix it better.”
There was a soft rustling sound on the roof, and Kay glanced outside. Big raindrops had begun to fall from the sky.
“Rain!” shouted Payl, running past. “Rain!”
Liss scrambled up and followed Payl outside.
Jassalan and Kay were left alone.
“I accessed the file,” said Kay softly.
Jassalan held up her hand. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “I don’t want to know.”
“But—”
“No,” said Jassalan, and her smile was genuine and warm. “You’re welcome here no matter who you were. All right? Now… go help with the collectors, Kay. It’s raining.”
Kay ran outside to help Payl and Liss deploy the collectors. Kay felt each drop rain on the skin of her face and the metal of her arms.
“You brought the rain! You brought the rain!” whooped Payl, face lit up with joy.
And, for a fleeting moment, Kay was utterly certain that she had.
Contractual Obligation
James L. Cambias
BLUE SIX AND THE REST of the grunts power up to battle–ready at T–minus fourteen hours. They don’t need much lead time before action; even if the squad’s fully shut down it takes them less than ten minutes to get operational. No, the extra time isn’t for the grunts, it’s for the officer.
Captain Yamada’s in the fridge. He’s been in there since the space freighter left the last neutral station at L5, a hundred days ago. It takes three hours just to raise his body temperature to normal, another couple of hours for muscle stimulation. Releasing some fluids and taking in others. Cleaning off the outer layer. It’s not until T–minus seven hours that Yamada steps through the pressure membrane into the embrace of his armor.
In battle dress, the officer looks almost like one of the grunts. They’re a mixed bunch anyway. Blue One’s a superheavy class, two metric tons of armor and power plant wrapped around a hypervelocity rail gun and a thousand–round magazine. Blue Two and Three are standard heavies, armed with autofire grenade launchers and weighing in at just over three hundred kilos each. Four and Five are low–profile scuttlers, only fifty kilos, with c
aseless submachine guns and extra limbs tipped with multitools. Blue Six is a point–defense specialist, with twin lasers and an elaborate sensor suite—which also makes it the electronic–warfare unit and primary communications node by default. All the grunts share a single distributed intelligence, but at any given time most of it’s running on processors inside Blue Six.
When he’s functional and suited up, Yamada runs through the list of mission parameters one last time. He toggles the rules of engagement settings from “WEAPONS FREE” to “HUMAN SAFE.”
That gets the squad’s attention. “That isn’t in the contract, Captain.”
“Which means I’m free to decide. I want to make this as bloodless as possible.”
“Yes, Captain.” The squad can do non–lethal. It means they can still shoot other robots, and that’s the important thing. If you have to rely on human troops, you’ve lost the battle.
Six hours out, the freighter’s eyes can see the target: Anfa Habitat. From the freighter’s angle it looks like a dark flower against the Sun’s disk. Anfa Habitat is a giant sphere a kilometer across, with six big solar panels stretching out from the equator. The docking hub’s down at the “dark pole” of the sphere, with four docking tubes sticking out at right angles. Beyond the docking hub, a long boom stretches a hundred meters or so into the sphere’s shadow, with big radiator fins running down each side and the backup power reactor at the far end. Anfa orbits the Sun sixty degrees ahead of Venus, so the radiators are glowing bright infrared as they dump the habitat’s excess heat.
Anfa control takes over the freighter soon after—or at least Yamada allows them to think they have. The controllers inside Anfa do a good job. There’s a hard braking burn to shift the freighter from its transfer orbit to match vectors with the habitat, and then some short burns and rotations to line up with the docking tube. There’s no voice chatter from the controllers; according to the manifest, this is a load of humanitarian supplies.
War Stories Page 6