The figure looked towards the thin man and waved him away. He bowed once more, then walked towards the exit, far more quickly than he’d entered. Vox was suddenly too anxious to look this figure in the eyes, so not knowing what to do, she looked back at the pod and the body within it. She clenched her jaw, trying to ensure that the fear that was running through her body did not spread to her face.
The figure followed her gaze towards the pod, towards the body. He then looked at her face and laughed lightly. “You don’t seem too happy to see him again.”
Vox shook her head, more violently than she’d intended. “No. I— No. I’m not… unhappy. I— I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
The figure smiled again. “You didn’t think our mission would be stopped by something as inconsequential as death, did you?”
+++
Aboard the Scythe, Edge of Klaunox-Orion Sector
Ivor stood by the window of his quarters, staring out the tall rectangle of borosilicate glass into the infinite expanse of space that lay before him. It had been a familiar view over the last few months: the intricate constellations of stars moving slowly past the window like distant mountains, set against the permanent, measureless darkness. However, in this particular moment, Ivor was deeply aware of one thing that made his current view importantly different from the view he’d had for most of the last few months: he was now finally free.
It had been a difficult few months. In the wake of their mutiny, he and Angela had been tried by Ivor’s father for high treason, and after a brief tribunal, they had both been found guilty. Although the punishment for such a crime was traditionally for the convicted party to be ejected from the ship, to die alone in the empty void of space, their sentences had initially been commuted to exile. It had then been even further reduced to… what, exactly? It was difficult to give it a specific name. Just as the sentencing was about to occur, Ivor’s father had met with the android captain, and after this meeting, his father had simply dissolved the tribunal. The closest thing to a sentence that Ivor and Angela had received were the words his father spoke after the tribunal’s dissolution: “All shall be forgiven in the sanctity of this room, though nothing will be forgotten.”
In the weeks that followed, that declaration proved to be more lenient than being shot into space to die, but considerably more strict than what Ivor understood forgiveness to be. He and Angela had been confined to separate quarters, unable to interact with each other. It’s true, he still had access to good food, and good exercise facilities, and a wide variety of entertainment options, and whatever resources he wanted, really. But he had no freedom of mobility, and no ability to communicate with Angela. It felt like a slightly more opulent version of imprisonment; a literal solitary confinement.
His father had urged him to spend this time in contemplation, to consider his actions and their consequences. To think of the androids not as enemies, but as possible allies, as possible peers. Initially, Ivor had been thankful for the intervention of the android captain, but over time this gratitude had curdled into resentment.
If he looked at his situation dispassionately, it was difficult not to see it as an encroachment of android authority into the affairs of human beings. In the tribunal, there had been his father, the rebel commander, sentencing individuals under his rightful command. These people under his command had freely sworn allegiance to him, and would bear the consequences of their actions in light of the commitments they had made, and the laws that bound them. A beautiful exemplar of human justice in motion. And yet after a few words whispered by an android, suddenly the commander’s decision was altered?
True, it was a change that made the decision more merciful, pushing towards a clemency that benefited Ivor directly. However, that this change came from the will of an android rather than one of his fellow men rubbed Ivor the wrong way. Being sentenced to exile would have been more difficult, and more arduous than what he had experienced during his confinement, but perhaps such an exile would have been more honest, and more just. At the very least, it wouldn’t have made Ivor feel as though he were at the mercy of those who had no right to determine his fate.
On some days, when Ivor had felt less shame about his imprisonment, less embarrassment about his circumstances, and generally just felt more well in his body and mind, he would sometimes wonder if he was being too cynical, or too distrustful. Perhaps this android captain had just meant him well. Perhaps this was simply a race that valued both life and justice. A race that placed such a high premium on respect and reconciliation that even in circumstances in which they had been wronged, they tended towards leniency rather than punishment.
Ivor reflected on this line of thinking, the imagined virtue of androids, and laughed to himself. Thank god Angela got to me when she did, he thought to himself. While Ivor had been idly reflecting on whether the androids were a misunderstood people, a people worthy of his respect, Angela had turned her mind to more pressing matters: how to identify the ad hoc security protocols that were keeping her quarters locked, and figuring out how these protocols could be disabled. She had made much more progress on her chosen field of contemplation. When one of the auxiliary ships had arrived with a shipment of supplies, she had disabled the security protocols, fled her quarters, and freed Ivor. The two of them had hidden on the auxiliary ship and made their escape before their absence had even been noticed.
Ivor took a deep breath, smiling, taking a moment to appreciate all that Angela had done for him in the last few months. Not only had she granted him his liberty, she had also helped him to secure the Scythe, the ship that was now under his command. She was also indispensable in gathering a crew sympathetic to their cause. It turned out Ivor and Angela were not the only rebels who believed that the revolt against the Federation was grounded in their collective fight for their humanity. Many believed that the fight against the Federation was just one front of that war, and that the emerging threat of uppity androids who believed themselves to be their own masters was yet another front.
As the captain’s son, Ivor proved to be an effective magnet for rebels of a similar mindset, a living metaphor for revolting against an antiquated, increasingly outdated conception of the rebellion. However, it was Angela who shifted this vague cloud of resentment into a unified paramilitary force that fell in line under Ivor’s command. She had provided him with both his throne, and his subjects to lead.
Perhaps most importantly, though, she had also assured that Ivor’s tentative thoughts of sympathy for the androids never managed to take root. In their first few days of freedom, she had reminded him in great detail of the androids’ various evils, the blasphemous plans they were carrying out across the galaxy. The upgrades they were making to their kind, one by one, to make them indistinguishable from humans. Upgrades that would make their very existence a constant lie: that they were real life forms, and hence entitled to the same dignity that was owed to actual living beings. A lie that was at odds with the dignity that they actually deserved: the same dignity that one might accord a tiny mechanical toy dog that did backflips when you wound it up, or the same dignity that one might accord a bucket full of levers, switches, and circuit boards.
It wasn’t just the androids’ plans for themselves that bothered Ivor: it was also their plans for human beings. Their desire to push their technology on humans, offering them “augmentations” that would in practice make them all more alike, and worse, all more like androids. Angela had even heard of cases of androids and humans mating, an almost incomprehensible abomination. The idea of pure, human flesh being caressed by animated, yet lifeless matter made Ivor sick. As Angela would say, “It’s almost the same as necrophilia, except at least in that case, the dead person was once alive.”
At that moment, Ivor heard the door behind him slide open. He turned, and saw Angela, a huge smile spread across her face.
Ivor couldn’t help but smile. “Good news, I take it?”
Angela nodded enthusiastically. “The reports fro
m the scouts just came in.”
Ivor settled into the chair that sat by his desk and swiveled it towards Angela. “So they’ve found the android base?”
Angela drew a sleek black remote control from her pocket. “In a manner of speaking.” She pressed a button on the remote and a projector in the ceiling snapped to life, creating a large, incredibly detailed hologram in the center of the room.
The hologram depicted a gleaming, modern city, surrounded by lush forests and flowing rivers, a metropolitan utopia that seemed to be in utter harmony with nature. Angela paced around the edge of the holographic city, watching Ivor’s face. “This is from the holorec we bought at Gemini. God knows who made it, or how they got it, but it’s the most recent rendering we could find of the android base. And here’s what our scouts found.”
She pressed the button once more, and the hologram immediately changed to a rendering of the same city, except now it looked completely devastated. It seemed as though an incredibly powerful bomb had been detonated right in the city’s center, hollowing it out into a brittle, crumbling husk. Entire sections of the city had been razed completely, leaving yawning gaps of rubble and ash. The buildings that remained were damaged to the point that they seemed unusable. This city that looked like a beautiful, sophisticated utopia a few seconds ago now had the air of a graveyard.
As Ivor let his eyes drift over the devastation, a look of pure and utter joy spread across his face. “Wow. That looks… gorgeous… Were the scouts able to conduct a full account of the remains?”
Angela pressed the button on her remote again, and the hologram disappeared. She appeared somewhat hesitant, shifting her weight back to her heels. “They did.”
Ivor’s eyes narrowed. “Was there any sign of… Svend?” The name tasted bitter on his tongue. Ivor had a well-developed hatred of androids in general, but Svend merited a specific blend of bile. Not only was he a member of the most recent generation of androids, the ones designed to pass perfectly as actual humans, but more specifically, he was the pretty boy android who had upended his and Angela’s revolt on the Odysseus. The one who had ruined the possibility of the Federation doing the inconvenient, messy work of subjugating the android hordes, so that once the anti-Federation rebellion occurred and succeeded, control of the androids would be a simple matter of taking hold of the leash that the Federation had fashioned.
Angela cast her eyes to the floor. “Unfortunately, no. The scouts checked every body, but they were all older models. And there were no survivors.”
Ivor sat back in his seat. “Well, I do like the sound of that.”
Angela twisted her mouth. “There were no survivors on the base but, uh, there are almost certainly survivors… somewhere. There were clear signs of burial rites having been performed, and the number of the dead didn’t map to the population estimates tagged to the holorec. It seems as though the base was abandoned, and that the survivors fled.”
Ivor pounded his right fist against the chair’s armrest. “We cannot let Svend escape. His mere existence – and the existence of every member of his generation – is an utter abomination.”
Angela nodded. “It’s true. But there is hope. Yes, they have fled the wreckage of their base, but we can pursue them, to whatever new rock these vermin choose to hide under and to spawn anew. We can find their new nest, where Svend himself is probably lurking, and stamp them all out, once and for all.”
Ivor nodded, turning his seat towards the window, returning his gaze to the stars that shone brightly beyond his room, and the multitude of hiding places that existed in the dark spaces that separated them. “Yes, you’re right. We can find them, and we can kill them. And we will.”
CHAPTER FOUR
QX849-LF, Dead Rock, Deep Space
Bentley sat at the fire’s edge, peering through the flames at Legba. He sat across from her, his legs still crossed, his eyes still closed. The experience of sitting there with him was at once deeply familiar, and deeply strange. Over the course of her training, she had become accustomed to sitting with Legba, seeing the calm expression on his creased face, framed by his mess of dark shaggy hair, the orange light dancing across his features and his untamed beard. The warmth of the fire was also a familiar companion, a tight circle of comfort on the otherwise inhospitable dead rock, hot enough to make her face sweat, but not strong enough to warm her completely. And the cave itself was exactly as she remembered it; Legba wasn’t exactly an avid interior decorator, so it wasn’t as though any of the larger stones had been replaced with, say, a new ottoman, or a snazzy teleprojection entertainment system.
However, the unfamiliar elements were just as numerous, and they were mostly rooted in the radically different social environment she found herself in. Svend had sometimes milled around the cave’s mouth, but never with a buddy, like Jade. She could see the two pacing about at the entrance to the cavern, unsure of what to do, and unsure whether they should be there, but equally unsure where else to go. Perhaps more conspicuously, though, it was rare that she and Legba were accompanied by three huge lwa, who were more or less yelling in Legba’s face.
Shango paced around the fire, one hand to his forehead, unable to contain his agitation. “I still don’t understand why you chose to leave the airfield on the android base in such a rush. You helped Bentley win the battle decisively, so it’s not as though you were in any danger.”
Olofi approached Legba, his arms crossed. “We certainly appreciate the help you provided in that moment, but why did it take you so long to come to our aid? Don’t you realize that you could have been a vital help to us, and to others? Why wait until a moment of such acute crisis to intercede?”
Shango made another circuit of the tiny, rocky chamber, and turned towards Legba once more. “And even now, when we’re standing right in front of you, why do you insist on maintaining your secrecy? I could perhaps understand failing to communicate with us if we were light years away from each other, but why do you continue to resist, even when we’re standing right in front of you, looking you in the eye?”
Loco leaned against one of the cave’s walls, his eyes narrowed. “And on that note, why won’t you even look us in the eyes? Has all of this sitting around in a cave really got your eyelids exhausted? I’m sure that the high-stress, non-stop world of sitting alone in caves can get incredibly draining once you’ve been living that life for a while.”
Loco stalked towards Legba, and stood over Bentley’s shoulder. “What really gets me is yet another question that you – surprise, surprise – still haven’t answered: why did you steal our ship? I thought you were an omnipotent tech mage. Why can’t someone with that much power just get a rental?”
This was something Bentley had been thinking about as well. She looked at Legba with concern. “Why did you hijack their ship? Just for fun? As a kind of joke?”
Loco crossed his arms. “For future reference, it’s possible to make a joke without committing vehicular larceny. Maybe just start with knock-knock jokes, then work your way up from there.”
At long last Legba’s eyelids floated open. He looked Bentley in the eyes and smiled. “Ah, yes, the matter of the ship. I’m afraid that’s a story for another time.” He turned his gaze to Loco. “I do apologize, Loco, but I did need a ship, and yours was sitting right there. Perhaps if you weren’t so careless…”
Loco threw his hands in the air, frustrated. “What do you mean, ‘If I weren’t so careless’? We docked it! In a docking bay! The place where you’re supposed to dock ships! And it was locked! It’s not like I taped the key to the outside of the front door, with a sign that said: ‘Please take’! Do I really need to explain the concept of theft to you, and why it’s bad, and not nice? I can, if that’s where we’re at. You see, theft is what happens when one person has a thing, and then another person, who doesn’t have that thing, wants that thing, and then—”
Shango put up his right hand. “All right. We can come back to matters of basic ethics and vocabulary later. At the m
oment, we have more pressing concerns. We’ve learned of something that is— deeply disturbing.”
Shango sat down beside Bentley, facing Legba. He inhaled deeply, looking at Legba, bottling up his frustration into an appearance of respect and concern. “Over the last few months, we’ve been working with Captain Blackfriar, a high-ranking android, and he has revealed to us one of Amroth’s most recent plans. At Thralldom Station, he has undertaken a vast research program, developing a special chip that allows him to control androids, to enslave them totally. But his plan does not stop there: he is also devising an app that would infect corteXes, giving him this same power and this same control over human beings across the entire universe. His ultimate plan is to assert complete control over all forms of intelligent life, to bring both humankind and androidkind under his thrall, and we need your help to stop him.”
Legba leaned back against the cave wall behind him, relaxed. “Yes, I know.”
Olofi’s eyebrows scrunched into a look of confusion. “You— You what?”
Legba shrugged. “I know. I know about Amroth’s plans. His scheme with the androids, and the corteXes, the whole thing. To his credit, he has made some truly remarkable progress.”
Shango leaned towards Legba, the light of the fire flickering across his grave countenance. “Then come with us, to Dracon Station, and help us end this, once and for all.”
Legba’s gaze floated up towards the uneven, stony ceiling, his mouth twisting into a look of indecision. “Well… No.”
Shango sat back, disappointment spreading across his face. Olofi sighed, placing his hands on his temples and massaging them.
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