by C. Gockel
Carl’s arms uncrossed, and he slouched. “No, I can’t.”
Volka’s eyebrows rose, and he whispered into her mind, “I’ll let the archbishop explain when we get to Time Gate 8.”
Volka felt her stomach roil, and she didn’t think it was just the pills the doctor had given her.
Sixty emerged from Sundancer's back compartments. He gave her a tiny nod. Sundancer’s “armor” was in the back, as well as some weapons and envirosuits for Carl, Sixty, and her. The Republic had given suits to all the embassy staff—although most everyone had unloaded theirs into the embassy, fearing potential chemical attack from their Luddeccean hosts.
Swallowing, Volka pulled her legs up, rolled over to lie flat on her stomach, stuck her head out the bottom of the ship, and prepared to do the part of the mission she was dreading almost as much as meeting Alexis in the flesh again. Waving, she called to the corporal on guard duty nearest the ship. “Hey, Barnaby!”
He gave her a smile. He was such a nice, solid, regular guy, even though he smelled like he had had Chung for breakfast. Unlike the “intelligence” staff, he didn’t think less of her for not having been to high school.
“Hey, Volka, enjoying your picnic?”
No one had commented when they’d brought a picnic basket aboard Sundancer. Carl, Volka, and 6T9 were the ship’s friends, and they were often around or inside her.
Volka winced. “Yeah, about that…I’m really sorry…but we’re going to rescue Alexis Darmadi.”
“What?” exclaimed Barnaby, eyes going wide and jogging forward.
Pulling back inside, Volka shouted, “Don’t worry! Carl told Isssh, Archbishop Sato’s werfle. They know we’re leaving and won’t consider it an act of war when we blast off.” The iris closed shut with a swoop, and she couldn’t see his shock, betrayed face, but she could feel it.
She could also feel something from Carl…She looked down at the werfle. His eyes were closed as he directed Sundancer to the remains of Time Gate 8, now serving as a Luddeccean Guard base. He was worrying about something. Knowing Carl, it wasn’t about betraying Barnaby. Perhaps sensing it, Sundancer’s hull became a cloudy blue.
Sitting down beside her, Sixty let loose a long breath. “Well, here we go.” He picked up an electronic tablet and drew his hand across the surface. “Local ether established. This will pick up Luddeccean frequencies as well, as long as we’re in range.” He glanced at Carl. “And as long as they talk to us instead of shooting at us.”
Carl didn’t open his eyes, but his necklace crackled. “They won’t shoot at us. They need our help.” His little shoulders sagged.
He was more than worried. Volka put a hand to her stomach and then her mouth, but she didn’t throw up.
“Volka?” Sixty said.
She shook her head, not wanting to talk and risk throwing up again.
Sundancer’s hull became translucent. There was cobalt blue sky and clouds below them; above them, the stars shone. Among the stars was the shattered ring of Time Gate 8. One side winked with lights. On the other side, metal struts were visible, the bare bones of the ancient, mechanical beast that had attacked her world. Now it served her world.
Finished with his navigating, Carl collapsed to his ten legs, ambled over to Volka, and curled into a ball in her lap.
Staring at Carl, a flicker of emotion passed over Sixty’s face, obvious enough that it caught Volka’s attention, but so fast she couldn’t read it. She almost wondered if it was a tic.
Carl kneaded his claws and said, “Next best thing to a sunbeam.”
Raising an eyebrow, Sixty slid over to Volka and lifted the tablet in front of them. “Communicating like it’s 2019,” he said, which was probably a joke that was beyond her...because she hadn’t been to high school, maybe. In the tablet’s dark screen, all she saw was a few blinking lights and their reflections, but then the device flickered and Archbishop Sato and his white werfle Isssh appeared. Volka tilted her head. It wasn’t as good as a hologram, but it was better than a phone.
“Hello, Sixty, Carl, Volka, and…” The archbishop pushed his glasses up his nose. “...Sundancer.”
Not everyone remembered Sundancer was a…well, not person, but a someone. Volka smiled at mention of the ship’s name and tried to convey the recognition to Sundancer. She felt a small flutter of happiness in her stomach in response, one that didn’t make her want to barf. In her lap, Carl purred, perhaps catching Sundancer’s joy at being recognized. “Hello, sir, and Isssh,” Volka said quickly.
Bobbing his head on the archbishop’s shoulder, Isssh thought, “Use your telepathy. You’re not a savage.”
Volka didn’t roll her eyes. The archbishop, unaware of the white werfle’s chastisement, or possibly ignoring it, continued, “Thank you for your offer of assistance. The situation is…more fraught than was perhaps described to you by Mr. Darmadi.”
Volka’s spirits immediately returned to earth.
The archbishop continued, “The Manna transport ship was carrying Alexis, Markus, six other civilians, and a number of off-duty Guardsmen when it was intercepted at lightspeed.”
Sixty’s voice took on its Android General 1 tone. “That was incredibly risky. What was aboard the Manna besides passengers?”
The archbishop’s lips turned up in a wry smile. “Grain, of course.”
Volka’s lips parted. “Would an intercept at lightspeed be worth grain?”
“No,” said Sixty, jaw tight, a crease between his brows. “And the fact that the intercept happened at lightspeed means they had detailed information about the ship’s course. They’d have to have known its manifest.”
The archbishop nodded. “It seems kidnapping was the point of the exercise. There is more, and none of it good. There was a fighter accompaniment that left the ship after receiving a distress call from Atlantia.”
Volka’s lips parted. Was Atlantia in trouble? Situated next to an orange gas giant, the moon colony was “a jewel” of the Luddeccean system. Rebuilt after Revelation, it was a frequent setting of her paperbacks. To have it fall to pirates…it would be like the Three Books temple in New Prime falling.
The archbishop held up a hand. “The call was a ruse, but they knew our codes, and were very convincing.”
“Definitely an inside job,” Sixty said. “That is bad.”
The archbishop’s lips turned down. “There is more. The ship that intercepted the Manna appeared out of nowhere.”
“I appeared out of nowhere during my last trip to your system, Your Excellency,” Sixty said.
The archbishop smiled wryly. “We did discover you, if you recall, and forced your landing.”
Volka’s eyebrows jumped to her hairline. That was a nice way of putting it. The Luddeccean Guard had shot the ship Sixty had borrowed out of the sky. Sixty was still paying for the vessel.
The archbishop continued. “Moreover, we’ve increased the nodes in our security net and randomized their locations since then.” He cleared his throat. “To continue… After the intercept with the Manna, the pirate ship vanished once again.”
“Isssh told us that the intercept occurred near O7,” Sixty said, referring to the seventh planet from the sun.
In the screen, the white werfle and the archbishop nodded.
Volka tried to call up everything she knew about O7. Kitrinos, it was sometimes called. A mustard-yellow gas giant, its moons were more ice than minerals and not valued for prospecting. In some parts of the galaxy, the ice alone would make them valuable—like Carl and Sixty’s asteroid—but the Luddeccean system had plenty of ice near its mineral deposits.
“We’ve searched O7 and its moons extensively,” said the archbishop. “We found no evidence of the ships or a base. Alexis is tied to two powerful families. Her father is currently leader of New Fargo, and despite the current siege, he managed to send out a light beam transmission blaming her kidnapping on a party with faster-than-light capability. Of course, all of our faster-than-light ships are accounted for.”
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Volka’s hair rose as she picked up the implications of that. “Sir,” she protested. “Sundancer is the only faster-than-light ship the Republic has.” For now, anyway. The Republic was working on creating their own faster-than-light ships—ships without Sundancer’s “pesky” personality. “She’s been sitting in New Prime this whole time.”
Sighing, the archbishop took off his glasses and polished them with a cloth. “That is what our intelligence tells us, too, Volka. But then our intelligence didn’t predict the attack on New Fargo or the intercept of Manna. I fear it is an attack on our alliance with the Republic.”
Volka went cold. “That would be a disaster. Our real enemy isn’t each other!”
“Agreed.” Archbishop Sato slipped the glasses back on. “Find me the ship that intercepted the Manna. Help me prove that the Republic isn’t the real enemy.”
Volka nodded earnestly.
Sixty said, “Is there anything else you can tell us?”
Squinting, the archbishop replied, “The Manna had a shuttle. The captain of the Manna claims the pirates took it when they took the grain and hostages.”
Dipping his chin, Sixty said, “You’re looking for it, of course?”
“Of course,” the archbishop replied.
“Isssh will let Carl know if it turns up?” Sixty asked.
Isssh nodded. His thoughts filled Volka’s mind. “This is an issue that concerns The One as well. Division between humans is dangerous to Luddeccea and werfles—our favorite world and our favorite hosts.”
Volka tasted bile at his words. A few months ago, The One had wiped out half of New Prime with a genetically modified bacterium. It was retaliation against Counselor Abraham’s pogrom on werfles and cats. Whatever the rationale, it was still brutal. And obviously, The One’s current motives weren’t altruistic.
“Does it matter what our motives are?” Isssh asked.
Volka’s brow furrowed. Motives mattered in The Three Books.
“We’ll search for the pirates, Your Excellency,” Sixty said, his voice commanding and confident.
“Thank you, Sixty.” The archbishop raised an eyebrow. “Or should I say, Android General 1?”
Sixty’s lips parted. Before he could get to the protest Volka knew was coming, the screen went black.
Staring at her reflection, the enormity of their task hit Volka. How could they possibly find a pirate ship? It could be, well, not anywhere if it didn’t have a faster-than-light drive. But it could be a lot of somewheres, and anyway, “Are we sure the ship doesn’t have a faster-than-light drive? No one knew about Sundancer until we found her. And the Republic was completely taken unawares by Luddeccea developing a faster-than-light ship first.”
Staring at the blank tablet, Sixty spoke in his emotionless “data dump” voice, “Do you think that a ship like Sundancer would allow sociopaths aboard?”
Volka blinked. “What sort of question is that?”
“A genuine one,” Sixty said. “I can’t feel her emotions like you can, but I know what pirates are like…” He huffed. “Even ‘independent traders’ tend to be sociopaths or not very smart, and many are both. Would Sundancer bond to people who would hurt others without remorse?”
Volka turned the idea around in her head and then in her heart, picturing Captain Katherine McNamara of the Copperhead. Sundancer’s hull became black.
“No,” Carl and Volka said in unison, and the ship lightened.
Sixty continued. “Then they’d have to be managing a faster-than-light drive. It’s a brand-new technology that is still in the experimental stage in the Republic.”
Volka remembered asking Alaric what kind of accident had grounded the Merkabah. He’d said the best kind, the kind that wasn’t his or his crew’s fault. “I think it may still be experimental for Luddecceans.” Her eyes got wide. “Remember how the alarms always blared whenever the drive was engaged? A hover doesn’t have alarms blare every time it lifts.”
Sixty nodded. “As I said, pirates tend not to be the brightest bunch. I doubt they have a faster-than-light drive—too new, too difficult to manage. But they still disappeared.” His eyes briefly became vacant, and then more data appeared on the tablet. Not looking at the numbers, Sixty said, “According to the data I am now downloading from Kenji, the pirate vessels laying siege to New Fargo also appeared out of nowhere. It seems unlikely pirates would have not just one faster-than-light ship, but many.”
“Which means?” Volka asked.
“I doubt that they have faster-than-light technology, but they do have a place where they can disappear.”
“So where do we begin looking, data brain?” Carl asked.
“The place where they’d be most likely to have appeared from, O7’s moons.”
“But the Luddeccean forces already searched there,” Volka said.
Sixty inclined his head in Carl’s direction. “Did any of the forces have a member of The One aboard?”
“No,” said Carl. “Relations are still a little tense between my kind and Luddecceans.”
How can you be surprised after the plague? was on the tip of Volka’s tongue, but she kept it to herself.
“Then they didn’t search with the latest technology,” Sixty said.
Carl looked around the ship. “We don’t have a load of Republic technology here, either.”
Sixty reached out and tapped Carl’s nose, making the werfle’s eyes cross. “But we do have your telepathic brain.” Sixty’s face was still serious when he turned to Volka. “May I access Bracelet?”
“Of course,” Volka said, holding her arm aloft.
A hologram of O7, Kitrinos, appeared, and one inauspicious, malformed dark object that she supposed was one of its twenty-seven moons, but was not even the size of Sixty and Carl’s asteroid. “We’ll start here,” Sixty said.
“Transmitting our intent to Sundancer,” Carl said, closing his eyes.
Sixty blinked down at the holo of the moon. “I am going to render a three-dimensional holographic image of the pirate ship based on the data Kenji gave me for you and Sundancer.”
Volka nodded. If Sundancer could find tiny surveillance equipment, surely she could help find a ship if she knew what it looked like?
For a moment, Sixty’s eyes met Volka’s. His expression was somber. “I have to focus on this.” His lips turned up wryly. “My Q-comm informs me of the danger to all of humanity, and my core programming compels me…I can’t help myself.”
“Of course,” Volka said.
Shaking his head as though shaking away a gnat, he closed his eyes with a sigh, presumably working on his rendering. Once again, he looked like the angel she’d mistaken him for. Sixty had shamed her with his immediate understanding that they had to take this mission. He’d been right even before they’d known the true stakes. Now that she knew her pride had almost aided those who wanted to see the Luddecceans and Republic divided, her shame was double. Sixty had been created to be a toy for carnal pleasures, but he’d shown himself to be more moral than her in the most important way—the way that cared about preserving innocent life.
God created man. Could humans have created angels by accident? It sounded like the sort of question that would make Alaric laugh and would have gotten her in a lizzar-ton of trouble at Sunday school. As she pondered it, the walls of the ship, Sixty, Carl, and Volka turned to light.
When they emerged solid again, Sixty’s eyes were still closed. Sundancer’s hull became translucent, and all Volka could see was a kidney bean-shaped shadow rimmed by mustard yellow—it was the kidney-shaped moon Sixty had pointed out earlier but was nowhere near as impressive as his rendering. She looked behind her and saw Luddeccea’s sun was only a large star at this distance.
“Well, we are here,” said Carl. “Yuck. Ugly and depressing.”
Sixty opened one eye. “Do you sense any life, Carl?”
“Human life?” Carl asked.
Sixty’s other eye opened.
Volka’s eyes went wid
e. “Is there another type of life on the asteroid?” she asked.
Carl closed his eyes and waved his paws. “Not on this side…not human or the little silicon guys that sometimes appear on these ice balls.”
Volka’s mouth fell open. “Silicon?”
“Guys?” said Sixty.
Carl touched a paw to his mouth. “Oh, that’s right. Humans haven’t discovered those yet. I don’t think I was supposed to mention them.” Carl coughed. “Maybe forget I mentioned it?”
Sundancer was completely silent except for the hum of Sixty’s chest and Volka’s breathing.
Carl coughed again. “Please?”
“They probably can’t be hurt by the Dark,” Sixty mused.
“Nope,” said Carl. “And they can’t help us, either. They don’t move. Or think much. Very zen. If they were wave compatible, I would probably—”
“Perhaps we should focus on humans, Carl, and machines if you can?” Volka suggested, sensing a bout of distracted wistfulness coming on.
“Right, right…” said Carl, bobbing his head. Turning around, he walked on his back two paw pairs over to the hull that was now the window closest to the asteroid and put his top two paw pairs behind his back. He must have directed Sundancer to approach the rock, because they drew closer to it and began skimming over the surface. Well, skimming was not quite the right word. Crawling would be more like it.
“At this rate, it will take us an hour and thirteen minutes to survey the moon,” Sixty said in his data dump voice.
“So it will take us over twenty-seven hours to survey all the moons?” Volka asked, eyes becoming wide.
Sixty surveyed some data readouts on the tablet. “No, quite a bit longer. Some of them are much bigger. I estimate—”
Carl’s necklace crackled. “Don’t forget, I’m going to need a werfle nap after each moon. Darn it, I lost my concentration. We’ll have to back up.”
“Days,” Volka said. “It is going to take days.” They probably couldn’t hop back to the Republic or Luddeccea during that time to “cat nap”—or otherwise—in a proper bed since they’d borrowed their friend without asking.