by C. Gockel
Opening his eyes, he gazed at the floor. “Volka would never use me as a toy.”
Alexis’s face crumpled. Someone else who held that bitch in higher esteem than they did her. Before she knew what she’d done, she’d picked up the tea and thrown it at him. The porcelain cup hit his forehead and shattered on the floor an instant later. Steaming liquid ran in rivulets down his face.
“Leave,” she shouted.
Exhaling, sounding relieved, he took a step back, bowed quickly, and whispered, “Thank you.”
Without looking at her, he quickly left the room.
6T9 emerged from the quarantine zone, fully charged and glowing slightly from the two hours he’d spent being “cooked” to sterilize the interior of his artificial lungs and nasal, auditory, and oral cavities. The staff had asked him to stay aboard Time Gate 1 in case they needed further assistance.
The quarantine zone exited into the room where he and Volka had viewed Corporal Benjamin Moulton after the corporal had committed suicide to protect the galaxy from the Dark. Volka had broken down in tears at the sight of the body and had pressed herself into 6T9’s arms.
In the present, 6T9’s hand smoothed the ashes in his coat pocket. He remembered Eliza’s death in perfect detail. Noa had held him after Eliza died—or he had held Noa. It had seemed at the time that her grief for her great aunt’s passing had been nearly as great as his own. Noa had been solid, warm, and alive, a reminder that his sensory systems were still working.
But had her grief been real? Had Volka’s been real? What was grief to a human? Was it truly love for the other person, or was it something more selfish? Noa had lost a rich aunt in Eliza, who—had Noa had offspring—would have been a backup caregiver in the event Noa died. Or, if Noa didn’t have offspring, Eliza would have at least been backup care for Noa’s sister’s and brother’s children, all of whom shared Noa’s DNA—and DNA was the only way humans could achieve immortality. Noa had perhaps only been grieved to know her line had slightly less chance of survival. DNA explained Volka’s grief, too. Ben had been romantically interested in Volka. He’d offered the chance of procreation and of immortality through the continuance of her genetic code. Maybe that was all.
Volka’s attraction to 6T9 in No Weere had been based on an immediate need. Any affection otherwise was an understanding that he would take care of her or any children she would have. He’d have to. His own programming wouldn’t allow him to do otherwise. Unlike Volka, whose programming allowed her to be merciless and deadly, even to children.
“We don’t want to be here.”
The voice was Alexis’s. It came from just above and behind 6T9’s left shoulder. For a fraction of a second, his Q-comm, distracted by his circuit dimming thoughts, was not able to piece together how she had gotten out of quarantine—or how her voice might be emanating from the ceiling. He turned around, looked up sharply, and saw a speaker. His Q-comm engaged on the problem, and milliseconds later, he realized she was talking to herself within the confines of the quarantine, and her voice was coming through the speaker. His Q-comm also caught on the anomaly of the pronoun “we.” A slip of the tongue, or the onset of the Dark’s infection? He was standing just to the left of the window. Unable to see into her rooms, concerned that the infection had begun, he moved to the window between the viewing room and her. Alexis was pacing back and forth, but at sight of him, she stopped. Turning to face the window, she said, “What are you staring at, Android?”
6T9’s Q-comm fired rapidly. Tilting his head, he said in his dom voice, “I’m not sure. Am I staring at Alexis Darmadi or something else?”
Alexis smiled. “You are a clever toy. We will still kill you, just as we promised we would do on S33O4.”
The Dark was already in her mind. With a thought, he accessed the ether and her vitals. She had a low-grade fever. If the disease progressed as expected, it would soon hover above 40.55 centigrade. The Republic doctors weren’t going to administer fever reducers as they had with Ben. She’d be uncomfortable and most likely delirious when her temperature rose. But for now, Alexis—or the creature inhabiting her—was lucid. And it spoke for all of the Dark. Lishi and his scholarly robotic team had given 6T9, Volka, Carl, and James a lecture on how ascribing human motivations to alien intelligence was foolhardy—but the Dark struck 6T9 as arrogant. And its arrogance struck him with inspiration. Stepping closer to the glass, in the same confident voice he’d just used, he said, “I don’t believe we met at S33O4. You don’t really remember what happened to the infected scientists there. You aren’t that powerful.”
Alexis laughed. “Remember those scientists? That was barely yesterday. I remember everything. Every time we brought your creature’s kind to the holy waters.”
“Your creature’s kind” made his Q-comm spark for a moment, and then he remembered Carl’s theory that the Dark regarded all people not part of it as one people.
Lifting his chin, 6T9 said, “Impossible.”
Alexis smirked. “To you, fool. I have a million years’ worth of memories.”
“Lizzar dung,” 6T9 said.
Alexis shrugged.
Q-comm firing white hot, 6T9 reached into the pocket opposite Eliza’s ashes and retrieved his tablet. Activating it with a thought, he used his eidetic memory to display the alien’s writing on the screen. “You have no idea what this is,” he said, pressing the screen to the glass.
“It’s the writing of the last group of your kind,” Alexis said.
6T9 raised an eyebrow and filled his voice with disbelief. “You overheard Volka, Carl, and I talking about them.” Not that he had spoken to Volka or Carl about the aliens in her presence. “You can’t even speak it.”
Rolling her eyes, Alexis said, “Well, since they didn’t speak, technically no.”
6T9 let his eyes widen in not fully feigned shock. She knew that much about them. With a shark-like smile, she said, “But I can translate it.” She began to speak, presumably translating the logographs—and 6T9’s eidetic memory recorded it all. By the movements of her eyes, he guessed she translated the entire screen, pausing once to say, “you modern things don’t have this concept—a single thought that expresses the biological need to explore” and “nor do you have quantum wave sensing organs atop your head—only nearly useless hair, though ears are handy.”
6T9’s Q-comm fired bright white. Were the “feathers” Volka and Carl had described really a telepathic organ?
Pulling back from the window, she arched an elegant eyebrow at him when she was done.
He wasn’t entirely sure she’d read the entire page, or if she’d started at the top or somewhere in the middle. There was a naughty schoolgirl and stern headmaster game that came with his original operating system, and despite the static crawling under his skin, 6T9 made a show of frowning and let one nostril flare. “You must have still been conscious when James read me that passage. You can’t read this.” Supplying another sample of the alien script, being sure it had many of the same characters so hopefully the team could match them, he held the tablet up again. “Try this.”
Rolling her eyes, she began again, supplying explanations for some of the symbols. “Moderns don’t have this—a tall, blooming plant with edible seeds—superior to your sunflowers” and “this is a colony ship the likes of which moderns never built—like the one you saw, the one your ancients never got to use, and I destroyed.”
It took 6T9 a few milliseconds to parse “your ancients” to the blue aliens. The Dark didn’t make a distinction; humans, aliens, simpler lifeforms—they were all hosts. Her eyes reached the bottom right of the screen. Without pulling the tablet to himself, he tabbed to a new “page.” Alexis continued to read, the arrogance leaving her tone, her cheeks becoming flushed.
Accessing her vitals, 6T9 realized her fever had increased to 38.05 C. It wasn’t dangerous yet, and he didn’t put the screen down. When her focus had reached halfway down the page, she stopped. She looked up at him with glassy eyes. “What is happeni
ng to me? Why can I read this?” Her eyes scanned the screen again, this time searchingly, as though she were lost.
Sensing her understanding was slipping away, 6T9 changed the screen to a single symbol. “What is this, Alexis?”
Her eyes grew very wide. “A spaceship…a colony ship…it was huge.”
He switched to another symbol. “And this?”
She put her hands to her mouth. “A vine…a climbing vine with bright orange gourds.”
He switched the screen again. “And this?”
“Blue people…with feathery hair.” Her eyes met his. “They’re all dead. It wants me. It wants all of us. It’s inside me.” She pressed her hands and forehead to the glass. “I want to see my boys again.”
He put one of his hands against hers, matching their fingers up through the glass. “Alexis, help me get you back to them. Help me understand what happened to the blue people so we can keep it from happening here. Read more to me while you still have a little of yourself.”
She stared at him for one minute and forty-five seconds. Her temperature crept up another .25 degrees. “Show me more,” she said. And so they flipped through individual symbols. She translated more, all selected from the screens she’d seen before, so Lishi and his team could use the individually translated symbols as guideposts. On the thirty-third symbol, Sixty said, “If we can only find some way to defend ourselves against it in these writings. Do you know, Alexis?”
Alexis stopped reading. Head bent, shoulders slumped, she began to laugh. “There is no defense against us! Fool!”
Over the ether, one of her doctor’s voice said, “Please stop provoking the patient, 6T9 unit.”
Alexis pulled back from the window. Her temperature was up another half degree. “I need to lie down,” she said, backing toward the bed. “I need to rest now.”
“We’ll fight it,” 6T9 said.
Sitting down on the bed, and then falling onto her side, Alexis met his gaze. “We won’t win.”
Her eyes closed. Stimulus removed; for a moment, 6T9’s circuits dimmed. But then his Q-comm sparked. His original programming—the programming that forced him to protect all life— took over. With a thought, he reached out to Time Gate 1 to dump her translations onto Lishi’s team’s shared server and to make sure it was relayed to them. The scene around him faded away, all he saw was gray, and then Time Gate 1’s voice rumbled through the emptiness. “I’ve been relaying your intel since the moment you showed her the tablet. Lishi and his team are already well on their way to translating over three million words of discovered text. You’ve done well, General.”
For a millisecond, 6T9 was stunned. And then he was angry. “Generals kill people,” 6T9 roared into the mindscape. “I don’t want to ever…”
The mindscape vanished. He was staring at his reflection in the glass that separated him from quarantine. Alexis was asleep on the bed. His teeth rattled, which was when he realized his head tic had returned.
Snapping his hand behind his neck, he stabilized his head. Doctors and nurses in full hazmat suits padded behind him on their way into the quarantine. Two approached the window near him and studied Alexis through the glass but neither addressed him. 6T9 felt unhelpful, unneeded, and unwanted, sensations that started dismal if-then loops in his sex ‘bot operating system. And then a light lit in the periphery of his vision. He was no longer helpful here, but he’d been requested elsewhere. Without a word, he left the room.
Volka sat on the edge of the bathtub in the Diplomatic Corp’s Time Gate 1 residence. She was wrapped in an enormous, plush towel, but she still shivered. Staring at the floor, she slumped forward and saw children’s bodies spilled out in the moonlight, limbs akimbo, eyes empty.
Eyes bolting open, she gasped for breath.
Scratching at the door made her ears perk. Pterys fluttering in her stomach made her reach out to Sundancer. “I’m fine, just tired.” She couldn’t put any emotion behind it, though. She was tired because she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep because every time she closed her eyes the nightmare started again.
The sound of scratching at the door intensified.
Putting a hand to her forehead, Volka sighed. “Carl, I’m not dressed.”
His thoughts nudged hers. “You’re always furless to me; it’s just a matter of degree. Please let me in. You’re worrying me.”
She almost rose. But her gaze caught on her black toenails. Once a human child had told her that her dark nails made her look like a zombie. That memory dredged up memories of the camp. In her mind she saw the civilians marching toward her unarmed…She shook her head. No. She’d had to do it. It had been the only option.
But then she heard Sixty in her mind. “There has to have be a better way.” A rough breath exited her lungs.
The door’s lock clicked. It swung open, and Carl hopped in. Bounding into her lap, he began aggressively butting his head against her and purring madly. She sat unmoving. She wasn’t sure for how long. And then, putting him down, she went to grab the borrowed clothing hanging on the back of the door. She’d left her clothing behind in Sundancer when she’d donned the environmental suit. It had been burned by the hazmat crew. All she had now was a shapeless tunic and drawstring pants they’d loaned her. She pulled them on, though they were scratchy and uncomfortable, too large, and did nothing to ward off the chill. Leaving the bathroom, she entered the bedroom of her tiny suite…her prison, really. She’d been asked to confine herself here until further notice. The Diplomatic Corp and the Fleet weren’t thrilled with her leaving the embassy staff stranded on Luddeccea—even if she had saved Alexis, and even if the embassy was safe.
She looked at the bed. The covers were disturbed from where she’d tried to sleep before, but each time the nightmares had woken her. A vibration rippled through the time gate, or maybe she shivered again. She turned slowly around, not really seeing her room, just seeing how empty it was. Sixty’s voice played in her mind. “There has to be a better way.”
She’d fallen from his graces. What did it mean when you’d fallen from the favor of an angel?
Heavy familiar footsteps from the hallway made her spin. The entrance chime sounded. She exhaled. The chime was followed by hard knocking.
The door was ethernet activated.
“Bracelet,” she whispered. “Let him in.”
30
The Lovers
Galactic Republic: Time Gate 1
6T9 logged into the Time Gate 1’s Diplomatic Corp’s residence’s ether channel. He felt the rush of connection, and a further rush as the local computer verified he was also a guest. The door opened. Stepping past a bored looking guard, he downloaded Volka’s and his room codes. Into the ether, he called, “I’m here, weasel,” and entered the foyer, his steps hurried. He was finally answering Carl’s request for him to visit Volka. But even if the little weasel hadn’t requested his presence, he would be here anyway. Exiting the med center, two humans had tried to solicit sex with him. He’d told them he wasn’t a sex ‘bot, but they’d laughed and said of course he was, they recognized his model. He hadn’t wanted to have sex, he had wanted to stand by for any news from Lishi and the team. If it hadn’t been for Carl’s request that he come see Volka, and the importance of her mental health over their lust, he wouldn’t have been able to decline their amorous, straightforward, “Have sex with us in one of the mini-hotel cubicles over there. We’ll pay one hundred credits!”
With Carl and Volka, he could wait safely for Lishi’s check in. What did it mean that he felt safe with animals who could slaughter children and unarmed civilians? His Q-comm hummed with the simulations he’d been running since the encounter in the pirate camp. There had to have been a better way…
“Carl?” he called into the ether.
There was no response. 6T9 passed the formal reception areas, entered a hallway that led to the sleeping rooms, and halted in surprise. There were two Luddeccean Guardsmen outside Volka’s door. One was a male weere he didn’t recogniz
e, but the other was Davies, the man who’d saved Volka in the brig of the Merkabah. Davies was Captain Darmadi’s man. Darmadi was here. In Volka’s room. Static flushed beneath his skin. The child slayer and the man who nuked any of the remaining survivors. He supposed Darmadi and Volka belonged together. He was all for polygamy, but the hypocrisy in Volka’s and Darmadi’s situation made his circuits misfire—and all the jealousy! Volka growling at Alexis, Alexis calling Volka a weere bitch, and the captain’s anger at his wife being nursed by a sex ‘bot when the captain himself was involved with Volka. If they were civilized, they could just come around to an agreement where all their needs were met.
He almost turned around, but professionalism kept him going. The sex Darmadi and Volka were having was probably explosive; he should watch. He blinked. Usually, thoughts of Darmadi and Volka having sex brought on his head tic. Strange it didn’t now. Stranger still that the door was open... Had they taken to exhibitionism?
6T9 walked toward the door. Lifting a hand prohibitively, Davies shook his head in the negative.
Smirking, 6T9 stopped, but peeked over Davies’s shoulder. His smile melted, he backed away, and his tic returned with a vengeance.
Ducking her head, Volka whispered, “Bracelet, leave the door open,” as Alaric entered. He was wearing his dress greens, and somewhat incongruously, carrying Solomon on one arm. He set the werfle next to Carl on the bed, his eyes not leaving hers. Solomon chittered something, and Carl stood up on his hind paws and ruffled his belly fur. “I am not fat, Once-mother! This is fluff!” The two chittered to each other, and then slunk off into the hallway. She thought she heard Sixty out there, but when she looked past Alaric, all she saw was Davies’s back. Her ears twitched. Wishful thinking, or just sheer exhaustion? Swallowing, she met Alaric’s gaze and lifted her chin. “You shouldn’t be here.” Even if she was glad she wasn’t alone.