by C. Gockel
She saw Sixty’s head jerk in her direction with speed that was more than human.
Mr. Darmadi’s head lifted.
Her nails dug into the weave of the wool upholstery of her chair. “When Counselor Abraham was after me, and I was running for my life, it was Sixty and Carl who came to my rescue.” Not you. Not Alaric…well, not at first. Alaric had tried to save her later, though, hadn’t he?
Mr. Darmadi’s jaw went slack, and he said in a stricken voice, “Volka, I don’t know what you’re talking about…you never told me you were in danger. But of course I would have protected you. I would have hidden you somehow…how could you think otherwise?”
“Because I am a weere,” Volka snarled, and her nails tore into the armrest.
Mr. Darmadi sank back into his chair, and his shoulders fell. “Volka…” He shook his head. Volka’s vision went black. She heard only her own breathing, and then Sixty spoke. “He saved us aboard the Leetier, Volka.”
Volka turned to Sixty, her mouth agape, cheeks flaming at his betrayal.
“You would have died in the ship’s elevator shaft,” Sixty said, his voice taking on the same emotionless tone he had during a data dump.
Mr. Darmadi crossed his legs and leaned farther away from Sixty as though her android friend might bite him, not as though Sixty had just defended him.
Volka heaved a deep breath, and then bit the inside of her cheek. Sixty was right, but she shook her head, the memory of Alexis making her taste bile. “You’re asking me to save a woman who despises me, who made a scene at a dinner party I was at just because I was there, a lowly weere who ‘didn’t belong.’”
“She didn’t cause a scene because of those things!” Mr. Darmadi protested. “She caused a scene because she believes you are still lovers and that Alaric is still in love with you.”
Volka stiffened. She felt as though she’d been turned to stone, cold and still. She remembered the dream she’d had of Alaric aboard the Merkabah. Dream Alaric had told her he loved her, more than ever, maybe because although they were physically apart, their lives had taken similar trajectories. They both fought the Dark—and humans possessed by darkness of the more common sort. Alexis knew that confession somehow?
Darmadi touched his temple. “I told her that you weren’t together anymore. But she didn’t believe me. I…they…they’ve always had a difficult marriage…I didn’t realize until just recently how much it was just because she believed she was always second.”
“She isn’t second!” Volka protested. “She is his wife and mother of his children.” Alexis was who society revered, who could walk arm in arm with Alaric in public, the person whose grave would be beside his.
“That isn’t the same as being first in his heart,” Mr. Darmadi said, his voice a sigh.
“Alaric chose her,” Volka persisted, her stomach feeling like she might throw up again.
“Chose her? Of course not,” Mr. Darmadi said. “By obeying my mother and the extended family he chose for his immediate family not to starve, for them not to freeze in winter. By joining the Guard officer’s corps against his wishes, and then marrying Alexis, he brought his father, mother, and his siblings back into the Darmadi clan’s good graces.”
Volka remembered Carl telling her about Alaric sharing a too-small bed with his siblings and eating rats to survive. But didn’t she eat rats?
Mr. Darmadi bit his lips. “Alaric’s great misfortune has been being so…Good. Smart…Attracted to and attracted by the appropriate gender.” He smiled thinly. “If he’d just been a little less remarkable, he could have enlisted in the Guard without anyone noticing, served his time, and then used the education credits to go to the seminary. He wouldn’t have had the means to lift his entire family out of poverty but couldn’t have felt guilty for not doing so. Instead, he outshone all his coddled cousins before he’d even entered secondary school. He was destined for greatness, and the family had to get their claws into him.” He leaned forward again. “When he offered you his patronage—”
Tracing a nail along the weave of her chair, Volka froze. She hadn’t been sure if he’d known about that offer.
“He was trying to take care of you the way he could,” Mr. Darmadi finished.
Volka huffed. “By making me his consolation prize?”
Rising halfway from his chair, Mr. Darmadi protested, “It’s more than I could ever have!” He’d almost shouted the words, and after he’d said them, he sat back in his chair, eyes wide as though he were shocked by his own behavior.
Volka was shocked, too. For a moment. “You would never have accepted the offer either,” she said. “You’ve never been dishonest. You never took a wife.” He preferred men, and he’d gotten a doctor to declare him infertile so he wouldn’t have to marry. Most of his ‘friends’ kept wives and had male paramours. She’d come to admire and respect Mr. Darmadi for that honesty. Alaric could have gotten a doctor to do the same for him, so he could be in a faithful patronage with her, but he hadn’t. As brave as Alaric could be when it came to his life, he wasn’t as brave when it came to his heart…or Volka’s heart.
Mr. Darmadi huffed and looked at the ceiling. “Volka, I’d like to accept your praise, but the truth is, I couldn’t take a wife.” He put an elbow on the armrest and looked out the window to the slowly brightening sky. “I love women, I adore them…as friends…but I can’t.” He shrugged. “I can’t.” His eyes became bright. “I’m so…I suppose the word is ‘obvious,’ that my own parents helped me get my doctor’s note, more afraid of the embarrassment an annulment would cause than a declaration of infertility.” Sighing, he picked a piece of lint off his trousers. “So often what we must do is mistaken for bravery when it’s really just survival.”
Volka’s eyes got hot, and she wasn’t sure it was at his gall, his honesty, or her illusions shattering…or just confusion. “Are you asking me to consider that Alexis is the injured party in all this…or Alaric?” Volka said.
“All three of you are injured parties,” said Mr. Darmadi, and Volka felt like he’d thrown cold water on her. Pushing his glasses up his nose, he said, “We all have roles to play. We have to do what good we can in the role we’re given.” His brow furrowed. “I hear that it’s different in the Republic…that there are no rules, that roles are up for grabs. There’s even rumors that you’ve become a painter of some reputation.” He offered a tentative smile.
Volka looked down at her hands, and her ears folded. “Because of you,” she whispered. She let out a breath. And she’d succeeded because of Luddeccea’s insistence on adhering to traditional art forms. She was only famous in the Republic because she had mastered techniques that took years of painstaking practice and were rare in a society that craved instant gratification. “You would be quite famous in the Republic, too,” she said. “And you’d have…options…personally, you don’t have here.”
Mr. Darmadi’s fingers thumped on the armrest of his chair, and then he looked out the window and sighed. “I’m too old for that sort of thing.” He rubbed the fingers of his left hand. “I’m starting to get arthritis; I wouldn’t be able to make a reputation…or keep it.”
Volka studied the upholstery on her chair, her heart hurting at that revelation.
“We should attempt to find Alexis,” Sixty said in a voice as level and as cool as a robot’s.
Face flushing, Volka’s head jerked toward him. Sixty’s gaze was on a point on the wall, and his body was preternaturally still.
“How would we even go about it?” Volka asked, feeling nauseated again.
Mr. Darmadi cleared his throat. “You have a magical spaceship, a robot, and…” Eyes on Carl, he went pale. “A demon.”
Carl rocketed out from Sixty’s grasp. Standing on his back two legs, he snapped. “Are you calling me a demon?”
Mr. Darmadi jumped, scooting his chair backward.
Eight of Carl’s tiny paws went to his tummy. “Because if you are, I like it.” Bobbing his head at Volka, eyes wide and
earnest, he said, “I really do. It has a certain je ne sais claw.”
“Je ne sais quoi,” Sixty corrected in an eerie inflectionless tone.
Carl flexed a set of tiny digits. “Pretty sure it’s claw.”
Sixty’s focus was still on nothing. Volka studied his profile. He looked like the angel she’d imagined him to be when he’d first saved her. When she’d found out he was a machine, and not an angel, she’d found him repulsive. He’d still saved her. In many ways, Sixty was like an angel. He couldn’t kill or purposefully do harm. She remembered the warmth of his arms around her just minutes ago. He might be a sex ‘bot, but that hadn’t been about sex at all. He just cared…about everyone…because angels couldn’t help but do good. Humans had to choose.
“Of course we have to try to find her,” Volka said.
Sixty turned to her, his lips parted, his eyes wide. He looked strangely hopeful. “I can try to convince Kenji to give us the last known coordinates of the ship she was on.”
“The Manna,” Mr. Darmadi replied breathlessly.
Ears going back, Carl sighed. “I can just ask Isssh for the coordinates where the intercept occurred.” He tilted his head from side to side. “Okay, got them.”
Sixty said, “We can suggest to the ambassador that this adventure would demonstrate the Republic’s goodwill.” His lips thinned. “Especially since pirates in this system tend to be our riffraff.”
Anxiously glancing between the three of them, Mr. Darmadi whispered, “You’re really going to help find her?”
“Yes,” said Volka, sounding half-hearted and begrudging to her own ears.
Rocking forward, Mr. Darmadi cried, “Thank you, Volka! Thank you!”
Volka stood, and Mr. Darmadi jumped to his feet, his arms upraised as though he might hug her. Stomach lurching, she put a hand to her mouth and backed away. “Now I have to go throw up.”
6T9 found Volka in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet again, still in her robe. She didn’t look up at him when she said, “The doctor lowered my dosage. I should be fine in a few hours. What did the ambassador say?”
“He said that aiding in the search for Alexis would be a diplomatic coup,” 6T9 responded.
Volka nodded. 6T9 refilled the glass of water on the sink and sat down on his heels beside her.
Her ears swiveled back. “You know even when I was crazy for Alaric, I never wished Alexis was dead. Seemed like a thing that, if you wished for it, God would offer up some horrible punishment. Like…like…kill her but destroy Alaric’s mind so he didn’t remember me or some such.”
The talk of God was irrational, but 6T9’s processors were caught on the words, “was crazy for Alaric.” He tilted his head. Past tense?
“Still,” Volka continued, “When Mr. Darmadi asked for my help, I hesitated.”
Static flared beneath 6T9’s skin, and he frowned. He had noticed that.
She shook her head. “I don’t even want to be with Alaric anymore…”
6T9’s vision went white, but Volka continued, “I don’t want to be treated like a stranger in public. Once it was all I knew, but now it isn’t, and I can’t go back.” Wiping her face, she said, “Whatever isn’t between us, Sixty, you have been my friend and haven’t treated me different for being a weere.” Reaching out, she put her hand on top of his, and it sent a shock through his system. Her touch had always done that, and still did even though she was off limits. Was it a bug in his programming or a feature? Part of him wanted to declare, I want to change for you. But a cold, logical part of him knew promising that could lead to further pain for her if he couldn’t alter his programming…or could and didn’t.
He handed her the water instead. Taking it, Volka rose. Standing, he rubbed her back as she spit into the sink. The touch was a bridge between their very different programming, and he thought their friendship might be better than sex—it lasted longer. Even if they weren’t lovers in the physical sense, if this could just continue…
“So, when are we leaving?” Volka asked.
Tracing his palm along her spine, 6T9 said, “The ambassador said that to get approval for a Marine escort, it may take a day or two. Also, as a military force in Luddeccean space, we’ll have to coordinate with the Guard. But in such circumstances, he expects we should be able to begin the search in as little as four days. Maybe as much as a week.”
“A week?” Volka said, ears coming forward.
6T9 blinked. A trick question?
Volka’s small hands balled into fists. “There is a woman being held by pirates, Sixty! We have to leave right now.”
6T9 protested, “It could be dangerous, Volka.”
But she was already out the door.
6T9 hurried after her. Their friendship wouldn’t last if she died.
24
Fever Dreams
Uncharted Space
Alexis was on the edge of sleep, hoping that the trip aboard the Manna, the pirates, and losing Markus was all a bad dream. She couldn’t have been so foolish to have boarded that ship, could she? The dream twisted to the memory of Alaric standing up for that weere bitch at the Tudors’ and Silas’s betrayal, and she wanted to get aboard the ship rather than face them. She hurt. All the pain from her delivery, but worse, and her stomach felt like it had been turned into a pin cushion, her bones felt bruised, and her breasts felt painfully full. Something cold gripped her left ankle.
A baby cried. It wasn’t Markus, but Alexis woke up with a start anyway. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark. She was on a thin pallet atop a rough stone floor. On three sides of her were metal dividers with curtains of burlap flour sacks. It smelled like dankness, sweat, and old urine, but also, she smelled something sweet…perhaps floral. She looked up and saw a ceiling many meters overhead. Dim light came through a gaping hole, and she saw the sliver of two moons that didn’t belong to Luddeccea or look like anything she’d seen in Luddeccean Geographic. She felt her heart rate quicken and heard the sound of moans from beyond the curtain.
The baby cried again, and her milk let down, soaking her dress. She scanned the space she was in. There was a free-standing toilet like the kind at Alaric’s parents’ squalid farm. She could see the purplish gel in the basin glinting in the faint light. The gel isolated the liquid from the solid materials and in the heavy, rectangular converter at the bottom everything would be broken down into its components: solids would become compost, urine would be broken down into water, salt, and urea crystals.
It was disgusting.
She rose stiffly from her bed, and the movement was accompanied by a clink of metal on stone. A cold sharp weight pulled at her left ankle. She took a step, and another, but at the curtain was drawn up short by pain shooting from her leg. She looked down and gasped. She was shackled. In the dim light she made out a chain connected to the ankle ring. It connected to a dark ring in the wall.
With a snarl, she yanked her leg, trying to pull it free. The binds did not give. The baby’s wail cut through her snarls and brought her back to herself. She’d heard Alaric tell the boys, “No matter how afraid you are, no matter how angry, the most powerful weapon you have is your mind.”
Grimacing in rage more than fear, Alexis leaned forward as much as her bonds would allow and peeked through the curtain. She was in some sort of warehouse filled with men, women, and children. They lay on mats similar to hers, but none but hers had privacy curtains. Not two mats away was a woman with a newborn. The woman’s face was sweaty, though the warehouse was cool. The newborn’s face scrunched up and it let loose another wail. It was almost a bleat this time, as though the baby had been crying a long time and given up. How had the woman slept through that cry? Muttering, the woman rolled over and gave the baby her breast, and Alexis exhaled relief.
“Here is some water for you.” A child’s voice at her right made her jump. Alexis blinked in the dimness. There was a boy standing next to her. He was perhaps eight years old and held a wooden bowl in two hands. Inside it was dark,
brackish water.
Alexis’s lips pulled back in disgust, but it was a child before her, probably kidnapped by pirates just as she was. Sometimes pirates were known to take over small mining communities and use their inhabitants as slave labor. That must be what was happening here. It was not the child’s fault.
“No, thank you,” she said politely.
“When you get thirsty enough, you will drink it,” the boy replied. “We all do.”
He set the bowl down by the curtain, just within Alexis’s reach.
A man a few pallets away moaned in the darkness. Alexis glanced out. The man’s face was shining in the darkness. “Is he fevered?” she whispered.
“Yes,” said the boy. He nodded at the water. “But when it is over, he will feel better than before. You will feel better. Drink.”
It was the least of her worries, but she shied away from the bowl as though it might burn her.
25
Spaceship in a Haystack
Planet Luddeccea
“It is a beautiful sunny summer day,” Carl thought, pacing on four hind limbs on Sundancer’s bridge. His irritation prickled through the quantum wave, and where his feet touched Sundancer, his ire turned the hull storm cloud blue. It made Volka feel as though he’d rubbed her hair the wrong way. Sitting on the floor beside him, legs dangling through the iris opening in Sundancer’s floor, Volka’s lips became tight. She glared at the werfle.
Crossing four tiny limbs, Carl protested silently, “We should be sleeping in a sunbeam. It’s what they are for.”
“You could stay behind,” Volka suggested. Mentally. There was a Galactic Marine standing on the embassy grounds just out of view and she did not want him hearing this conversation.