Sector Eight (Perimeter Defense: Book #1)

by Michael Atamanov

  "Bionica, do you not need to rest?" I asked in surprise.

  "My program has human behavior imitation built-in. Each day, the model may go into inactive mode for a few hours. But, by and large, that is not at all necessary given enough energy. Current charge level is eleven percent, enough for twenty hours of uninterrupted work."

  "In other words, you wouldn't mind having some time to freshen up?" I insinuated, immediately filling with enthusiasm. "Bionica, are you trained in table etiquette?"

  "Yes, master. I am aware of all subtleties of table manners in all kinds of social circles. I am programmed to behave properly and do not allow myself even the slightest infractions."

  "Great! Then you're coming to dine with me!"

  The reason for my amiability wasn't just that I cared about the good-looking robot (that was part of it though). It was just that, in one day, Queen of Sin would be arriving on the Throne World, and beyond a conversation with the Emperor, I had talking with nobles in store as well. I had already received an official invitation to dine with the head of the Orange House, Duke Paolo royl Anjer. I had also been invited by my sister, Crown Princess Violetta royl Inoky ton Mesfelle-Damir, to her palace in the Throne World. It should be said that I was even more afraid of these meetings than making a report before the Emperor. The Emperor I could just tell a sob story about the fleet I was entrusted with, but not getting confused at a table in the highest society in the Empire would be much more complicated.

  The old man, Bryle, quickly organized the chefs and, as I requested, set the table with the great variety of dishes that I could expect to see on the nobles’ tables. I sat at the head of the table, and pointed at the chair next to me for Bionica to sit.

  "So, let's begin. Consider this a test. You have to demonstrate how to use the tableware and the correct way of consuming all these delicacies. It is important to me that you try as many different dishes as possible, if even just a little."

  The girl smiled her pleasant smile and set about filling her battery, as I tried to study and memorize her actions.

  "Can androids drink wine?" I asked Bionica, and she broke into a joyful laughter.

  "Of course we can. My Prince, I'm not trying to shame you but, all the same, read the instructions at your leisure, and many of your questions will be answered. The brain of an android is fully computerized and is in no way connected with the stomach. Let me answer your next question right away, which all my masters have asked right after asking if I can drink alcohol. No, I cannot get drunk. An android's body sees no use in ethanol, except as a high-energy fuel."

  "I wasn't really thinking of getting you drunk," I said bending the truth, in that I had already given some thought to the possibility. "Red? White? Green?"

  "I prefer dry whites," she said, taking a high-walled glass from my hand and looking at me through the transparent drink with a smile.

  I still couldn't believe that the person before me was a robot and not a worldly lioness. Based on her behavior, voice, appearance and gestures, Bionica was impossible to tell from a living person.

  "Then tell me: what questions do your masters normally ask? So I don't repeat them. Well, and answer them all too."

  "Does it matter that some of them will deal with topics that are not to be discussed at the dinner table in polite society?" the blonde giggled coquettishly.

  I gave my approval, and Bionica gave her fingers a flex:

  "The most popular question is 'can an android get pregnant?' The answer is no. Reproductive functions have not been provided for in the body of an android.

  The second most popular question is 'how is an android different from a cyborg?' Cyborgs are living creatures with computer parts implanted or part of their organs changed out for robotic prostheses. Despite these change-outs, cyborgs remain living beings. This contrasts with androids, who are in essence robots from the get-go and are in some way or another similar to humans. It should be said that scientific progress is making these differences less and less significant all the time. The share of mechanical components in cybernetic organisms is increasing gradually, while at the same time androids are being implanted with various systems from living organisms, for example the digestive and excretory systems. It is not impossible that the line between cyborgs and androids will become blurrier or fade away altogether.

  The third most popular question is 'how important is cleanliness to androids? Do we wash ourselves,’ excuse my directness, ‘do we wash our private parts after going to the bathroom or having sexual intercourse?’ I cannot speak for all android models, as I do not know, but model № 034-6781 androids, like myself, maintain sterile cleanliness. And something that especially worried my masters, who would always ask squeamishly: there are no biological traces of my previous masters inside me, of course not."

  "Alright, that's enough of that. Let's change the topic." I really was a bit taken aback by how direct my android servant had been, and by how inappropriate the topic had been for the dinner table. "Now I am interested in the limitations of your programming. That an android is not able to kill or harm a human I already figured out. But imagine this situation: we're in battle, I order the fleet to attack. You, as my translator, must translate my order to the Iseyek ships under my command. Would you give them the order, given you know that by doing so you'll kill a certain number of fully intelligent enemies, maybe even people?"

  "Of course. Due to programmed-in limitations, androids are not able to hurt or kill an intelligent creature. But we are not supposed to stop one intelligent creature from killing other intelligent creatures. It's not like you can really stop that from happening anyway."

  It should be noted that the android girl was making a very positive impression on me. She was quickly figuring out how to be a secretary and sending me everything I really needed to see. She absorbed new information easily, and quickly found her bearings in any situation. She also helped me a lot as a teaching aid, demonstrating proper table manners. There was a whole sea of subtlety there, but Bionica was able to tell me the purpose of every little fork and file in the tableware and demonstrate their proper use in action. From time to time, I even forgot that before me was not a living person, but a robot. After the end of dinner, I gave Bionica permission to be in any residential room on the second floor assigned to Prince Georg and also marked one of the sleeping cabins on the yacht map as her own.

  Queen of Sin followed the chain of warp beacons through Sector Eight without any delays, and entered the central regions of the Empire also known as the Core. By the end of the next day, Captain Oorast Pohl warned me:

  "My Prince, we've entered the last warp tunnel. In seven hours we'll arrive at the Throne World."

  The Throne World

  The arrival of my yacht to the Imperial capital was accompanied by a large number of call notifications. The signal lights flashed all at once, indicating missed calls, and the color-code of most messages was either orange or red.

  "My Prince, there's an urgent call from the head of the Orange House, Duke Paolo royl Anjer ton Mesfelle. It's a code red!"

  "An urgent call from the Imperial Secretariat, code red!"

  "Three missed calls from Crown Princess Violetta royl Inoky ton Mesfelle-Damir, code has changed from orange to red!"

  The communications officer was somewhat shocked by the overload of information crashing down on him.

  "Let's talk to the Duke first," I decided and, just a second later, the old man was yelling through the speakers to the whole hall:

  "Where have you been hiding, Georg?! The meeting with the Emperor is in an hour and fifteen minutes, and no one knows where you are! Come to the Silver Palace at once! I'll try to delay the start a bit so you can make it..."

  "Captain, what's the matter?" I bellowed harshly to Oorast Pohl, though he had also been thrown for a loop.

  "Your Highness, I swear on my honor: we got here at maximum possible speed, and we came out of warp at the smallest possible distance from the recharging station,
so close that it was dangerous even. There must have been a mistake... I'll review all the data now and figure it out."

  "Alright, our mission is to reach the Silver Palace from orbit in an hour and fifteen minutes," I announced to my frozen crew. “I welcome your suggestions, dear officers."

  The hall grew silent, no one made a sound. After that, Space Corporal Patrick toyl Sven stepped forward and suggested:

  "My Prince, typically, a safe descent takes three hours. But in combat landing conditions, the standard target time for reaching the surface of a planet is twenty minutes. So, what we could do is take the shuttle and enter the atmosphere hard and fast, as close to the edge of shield failure as possible. I can drive. I've already had to do this once in the battle of Algol, so we'll have no problem muscling our way in. Just one piece of advice: don't put on your ceremonial attire now. During entry into the lower layers of the atmosphere, it vibrates so hard that even interceptor pilots in training get shaken up."

  Other than the pilot and me, only the chameleons and four guards were able to cram themselves into the shuttle. Old Bryle gave me my ceremonial uniform, packed in cellophane, and wished me luck. The shuttle accelerated directly toward the wall, and only at the last second did the doors open before us, letting us out into a rounded corridor. The airlock opened with a hiss, and the shuttle took a sharp dive into the blackness of space, falling out on its side. I tried my hardest to suppress the nausea. Yep, I'd already forgotten that flying on a shuttle can be a nasty experience. In the Tesse star system, I had used the yacht's shuttle a few times, but we were flying carefully, and I even liked the feeling of flying through space. Now, those impressions seemed long gone...

  "Who of you knows where the Silver Palace is?" came the pilot's voice from the cabin.

  The soldiers, buckled into their seats, exchanged nervous glances.

  "What? No one? Well, alright then, I guess we'll figure it out after we land. I hope we're at least in the right hemisphere.

  I felt a sharp jolt, then I got pushed back into my seat. The shuttle fell downward while gaining speed at the same time. At first, there was nothing especially scary about it, but then I noticed that the tips of our flying machine's wings were on fire.

  "Is that supposed to happen?" I asked the pilot, receiving an answer in the negative.

  At some point, it started to vibrate. First it was barely noticeable, but then it sharply increased in intensity until it felt like our shuttle had fallen into a cement mixer. The flames on the wing tips started burning with more and more intensity. Also, a strange, frightening glow began wrapping around our ship. Bolts of electricity ripped themselves from the chassis, and the air was crackling. But the graphical tricks weren't having a very strong effect on me anymore. I was feeling really sick. What reassured me was the fact that I wasn't the only one feeling bad. Even the chameleons were nauseated. The pilot asked me something, but it took a while to register:

  "My Prince, explain to the anti-space defense services of the Throne World why we are taking such a dangerous trajectory, otherwise they're going to shoot us down now."

  "Put them through to me," I groaned, gathering my strength. I then confidently and even haughtily explained who I was and why I was in a hurry to the Silver Palace.

  "You've been heard, Crown Prince Georg. Order your pilot to lower speed and take the recommended course and bearings. Escort ships will approach you now and accompany you to the Silver Palace."

  The shuttle's flight evened out, and the flashing stopped. Everyone around breathed a sigh of apparent relief. I also started gradually coming back to reality and got right up to change into my ceremonial uniform. Our shuttle, accompanied by eight streamlined atmospheric/near-space class fighters, soon came to a big island covered in green, surrounded by the ocean, and made a landing on the pad in front of the silver-hued palace. I was already preparing to disembark when I was stopped by a pilot:

  "My Prince, incoming call from Captain Oorast Pohl!"

  "Your Highness," said the Captain, his voice wavering in agitation. "As I thought, there was a scheduling error. Queen of Sin has set a new record for travel between Tesse and the Throne World: fifty-two hours and seventeen minutes! We beat the previous record by almost two hours. Here's the official record from the Ministry of Interstellar Transportation!"

  "Excellent, captain. Well, time to make someone squirm then!" with a combative attitude, I left the shuttle onto the landing pad in front of the palace.

  There were people waiting for me there already. A young man in an Orange House uniform rushed in my direction, gesticulating wildly. I took a look at his information.

  Marat ton Mesfelle, Sector Seven Fleet Commander

  Age: 33

  Race: Human

  Gender: Male

  Relation to you: Your second cousin

  Class: Aristocrat/Military

  Achievements: None

  Fame: +2

  Standing: + 4

  Presumed opinion of you: +4 (indifferent)

  "Where have you been, Georg?! Everyone's already in there. They're only waiting for you. The Green House is already in quite a decisive mood. There's no sense in giving them another excuse for chicanery."

  "Who's there from our side?" I wondered on my way. We really had already given up all pretense to aristocratic dignity and were running at full-steam to the hall, given that arriving late to a meeting with the Emperor was considered extremely bad form and could have serious consequences.

  "The Duke, your sister, and myself," answered Marat. "Roben was also called, but he refused to come. As for me, I just happened to be in the Throne World. The Duke found me here and called on me for support."

  We walked down the corridor between two lines of soldiers, who were frozen at attention in shining ceremonial suits of armor, into the reception hall back at a normal pace, regaining our breath. Marat stopped, and before me opened the enormous fifteen-foot-high gilded doors. I went through into the luxurious hall, which was all decked-out in pink.

  "You barely made it, Prince Georg. One more minute and I would have had to consider you late," declared the tall, gray man harshly. He was standing near a wall next to a set of strange bronze plate armor, clearly made for a creature with a greater number of arms than a human. I bowed deeply to the old man, reading his information at the same time. No, of course, I knew who it was before me, but I just wanted to see the characteristics of a real top player:

  August Royl Toll ton Akad, Emperor

  Age: 338 years

  Race: Human

  Gender: Male

  Relation to you: Your great uncle

  Class: Aristocrat

  Achievements: (see Attachment)

  Fame: +99

  Standing: +234

  Presumed opinion of you: Unknown

  His age, fame and standing were of course impressive, but nothing more. I was expecting something more... I don't even know what... Some unique characteristics or something. Well, or just some more grandiose phrases in his character description. And also the old man's appearance wasn't anything to write home about. He looked like a dried morel with long, gray hair in which you could just barely make out a thin gold band. The Emperor was dressed in a gold-embroidered black velvet suit, which spoke to the meeting’s official nature.

  "I would really like to come face to face with the person who scheduled this meeting for me," I pronounced loudly.

  "I set the time," piped up a chubby man named Rahim ton Lavaelle, whose popup confirmed that he was the Emperor's senior secretary. "What would you like to know, Prince Georg?"

  I immediately figured that his last name, Lavaelle, meant that he was related to the Green House. Everything became clear at once. Oh, well then. I wasn't going to lower myself to the point of telling that tub of lard that his actions had almost forced me into a bad light before the Emperor himself. With people like that, the best defense is a good offense.

  "Answer me honestly, Mr. Senior Secretary: was it due to incompetence o
r malice that you demanded that I arrive on the Throne World from Tesse a whole hour faster than the officially confirmed starship speed record? Only the fact that my yacht, Queen of Sin, really is an excellent ship that my captain piloted at maximum speed, coupled with the fact that we descended from orbit according to space marine combat standards instead of civilian ones, posing a serious risk to our lives, allowed me to arrive to this event on time. By the way, in my rush here to have this meeting with the Emperor, I set a new speed record, beating the previous one by two whole hours. The record has been confirmed by the Ministry of Interstellar Transportation," I added, bringing up the red certificate with signatures and stamps from officials on the screen.

  "Is that so...? Well, that changes things entirely," said the Emperor, approaching the screen and carefully studying the pretty certificate. "Rahim, I would also like to have an answer to the question posed by the Prince. Why did you find it necessary to subject my grandnephew to such an unjustifiable risk to his life? It would have been entirely possible for us to meet and discuss all these issues a bit later without him having had to race."

  The secretary grew noticeably embarrassed and was definitely upset that his crafty plan to set me up had been foiled. But I was sure that such an experienced court figure would probably have some escape plans ready. And that was exactly what happened. Rahim ton Lavaelle jabbed his fat fingers into the screen of the handheld computer, then asserted with a tone that did none-too-good a job of imitating regret:

  "My Emperor, it would appear that my subordinates have made a vexing blunder. In preparing the urgent order for Prince Georg late at night, they were in such a rush that they did not notice that the next day had already begun. Look at the time the order was sent, it was just a few seconds after midnight. So actually, Prince Georg royl Inoky should have been given a whole day more time. But it's good that he was able to get here in the more compressed timeframe."