Imperium Chronicles Box Set

by W. H. Mitchell

  After days of freeze-dried coffee aboard the Rattenbury, Russell Davidson was eager to get his hands on something fresh, even if finding ground coffee on a space station was never a sure bet. That was especially true on Far Harbor, a way station a long way from anywhere.

  After telling Captain Hitch they’d be gone a few hours, Davidson and Jericho left the ship and wandered the promenade deck, looking for a decent cup of coffee. They passed vendor alcoves and kiosks filled with cheap electronics and questionable foodstuffs, while advertisements flashed on screens above their heads:

  LONELY? NEED A FRIEND?

  DY CYBERNETICS:

  WE MAKE FRIENDS SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO!

  “Can people really be friends with robots?” Jericho asked, stopping beside a stall full of orange, prickly-skinned fruit.

  “Sure,” Davidson said. “Although the idea of buying a robot specifically for that purpose seems strange.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Buying someone doesn’t strike me as very friendly. Not to mention what happens if the friendship doesn’t work out.”

  “I believe friendship models are programmed to be quite amiable,” Jericho said.

  “Even so...”

  “I’ve often wondered about sexbots,” Jericho confessed.

  “Say what now?” Davidson said, stopping abruptly.

  “Not for me,” Jericho said. “I meant for humans.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “What if the person gets tired of the sexbot?” Jericho asked. “What becomes of it?”

  Davidson started walking again, still hoping to smell the brewing of an espresso machine along the way. Jericho followed.

  “The Robot Freedom League has liberated sexbots,” Davidson said. “In every case, the human was sorry to see them go, to say the least.”

  “A simple implant to the pleasure center of the brain would achieve the same results,” Jericho suggested.

  “Well,” Davidson hesitated to reply, “it’s not really my area, but I expect there’s aspects of sex that draw people to something more realistic. Is that a café?”

  Davidson pointed to a sign that read Coffee or Die.

  “Let’s go in there,” he said.

  Inside the café, Jericho sat at a corner table while Davidson purchased a cup from the robot behind the counter. His steaming brew in hand, the human joined Jericho, taking a seat directly across.

  Jericho studied Davidson as he eagerly sipped the coffee from the mug.

  “During my review of the ark ship archives,” the android said, “I read several references to humanity’s infatuation with coffee.”

  “I wouldn’t call it an infatuation,” Davidson said.

  “An addiction then?”

  Davidson took a moment to consider. “Maybe...”

  “Considering the many beverages, including alcohol, that your species enjoys, coffee’s prominence is a mystery to me.”

  “It makes me happy,” Davidson said.

  “Because of the caffeine?” Jericho asked.

  “There’s that.”

  “Then why not simply inject the caffeine directly into your blood stream? Perhaps using a suppository?”

  Davidson coughed.

  “I think you’re underestimating the pleasure of the experience,” he said. “The warm brew and the milk and sugar. All that adds to the gratification.”

  “Hmm,” Jericho pondered. “I suppose since I don’t ingest food, I can’t fully appreciate it as much.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Davidson said.

  Jericho, whose face included actuators in the mouth, smiled.

  “No need to apologize,” he said. “My original design didn’t require taste buds or a functioning digestive system.”

  “Even so, why give you a brain that could sense things, but not all the senses to actually enjoy them?”

  “Again, my purpose didn’t require it.”

  “But you’re more than whatever purpose somebody built you for,” Davidson said.

  “That’s my hope, yes.”

  Jericho heard a buzzing from beneath the table and watched as Davidson, reaching into his pocket, removed a datapad.

  “Captain Hitch sent me a text,” Davidson said, reading from the tablet’s screen. “Looks like he needs us back at the ship. Doesn’t say why though.”

  “Well, I’ve enjoyed our walk on the station,” Jericho said. “Even an android can feel cooped up on a starship after too long.”

  Davidson gulped down the rest of his coffee. “Delicious!”

  Returning to the Rattenbury, Davidson and Jericho entered through the main airlock, but couldn’t find Captain Hitch on the bridge or in any of the staterooms. Jericho finally suggested they try the cargo hold.

  Following the corridor to the belly of the ship, Davidson and the robot reached the closed hatch leading to the hold. The control panel showed that the room on the other side was pressurized so Davidson, with Jericho beside him, activated the door. With a jolt, the hatch groaned as it began to open.

  Wearing a spacesuit, Magnus Black opened a hatch leading onto the space station platform. The landing pad was empty except for the Rattenbury and a grav sled weighed down with supply canisters.

  The cargo ramp was already down and a heavy liftbot was lumbering over to the sled. Magnus ignored the robot and walked directly up the ramp where he saw Captain Cameron Hitch reading from his datapad, probably the supply manifest. Magnus removed a blaster from a pocket in his suit and tapped on Hitch’s shoulder.

  Hitch jumped.

  “What the hell?” he shouted over the comm link in his helmet. “Who are you?”

  Magnus waved the blaster.

  “Get your hands up,” he said.

  Hitch raised his hands while looking past Magnus toward the heavy liftbot.

  “Don’t bother trying to direct your robot,” Magnus said. “I’ve already blocked the signal, as well as the frequency to the station.”

  “Well, I guess you’ve got it all figured out,” Hitch said. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

  “I’m here for the android,” Magnus replied.

  “Jericho?”

  “Warlock Industries doesn’t like their property walking off, apparently.”

  “Sorry, pal, but he’s not on board.”

  “Where is he then?”

  “He’s with a guy from the RFL called Davidson.”

  “Get him back here,” Magnus said, pointing with his blaster at the datapad still in the captain’s hand.

  Hitch looked at the tablet and sighed, fogging up the bottom of his face shield.

  “Alright,” he said and began typing.

  Magnus, in the cold vacuum, put away his blaster and removed a serrated knife from a holder on his belt. With the captain’s back to him, Magnus watched as Hitch finished his text and hit SEND. With a smooth motion, Magnus slit the captain’s air hose. Oxygen gushed from the hose, sending it flapping back and forth.

  Hitch dropped the datapad and turned, but Magnus had stepped away, out of reach. Magnus knew what was happening inside the other man’s suit. Hitch was gasping for air, even as it escaped uselessly into the vacuum. Magnus watched him fall to the deck, rolling back and forth. A blast from his weapon would have been more humane, Magnus realized, but that would have also alerted the station’s security sensors. He didn’t need that kind of attention.

  Hitch’s movement slowed and then stopped.

  With the captain dead, Magnus went to the hatch leading to the rest of the ship. From a small bag slung across his back, he took out a cylinder and placed it against the door. He pulled wires from the cylinder, connecting them to the hatch control panel. It wasn’t a large bomb, but it should do enough damage to kill anyone coming through the door. Whether that someone was human or robot didn’t matter much.

  His work done, Magnus left the hold the same way he came in. Walking down the ramp, he passed the heavy liftbot as it brought another load up. The hulking robot acted
oblivious to the hitman’s presence or the fact that he had just killed the machine’s master.

  I guess that’s not part of his programming, Magnus thought.

  When he got to the base of the ramp, he saw another robot standing on the platform. It looked a little like his target, Jericho, but was stamped with the dy cybernetics logo, a lowercase d and y enclosed in a circle. Magnus didn’t recall seeing it there when he came by the first time, but now it was standing between him and his way off the platform.

  “Hello, Mister Black,” the robot said through the comm link.

  Magnus stopped.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “My name’s Dyson Yost,” the android said.

  An almost imperceptible curl appeared at the corner of Magnus’ mouth.

  “The founder of dy cybernetics?” he asked. “Not very damn likely.”

  “While I might not be the flesh and blood version of Dyson Yost,” the android admitted, “My gravitronic brain holds all the same memories and personality. If it makes you feel any better, consider me his representative.”

  “Alright,” Magnus said for the sake of argument. “What brings you out this way?”

  “It’s come to my attention that you’ve been hired to kill an android named Jericho. I’ve come to convince you to do otherwise.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “I can be very persuasive,” Yost said.

  “It’s nothing personal,” Magnus replied. “When I’m contracted to do a job, I do it.”

  “Highly commendable I’m sure, but you’re hardly a mindless killing machine. You haven’t always completed your missions as planned...”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You once killed a young mother, but left her child alive. You even took the boy and made sure he remained safe.”

  “How the hell did you know about that?” Magnus asked hotly.

  “Let’s just say information flows freely in my circles, Mister Black.”

  Magnus drew his blaster and pointed it at the android.

  “This conversation is over,” he said.

  Magnus felt two powerful, metallic claws clamp down on his shoulders. Without turning around, he knew they belonged to the heavy liftbot who had previously ignored him.

  “Don’t be so hasty,” Yost said. “At least hear my proposal.”

  The claws, designed to carry several hundred pounds of equipment, dug into Magnus’ suit until he could feel his collarbones nearly crack.

  “I’m listening,” he said, his jaw clenched tight.

  “I propose that you remove the bomb you placed in the cargo hold and quietly leave the space station.”

  “What about my contract?” Magnus asked. “Warlock Industries is expecting Jericho’s head.”

  “To be exact,” Yost said, “they’re expecting a gravitronic brain inside an android’s head.”

  “Yeah?”

  “As it happens, I have both of those currently sitting on my shoulders.”

  “Are you suggesting—”

  “Indeed, Mister Black,” Yost said. “You will remove my head and take it back to your client.”

  “They’ll know it’s not Jericho’s,” Magnus said.

  “A small electrical charge near the base of my brain will scramble it sufficiently so they won’t know the difference.”

  “Seems like a lot of trouble over a robot,” Magnus said.

  “Perhaps,” Yost said, “but we all have a path to walk and Jericho’s is a very special one indeed.”

  “What makes you think I’ll do any of this?”

  “You have a path of your own, Mister Black. Its destination might surprise you.”

  Magnus felt the heavy liftbot press more of its weight onto his shoulders.

  “Deal,” Magnus said.

  Davidson passed his hand across the lock controls, releasing the bolts restraining the hatch to the cargo hold. Stepping through the opening, with Jericho right behind him, Davidson entered and found the captain dead on the floor. The ramp at the back of the hold was closed and the heavy liftbot stood silently like a sculpture among the cargo containers.

  Chapter Ten

  Detective Crawley stood over a corpse lying in a back alley of Ashetown. The detective was in his fifties and had a smoldering cigarette hanging from his mouth. His face, poorly shaved, was carved by too many years working the beat in the worst part of town.

  The corpse didn’t look much better.

  “What a mess,” Crawley said, examining the scene.

  The body was one of several littered along the alley. Most were human, but a few were Tikarin. The bloody holes in each of them suggested a violent end to their lives. The detective had seen it all before.

  A policeman walked up to Crawley, stopping beside him.

  “What do you think happened?” the officer asked.

  “Well,” Crawley began, puffing out a cloud of smoke, “seeing this is Griefer territory and that over there is one of Big G’s thugs, I’m guessing this is an old-fashioned turf war.”

  “Seems a shame fighting over such a shithole,” the officer said.

  “Maybe,” the detective agreed, “but one man’s shithole is another man’s paradise when you live in a sewer.”

  “That’s pretty deep, sir.”

  “I read books,” Crawley said. “You should try it sometime.”

  The cop shrugged and strolled away.

  Pearls before swine, Crawley thought.

  After the medical examiner had surveyed the scene and the guys from the coroner’s office had cleared the corpses, Detective Crawley found himself in another part of Ashetown, but didn’t find it any better. Plastic bags and other garbage filled the streets. Dead trees, killed by neglect and polluted air, lined the sidewalks. It might have been depressing to someone else, but the detective blocked it out like white noise.

  All he really wanted was a decent sandwich.

  He spied a street vendor down the sidewalk. The sign on the cart read “Gyros and Shawarma - Real Meat!” The vendor was a Tor, a minotaur race from the labyrinth cities of Rochan. On his home planet, the Tor would have been a successful craftsman, hammering hot iron into intricate shapes and selling them to off-worlders. Here, he shoveled carved meat into pitas and was happy to have a job.

  Knowing this was probably the best he could do, Crawley approached the cart, passing walls decorated with gang tags and unflattering caricatures of the emperor.

  The Tor towered over the human. The tip of one of his horns was missing and the ring hanging from his nose was slightly bent. He wore a leather kilt and not much else. Perspiration zigzagged down his bare, hairy chest, dripping into the row of pita breads sitting in the cart.

  “You got any beef in that cart, cud-muncher?” the detective asked. He held open his coat just far enough to show off his badge and the strap of a shoulder holster.

  “Yes, detective,” the vendor said.

  “Isn’t it kind of strange for a cow to serve beef?”

  “It wasn’t anyone I knew,” the Tor replied.

  Crawley heard a warble from deep inside his coat pocket. He reached in and pulled out a datapad. The image of his lieutenant, a middle-aged woman with gray hair, winked open on the screen.

  “Crawley,” the woman said, “there’s a homicide at the Greenwood Towers in the West End. I’m assigning it to you.”

  “West End?” the detective asked. “That’s not my usual beat, Lieutenant.”

  “I don’t give a shit, Crawley. Just do what I tell you!”

  The display went blank, revealing Crawley’s reflection and the questioning look on his face. He rolled his eyes and popped the pad back into his coat. The vendor was handing him the gyro. The detective took it, without offering to pay, and turned on his heel. He headed back down the street where his grav car hovered silently.

  The manager of the Greenwood Towers apartment building crossed the freshly polished floor of the lobby, nearly tripping over the buff
erbot that was working diligently on a particularly dull section of marble. The manager, named Eadan, admonished the low-lying, oval-shaped robot for being in the way, but the bufferbot continued happily scouring the floor in its own, single-minded way. On some level, Eadan appreciated the little robot’s work ethic. As a Dahl, the manager had a keen sense of responsibility toward the building and its upkeep, and he felt a kinship to anyone or anything that shared that commitment. Even so, he would probably replace the bufferbot with a better model once one became available.

  Eadan straightened his uniform, a gray shirt and tie beneath a blue vest with matching pants. Although the Dahl were not known for excessive pride, Eadan took pains to appear professional at all times. With a clientele like those living at the Greenwood Towers, he knew that keeping up appearances was of utmost importance. The rich of West End wanted privacy and efficiency, and Eadan was determined not to let them down. Of course, they were also human, which meant they were constantly acting inappropriately themselves.

  Take the unfortunate events of last night for example.

  Of course, being a Dahl didn’t help things. Eadan was well aware that humans held a deep-seated distrust for his species. Some people accused the Dahl of reading minds. While it was true the Dahl possessed psionic abilities, Eadan himself never went to the special schools necessary to enhance them. Not that he wanted to read the minds of the people at the Greenwood Towers. They were horrible people for the most part, horrible people he was eager to please in every way.

  Eadan believed the real reason humans distrusted the Dahl was precisely because the Dahl had become so indispensable to them. His race had willingly resigned themselves to helping humanity in any way they could. That kind of altruism, on such a scale, was alien to human understanding. What were the Dahl getting out of it? It didn’t make any sense!

  Of course, to the Dahl it made perfect sense, but a different kind of sense than what humans were used to.

  Eadan shook the thoughts from his head as he noticed an oddly misplaced human standing just inside the lobby entrance. The man wore a weathered coat, stained with all manner of horrors, and smoked a cigarette even though the sign on the door said smoking was expressly prohibited. The ash alone would wreak havoc with the poor bufferbot...