Now she sat on a shuttle as passengers walked past her and took their seats. Thankfully there was plenty of room, and no one sat beside her. She looked away from the other passengers, tried to ignore the hazy VR display that had been in front of her face for hours, and the overlapping, unintelligible conversations she continued to hear. No one around her seemed to notice any of this, so that was something positive, anyway. It would help her get away without having to field questions from security officers about what was going on inside her head. The lances of pain had subsided somewhat, but she couldn’t relax about them because they had a nasty habit of striking suddenly, without warning.
The shuttle exited Skyship and descended toward the blue-green planet far below. When they were underway, the pain resumed and Sonya felt like her brain was being stabbed repeatedly. She didn’t know how long she could hold out until a doctor removed that mindwave implant. She couldn’t call ahead. The minute she landed, she would go in search of her brother, and ask him to arrange for a military doctor to help her.
She hoped that removal of the implant would solve the chaos in her mind and eliminate the pain, because if it didn’t, she saw no option except to kill herself.
CHAPTER 26
Actions are like words.
Once they are released by the source,
it is often difficult to take them back.
—Anonymous
It was mid-afternoon, and Devv Jeeling was getting ready to leave his office. He strapped his weapon belt on, went to the coat rack for a uniform jacket.
That morning he’d gotten up and tried to go about his day, following his normal routine—until the explosion in Sector H-7, resulting in emergency actions taken by his security officers. How had Rand Baker gotten through the tight security measures? Somehow the intruder had gained access to a restricted area, disabled security cameras, and detonated explosives that were just enough to wreak havoc, but not enough to seriously disable Skyship. It was as if someone wanted to harass Billy Jeeling and show that security measures could be easily breached, but not wanting to destroy Skyship.
It was a message from Billy’s enemies, but the messenger was dead, killed by the heroics of Yürgen Zayeddi—a PR student who shouldn’t have been able to get into that restricted area, either—but who had apparently followed the trail past disabled electronics that Baker had left in his wake. Zayeddi had only received minor injuries, and had not needed to go to the hospital.
Yürgen Zayeddi. The one who caused all the trouble with Sonya. No matter his bravery and heroics, Devv hated him.
He had not eaten anything all day, having been too upset to keep anything down. So many problems.
He wished he’d never joined his father on Skyship, to work with him. He no longer wanted to inherit the massive scientific vessel and its overwhelming responsibilities. All the bright dreams he’d had at one time had evaporated, like wisps of smoke vanishing in the air.
He’d been thinking about his change of heart for some time now, since the public onslaught against his father intensified and became so cruel, so utterly unfair. At one time, Devv had looked forward to learning everything about Skyship and gaining stewardship over it, but now it was beginning to look like a huge ball and chain, a form of imprisonment that would last until the end of his days. His father certainly was not happy with the way things were going; and Devv saw no reason why it would be any better for him. Yet he didn’t know how to break the bad news to him, didn’t want to let him down.
And now he had another big problem that would disappoint Billy—he’d hit Sonya yesterday morning, and hurt her. As the Security Commander he should never have done anything like that; he should have had the good sense not to go to her apartment in the first place, and get involved in a confrontation. There had been no upside potential in barging in there, no chance of getting her back that way. There could only have been a bad result, and he’d stumbled into almost the worst possible outcome. He’d injured her and lost her. The look of loathing and hatred in her eyes was unforgiving, making him feel like vermin. She would never see him now. Before that he’d pushed her once, several months ago, and she’d warned him that if he ever laid a hand on her again, they would be finished. He still loved Sonya; and knew he always would, no matter how she felt about him.
He shuddered, felt tears of regret coming on; this was the deepest sadness of his life.
Devv stared at his desk, where he’d left a laser-bow. An hour ago he’d grasped the weapon, cocked it, and pointed it at the side of his own head—knowing that even if it struck him there, it would be a slow, painful death, because of the way he’d set the laser device, to incapacitate him and render a tortuous end. It was what he deserved, but he didn’t have the courage to do it. He was a coward, couldn’t fire the weapon and had hurt the woman he loved deeply.
Now Devv’s father had summoned him to the high walkway where they sometimes met late at night, a quiet place where they could gaze far into the galaxy of stars and talk. Except this time it was afternoon, and they would not be able to see the glittering sky.
But when Devv stepped off the highlift on the walkway level, he found Billy awaiting him in the mirror-walled lobby, sitting in his maglev chair. Natural sunlight illuminated the lobby, passing through a dome above. Billy had three thick leather-bound volumes on his lap. They were closed, with his hands holding them in place.
“We can talk here,” he said.
Sitting on a chair beside him, Devv said, “You heard what happened to Sonya, what I did to her.” It was not a question. His father must already know.
The old man nodded, somberly. “A sad thing, when close personal relations come to an abrupt end. I’ve had my share of grief as well, when I lost Reanne.”
“But she died in a freak accident, in the earthquake that destroyed an entire building and part of a town. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it, Father. It’s different with me. I slugged Sonya, could have seriously injured her, or worse, if she’d fallen and struck her head. I hit her pretty hard the second time, and she made me leave. I tried to call her afterward, but she wouldn’t answer my wave transmissions. I have to resign now, Father, and face criminal charges for what I did.”
Billy scowled. “That was unacceptable. You shouldn't hit anyone, except in defense—but I know you know that, and you'll not repeat the mistake. I'm glad she wasn't seriously injured, from what I heard. I'll send Dr. Ginsberg to check on her, to be certain. However, as bad as it is, you're not quitting, and you're not going to face charges. Skyship needs you too much. I need you too much.”
Devv nodded. He’d never felt so sad, and so much at fault.
“Your problem with her is important, Son, but it’s not what I want to discuss with you.” The crippled man paused, looked down at the volumes on his lap. “I’ll start by talking about Reanne. When she died I was so broken up that I created a simulacrum of her—a likeness.”
Devv stared at him, not comprehending.
“I made a robotic likeness of her, in the form of Lainey Forster. The woman you know as Lainey looks and acts very much like Reanne, and she’s around the same age now as Reanne was when she died. Lainey is a dancer as my wife was, too, and is intensely devoted to me, as Reanne was. She truly loves me.”
“Lainey’s a robot? Are you kidding me? A robot? How can that be?”
“She is of a prototype series, but I was meticulous in my design and workmanship. Only one person tends to her whenever she sustains injuries—Dr. Ginsberg—who knows the secret of Lainey. When injured, Lainey bruises or bleeds in a very realistic way, but it’s all artificial.” He nodded somberly. “She’s bio-robotic, very advanced.”
Devv considered this startling revelation for a moment. “You’re not going to tell me next that Sonya is a robot, too? I mean, she’s the most incredibly beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Sometimes I’ve wondered how anyone could be so perfect.”
Billy Jeeling stared sadly at Devv for a long time. “No, she’s not
a robot, but—” His voice trailed off.
Leaning close, Devv asked, “What is it, Father? You summoned me here to tell me about Lainey?”
“It’s all in these journals,” Billy said, tapping the pile of leather-bound books on his lap. “Read them and you’ll discover I’m a terrible fraud, and didn’t design Skyship at all. I was merely the assistant to a great inventor named Branson Tobek, a visionary genius who died in the core of the ship. His body is still there, and I have his laboratory journals here. I’ve bookmarked the pages that refer to the construction of Lainey as a robot—I was also the robotics specialist for the ship. That included the design and construction of Lainey... and of you, Devv, as another robot in the same series. Both of you are Lazarus models, quite realistic androids, extremely advanced.”
“Me?” Devv arched his eyebrows in disbelief. “I’m not a robot, or I’d know it for damn sure!”
“Lainey doesn’t know it. There are no obvious symptoms to look for, but trust me, Son, you’re not real flesh and blood. You’re as close to it as can be constructed synthetically, but I built you from raw materials that I collected, including a small amount of my own cellular material for a human imprint, after purging conscious genetic memories from it, and programming in new ones. Make no mistake about it, your name is in these pages, alongside Lainey’s. I’m not only a fraud when it comes to Skyship; I’m a fraud when it comes to being Lainey’s lover, and your father. To be honest Devv, I’m only your father if we stretch the meaning of the word. I’m terribly sorry.”
Crestfallen, Devv couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He felt like a super computer had been hooked to his brain, and a powerful flow of extremely bad information had been downloaded into him. Robots? Lainey... and Devv himself? And Billy didn’t design Skyship? It was all too much to absorb.
He rose to his feet, walked back and forth unsteadily. “But I feel emotions, I care about things, Father. I care about Sonya, and about you.”
“That only means I did my job extremely well.”
He stopped, staring at the older man. “Then why did I get so jealous of Sonya? Robots don’t do that.”
“Again, I did my job well. You have very realistic emotions. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
He nodded, felt the immensity of the awful truth as it sank in. Devv’s world crashed all around him, and he had to sit down again because his legs would no longer hold him. His emotions ran wild. Artificial emotions? He wanted to scream out in rage. It was a betrayal, a terrible betrayal! Glaring at Billy, he asked, “Have you told Lainey?”
“Not yet. I want you to do it for me. Read the evidence in these pages, and then share the information with her.”
Devv hesitated. “I think you should tell her, just as you’ve told me.”
Billy shook his head, said in a firm tone, “I’d like you to take care of this for me.”
“That sounds cold to me,” Devv said. “Why don’t you want to—”
“Just do this for me, all right? As the Master of Skyship, I have a lot on my mind, a lot of problems to solve. Problems that go way beyond... I hate to put it this way, because I do care about you and Lainey in my own way... problems that go way beyond robots.”
“So you don’t love her, never did? And you don’t really love me?”
“I love you both as much as I possibly can, and perhaps more than flesh and blood people, because of all of the research, design, testing, and construction work I put into you.”
“But you referred to us as mere robots. Or, that’s what you essentially said.” Devv was trembling.
“I didn’t mean to put it that way, so it must have been a poor choice of words on my part. I’m sorry Devv, but I really need your help on this. I need to distance myself from Lainey. I’ve told you before that she tends to cling to me, and that’s a personality trait that Reanne never had, a behavior I never understood in Lainey.”
Trying to calm himself, Devv took a deep, shuddering breath, while Billy continued to talk.
“But I didn’t want to shut Lainey down and attempt to fix the problem, because I do care a great deal for her—as a robot of my own creation and as a close likeness of my lost love Reanne—and if I were to shut her down, I’d be afraid of causing new problems, of losing what I have left of Reanne—the original cellular material I implanted in her. If I tell Lainey myself that she’s a robot, I fear her strong reaction and tears, and that I might decide on the spot to shut her down after all. Devv, you have a tranquil, centered way about you that I don’t have, and you and Lainey have always gotten along well because you’re actually sister and brother, in a way—or maybe it’s better to say, you’re like a mother and son in your relationship, despite the similarity of your apparent ages. I need you to do this for me, and break the news to her.”
“You’re asking me for a favor, after the terrible thing you did to me?”
“You seem to be forgetting that I gave you life.”
“Pardon me for not being appreciative. I feel like my life has been taken away from me. You’re a bastard, do you know that? A real bastard!”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ve tried to be good to you, and make you comfortable.”
“Why don’t you push some hidden buttons on my body, or send electronic signals, to make me do what you want?”
Billy looked away, with tears welling in his eyes. “I’m really sorry, Devv. Please believe me. I thought I was doing the right thing, really I did.”
Devv stared at him long and hard, saw sadness and no sign of deception. “All right, I’ll do it,” he said, finally. “I’ll take care of it as well as I can.”
“I appreciate that, more than you can know.” Billy looked down, opened the volume on top and turned to a page around the middle of the book. At the urging of the elderly man, Devv went around to the side of the chair to look over his shoulder, and stared down at smooth, compact handwriting on the page.
“This is Volume 2,” Billy said. He pointed, touched the page. “It is here that Tobek began to write about something very disturbing, something he brought onto Skyship accidentally and then prevented from escaping—very alien creatures who are extremely dangerous, and they may still be on board. Where, I don’t know. Or they might have escaped.”
“I haven’t noticed anything,” Devv said.
“They’re very small, glittering creatures of silvery light. Space devils, Tobek called them, ferocious looking individuals when seen under magnification, and extremely elusive. I am thoroughly convinced they are the source of a dire warning he gave me. You have heard it from my lips when I announced it to the people of AmEarth, as if I came up with it myself. If Skyship were ever destroyed, the atmosphere would be so severely damaged that it would mean the end of virtually all life on the planet and in the air. In reality, that warning originally came from Tobek, not from me. I passed it on after he died in the secrecy and anonymity he demanded, but I never understood what he was talking about—until recently, when I read his private journals. Tobek said the monsters needed to be destroyed. He was going to do it, but I think they got him first.”
“I assume you haven’t found them?”
“No, though I’ve looked, and sent security robots out. I hope the intruders are gone, but I strongly suspect otherwise.” Billy shivered, looked around. Terror consumed his face.
“What is it... Father?” Devv still felt loving emotions toward him, even if the robot story was true, and even if Billy had not actually been the inventor of Skyship. He was still a great man, and a loving man. He had gone to a lot of trouble to create his lost love, in the form of Lainey Forster, and Devv, too—the son Billy never had with Reanne. The two robots were like mother and son, as Billy had said.
Speaking quickly, nervously, barely above a whisper, Billy told how he obtained the three volumes, how a robot had passed them to him through the bio-lock, and how there had been a spectrum of colors inside the bio-lock, and a glimmer of silver afterward—outside the sterilizing unit.
>
“I think the space devils got out through the bio-lock, and now they’re watching me,” Billy said. “Watching us at this very moment.”
Devv looked around, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Billy handed the heavy books to him one by one, and said, “Take these and read them, as I did. There is a great deal to learn here, and perhaps you will notice something I missed. I don’t know how much time we have to solve this, but I sense—”
“What, Father?”
Billy waved a hand. “Go! Go now!”
After a moment’s hesitation, Devv did as he was told, but didn’t like leaving the older man alone. Billy Jeeling seemed terribly frightened, not an emotion he’d ever shown before.
CHAPTER 27
Each time you look at something, it casts a new and different light—like the series of great cathedral paintings by Claude Monet, done at different times of the day, with varying shadows and effects of light. There is always something to see in this world, always something to learn, if only you can find a way to see it.
—A Teaching of the Third Tibetan Academy, pre-Empire
Lainey Forster still had not gotten over the sabotage committed by one of her public-relations students—a young man who’d been carefully screened and scrutinized by the best robotic lie detectors, and who by all appearances had been a blue-blooded supporter of Billy Jeeling. How had Rand Baker gotten past inspection, and how had he breached security to break into a restricted area, where he caused damage? No one seemed to know the answers yet, though an all-out investigation was continuing. His name and background were proving to be false, but who was he, really? Baker died with his secrets, but at least his damage had been minimal.
Or was that really the case? Yürgen Zayeddi had added to the mystery, saying the dying man claimed to have inflicted more damage on Skyship than anyone would realize—until it was too late. Security personnel and technicians were poring over every square inch of the great vessel, tying to find anything that was out of order. So far, nothing more had turned up than the localized damage caused by the explosion in the vent—but they were still looking. It was all very disturbing.
The Assassination of Billy Jeeling Page 19