by C. Gockel
“Yes,” said Sixty.
She was tired enough to read emotions, but as usual, with Sixty, she could read nothing. He didn’t seem dissuaded by how long it would take them to find Alexis. Maybe he couldn’t be dissuaded? He loved all people, and so he had to save all people.
Her brow furrowed, remembering the night in No Weere. He’d told her he couldn’t be what she needed. Maybe if you loved everyone, it was impossible to love just one person? She bowed her head. It didn’t matter now. Nothing had happened, and she was on drugs that would keep even “nothing” from happening again. She felt exhausted by it all. Yawning, she lay down, turned away from the dark shadow of the asteroid, and blinked out at the stars. She couldn’t find a home for her own heart, but she was going to try and find Alexis. It had to be a test from God.
Sixty didn’t believe in God. Neither did Alaric…her hand balled into a fist. She’d believe, though. She had to.
Alexis woke with a sour, dry mouth, and a parched throat. It was warmer than it had been the night before. It was also eerily quiet. She couldn’t judge the time of day from the sunlight streaming through the hole in the ceiling. Her bladder was full, and her breasts were in agony; she knew if she didn’t express her milk, she’d run the risk of mastitis. Still, she did not move. The curtains offered only minimal privacy, and the toilet disgusted her.
Her mother’s words rang in her mind. “No matter what happens, your pride is something that can never be taken from you. The secret to keeping it is to never be ashamed. You are the daughter of two of Luddeccea’s first families and have nothing to be ashamed of. Pride is your birthright.”
Searching her pockets, she found a handkerchief. She went to the toilet, wiped it down without wrinkling her nose, and used it, ignoring the sucking sound that followed as the liquids were absorbed into the gel.
It took her longer to express her milk. The thought of being discovered milking herself like a cow was repellent. But if she became ill, she would be weaker, and that would be more repellent. Jaw getting hard, she ripped off a bit of hem from her dress, took a seat at the end of her pallet, and proceeded to express her milk into the frayed fabric. She was determined, if anyone entered her “room,” to lift her head and demand of them imperiously, “Yes?” But no one came. She lay the soaked fabric next to the handkerchief by the toilet and remembered a story her mother-in-law told her about a nursing mother stranded in a vehicle during a three-day blizzard in the Northwest Province. The mother had given her milk to her infant and her four-year-old, and they had survived the ordeal. Her mouth was sticky dry...she could drink her own fluids. Wrinkling her nose at the thought, she vowed not to even think about it again.
Sitting on her pallet, leaning against the outer wall of the warehouse, she waited for her captors to come. No one did though, and the warehouse remained hauntingly hushed.
Shouldn’t the newborn at least have cried by now?
She didn’t want to be curious. She wanted to ignore her surroundings as much as possible to prove to…whoever…that they could not touch her, not in any way that counted, anyway.
And yet, she’d always been curious. It had been her undoing in her mother’s eyes more than once, and certainly her father’s, most always. “That isn’t anything a girl needs to know, Alexis.” How often had she heard that? And what good did knowing do her? She was so smart she followed her mother right into the same trap—marrying a man who was unfaithful, who’d betrayed her and publicly humiliated her.
But she’d promised herself her captors would not destroy her. Wasn’t her curiosity a part of her, no matter how useless? A part that was intrinsic, essential, something she should not cast aside?
Also, Alaric wasn’t her father. He was competent—he would find her. Unless he didn’t want to. How convenient for him if Alexis died. He could have the sons he cherished and the bitch he loved so much. For a moment, her body swayed, and her confidence wavered. Her eyes prickled; Alaric would love to see her so broken. She’d survive, just to spite them both.
Surviving meant knowing as much as possible about her captivity. Nostrils flaring, she rose from her bed, wincing at the stretch. Holding her chain so it wouldn’t clink on the stones, she went to the curtains and peered beyond them. She counted the warehouse occupants—there were at least forty, and now that she saw them in the light, she realized at least twenty-five of those were children of varying ages. Some were still lying down with faces shining with fever. But most were sitting on their mats, staring at the walls, even the children. She blinked. When Lucas or Sam recovered from a fever, they were impossible to keep down. Perhaps they were still ill? But their faces weren’t flushed, and they weren’t hunched over. Closer to Alexis, the mother was sitting up. Alexis did not see her baby. A heavy suspicion began to settle in her chest.
She heard a child’s soft footfalls and turned to face the boy before he entered her “room.”
This time he was carrying a pitcher. “I have come to bring you more water,” he said. He walked over to her bowl and frowned. “You did not drink it.”
“It’s brackish,” Alexis said.
“You will drink the water,” he said, pouring more brackish liquid into the bowl. It overflowed, and liquid oozed between the cracks in the stone floor. Alexis stepped back from the creeping black trickle, her heart pounding wildly. She refused to believe it was fear of…of…water. Gathering herself, she asked in crisp even tones, “Where is the baby…the newborn?”
Stepping back so he stood between two curtained partitions, the boy said, “The newborn was destroyed.”
For a moment, Alexis’s mind emptied of all thought. She was a being without fear, anger, or pride. She came back to herself slowly. “It was…killed…?”
“The consciousness that controlled its humanoid form was extinguished,” the boy confirmed, his voice calm.
Her chest hurt, and she saw Lucas, Markus, and Sam “extinguished” in her mind’s eye. Romantic love was a great lie, but she loved her children more than she could ever have imagined. They were miracles. Children might be as common and natural as the sun rising, but the sunrise was a miracle, too. Maybe both more miraculous because they didn’t belong solely to the devout. The child’s words left her unable to move, unable to think. For a moment, she existed in a state of pure anguish, horror, and heartbreak for the child, and its mother. The newborn’s mother had been unable to protect it, or possibly had lost the love to protect it. She could imagine no worse tragedy than to have the love she felt for her boys snuffed out of her soul. She swallowed and found words. “It was a newborn,” she said, her voice icily calm even though inside she was screaming. “An innocent.”
“It was a parasite and unable to be useful,” the boy replied. “Now its body feeds the plants and it fulfills a necessary function.” He frowned. “Until we find a way to inhabit or eliminate the plants.”
The clammy claws of sweat chilled her skin, and she felt her pulse fluttering in her neck. The creature before her—no, not creature—was a boy. He’d been brainwashed by pirates; he’d had to turn off his emotions to survive. Hadn’t she read that was what happened with child rebels up in the mountains? How could she summon back his humanity?
“Do you have a name?” she asked the boy.
His brow furrowed. “No. Once, this body was called Will, but that consciousness has been absorbed by the great waters.” He lifted his chin. “You are Luddeccean. You would call it holy water.”
Alexis took a deep breath. Something niggled at the back of her consciousness. “No, no, I wouldn’t call anything that killed newborns or enslaved children holy, Will.”
“You would be wrong,” he replied.
He was brainwashed. Her chest constricted. He was innocent even if he did her captors’ biddings. Alexis leaned forward so her eyes were at his level. “You must be very frightened,” she said.
He tilted his head. “Why?” And then he walked away. She watched him, stunned. He went a few pallets down, sat, and stared at nothing.
/> Alexis straightened slowly. Be strong. Be angry before being afraid, Alexis, she told herself.
She went back to sit on her mat. She almost resumed her former position but thinking of how similar it was to the posture of her silent companions, changed her mind. Instead, she began stretching, slowly, one muscle at a time, starting with her smallest toe. She had progressed to her hamstrings when she heard heavy, irregular footfalls and raucous male laughter. She should have been afraid, and she was, but the laughter, no matter how loud and ribald, was a relief after the inhuman silence of the warehouse’s other occupants.
They were not inhuman; they were prisoners, many of them children, she reminded herself.
Before the men reached her room, she pulled herself up into cross legged position and gripped the chain that bound her ankle, giving it slack. It was the only thing she had to use as a weapon. She hadn’t fought a man physically since…well, ever…but she had wrestled with her brother when she was a child. She might lose, but she would fight. Her face crumpled for a moment, but then she schooled it to a scowl.
A man appeared at the boundary between partitions. His dark hair hung in greasy locks, he was semi-shaven, and wore a mishmash of clothing. His shirt was iridescent, like the Galactican fabrics she’d seen at the Tudor party. The rest of his clothing looked like lizzar leather. He smiled at her, revealing missing front teeth. “Well, look, you’re awake. Good, I like it when a woman can scream.”
He took a step toward her, undoing his belt buckle. Alexis wanted to say something cutting, but she couldn’t think of anything except how angry she was. He was such a vile, disgusting creature. Her mouth tasted like metal, and her grip on the chain tightened. She wanted so much to wrap it around his neck, she found herself rising to her knees. Maybe she could lure him in with pretend acquiescence and then do it? She was weaker; she couldn’t afford a fair fight.
“Easy, Molest,” said another man, appearing behind the first, putting a hand on the other man’s shoulder and drawing him back. “You know the rules.” The second man was more powerfully built, but older, with graying hair at his temples and a face liberally crisscrossed with exploded capillaries.
“Aww…come on, General!” the first man whined. “She’s the prettiest one here.”
“We touch her, we don’t get paid,” said the general.
Paid? Were they demanding ransom? She felt a shiver. Her father had wasted most of her mother’s inheritance. She bit her lip; but certainly, Alaric’s and her extended family would come to her rescue…wouldn’t they?
The older man continued, “Go play with one of the others, Molest.” He tilted his head toward the other prisoners.
The man who might have been Molest shuddered. “No way. I might get what they got in my pecker.”
“Would make my job easier,” the older man replied.
“Fuck you, General,” Molest said and stormed away.
Alexis heard Will say, “Molest, would you like some water?” There was a smack, the sound of ceramic breaking, and a thud of a body falling on stones. Alexis’s confidence briefly faltered.
Not seeming insulted by Molest’s insubordination, or the boy’s punishment, “General” surveyed Alexis, a smirk on his lips. Eyes catching on the chain in her hand, he chuckled.
Alexis drew herself up and snarled, “My husband is Captain Alaric Darmadi of the Luddeccean Guard. You will return me to Luddeccea or he will destroy you.” Saying the words made her almost believe them.
General snorted. “I’m sure he would…But we’re on a planet that ain’t even on the maps, Republic or Luddie. He ain’t never going to find us, sister.”
He left her without a backward glance, his pace unhurried and completely unworried.
Alexis swallowed.
Outside she heard Will say, “Would you like some water, General?” and another smack.
Her stomach roiled at the general’s easy confidence—or Will’s strange persistence, she wasn’t sure.
She might never be found. She thought of Will’s empty eyes. Even if she was found, she might be lost.
They might not be able to find Alexis.
As 6T9 and Carl scanned the moons, 6T9 knew, logically, that their search had a greater than 50 percent chance of failure. Still, it was also logical to search for the most probable locales for the pirate hideout before searching the improbable ones. But if they didn’t find them here, the odds of finding them anywhere diminished dramatically. They could be on one of the moons around O8—the gas giant the New Fargo colony orbited. But that seemed unlikely. New Fargo was base for all the mining operations around O8. Not only was most of the Luddeccean Guard there dealing with the siege—and according to intel Kenji had shared, searching the local moons—there were also all the miners living on the fifteen moons. The miners depended on the Luddeccean Guard for grain and would report any oddities out of necessity.
The pirates could be headed for the Kanakah Cloud, though. The ship was capable of lightspeed and capable of carrying just enough provisions to make the trip. There would be Republic ships searching for them when they arrived, but the Cloud was vast, and parts of it were still uncharted. The pirates could slip through the porous net of Galactic Republic surveillance. If the pirates reached the Cloud, Alexis and the other humans had a high likelihood of death or slavery. There were four children including Markus among them. His circuits dimmed.
Volka had curled up on the floor near him and fallen asleep. His hand drifted toward her. He craved the stimulation of his tactile sensors that running his hands between her ears would bring. He needed to relight his circuits—
“Ahem.” His ether connection lit up with Carl’s thoughts. Pausing, 6T9 turned to the werfle.
Carl’s bottom four feet were facing Sundancer’s bow, but he’d twisted his body around so that his snout was facing 6T9. “What are your intentions toward Volka?” Carl asked silently across the ether.
6T9’s circuits relit in a flash of anger. Through the ether, he responded, “My intentions? I was just going to—” He almost said, “Pet her,” but his Q-comm caught on the sexual connotations of the word “pet.”
Carl’s thoughts came over the ether in a sigh. “I mean in general. Her species pair bonds.”
Carl knew what had happened between them, 6T9 realized. The little weasel was telepathic. Staring down at his hand, 6T9 replied, “My default setting is not monogamy.”
“And you can’t flip the switch?” Carl asked.
6T9 wondered how he knew about that but smiled wryly. “I can’t. I can’t own a sentient being. It violates my programming, so I can’t own myself.”
Rising to his hindmost paw pairs, Carl asked, “So, why not just hop bodies?”
6T9 flexed his hand and brushed his thumb against his fingers. There was memory in that small gesture, memory that belonged to the skin he lived in. “Will I be myself if I change my body?”
Carl’s shoulders fell—all eight that weren’t being used as legs. “I’m never completely the same. Each body has its own baggage…this one…” He shook his head. “But I do have memories of those I care about.”
6T9 tilted his head. “You’re with Volka, Sundancer, and me, not with Noa and James.” Whom he’d lived with for over a century in other forms.
Carl scratched behind an ear. “I still care about them…but, yes, you and Volka are closer to this body. However, if I’d gone directly to Noa, I’m sure I would be with her. I was ordered into this body by my species because you were my choice for first contact, and my choice won. Perhaps if you emerged in your new host near Volka, it would be the same?”
“I don’t know,” Sixty said. He rubbed his hand down his thigh with exactly the pressure his lover Eliza had liked. He glanced at Volka’s ears, curled back in sleep. His fingers remembered how soft they were. That’s why they’d reached out to touch her. How would he remember if he changed bodies? Would the memories be condensed to equations? Or would they be hazy like human dreams? If he changed bodies, wo
uld he still be drawn to Volka? The next body might not have full sexual functionality. It wouldn’t enjoy food; he’d have to get upgrades for that. Would it seem important to him?
“You could fix some things if you switched bodies,” Carl said, and 6T9’s attention snapped back to the werfle.
“My head tic is probably something I can fix in this one,” 6T9 replied.
Carl stood very still. “I was referring to your inability to kill.”
6T9’s head tic returned with a vengeance. “I…can’t…” Teeth rattling, he smacked a hand to the back of his neck. “Kill or cause harm, Carl.” His nostrils flared.
“You can’t or you won’t?” Carl asked.
“Do not even want to,” 6T9 hissed.
Carl’s whiskers twitched. After 3.1 seconds, he said, “So…If we don’t find Alexis, do you think Volka and Captain Darmadi will—”
6T9’s head jerked so violently to the side that he fell over. His body convulsed, and like at the Hotel No Weere, he couldn’t stop it. His teeth rattled, and a red warning light went off in the periphery of his vision. “Sixty!” Carl shouted, his necklace crackling.
One second, four, ten…and then through the clattering of his teeth and thud of his synthetic body on the floor, he heard Volka’s voice. “What’s going on?” And then panicked, “Sixty!” A second later, she was shouting, “Reboot! Reboot!” He felt her smaller hand in his own.
6T9 rebooted. When he came to, he was lying on his back. Instead of staring up at Volka, he was staring at Carl’s snout. “I’m sorry, Hatchling.” Carl’s voice became softer. “But you must change. It’s what living things do.”
“Do you know what’s bringing these malfunctions on Sixty?” Volka asked.
He rewound Carl’s words. If we don’t find Alexis…And smacked a hand to the back of his neck. “I can’t talk about it right now.” Or think about it without risk of bringing on another seizure.
Pulling Carl to his chest, he rose. Carl was warm and maybe even softer than Volka, but 6T9 was programmed not to enjoy contact with creatures who shed. Still, Carl didn’t repeat what had happened, and 6T9 didn’t set him down immediately. “Let’s resume our search.”