by C. Gockel
“Yes, I should be,” Alaric said. They’d had the same exchange years ago when he’d found her curled up in the bathroom, cramping and bleeding. Sometimes, when Volka was really tired, she was telepathic. She was really tired now. His concern—no, his fear for her—rolled over her like a wave, and she broke down. All energy left her, she put her hands to her face, and she quietly began to sob. Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her, dropped his chin on her head, and gently rocked her.
She told him everything. At the end, she found herself repeating Sixty’s words. “There had to have been a better way.”
Clutching her by the shoulders, Alaric pushed her back, and his eerily pale gaze met hers. “No, Volka, there was no other way. Not in that moment. And you didn’t kill children. The children in those bodies were already dead.”
She scrunched her eyes shut. That was what she wanted to believe…But it was too convenient to believe that.
“Look at me, Volka.”
She opened her eyes. His gaze on her, jaw hard, he said, “That you have doubts speaks of your conscience, but you weren’t wrong in what you did. The only wrong is that you had to do it.”
She swallowed.
All hardness leaving his expression, he sighed and pulled her back into his arms. “Volka, I can live without you in my life, but I cannot bear to think of you not in this universe. You must move past this.” His arms tightened. “You must not harm yourself.”
Her breath hitched. He’d said what was at the back of her mind, a thought that had been lurking like a specter in the shadows of her consciousness. She’d wanted to die for what she’d done. “How did you…?”
“You must not harm yourself.” 6T9 heard Darmadi’s words in the hallway—just as he’d heard all of Darmadi’s and Volka’s words and Volka’s sobs—Davies scowling at him the whole while.
And he heard Volka’s response. “How did you…?”
6T9’s Q-comm finished Volka’s sentence. Know.
“It’s not uncommon,” the captain answered simply.
All of 6T9’s circuits went dark, except his Q-comm that began unhelpfully downloading suicide statistics for Fleet combat vets.
In the pirate camp, Volka had shot at children and unarmed civilians not because of her programming, but in defiance of her programming.
He swallowed. In all the simulations he was running, he hadn’t found a non-violent solution that would have worked in their circumstances. If they’d been able to summon the Luddeccean Guard immediately, things might have been different. If they’d waited for clearance to take Fleet Marines, it might have been avoided. But they hadn’t been able to summon the Guard immediately, and if they’d waited for Fleet Marines presence to be approved, Alexis’s infection would have been too advanced to treat.
And those options wouldn’t have even guaranteed non-violence…they just potentially limited the violence and possibly meant that Volka would not be the one committing that violence.
Volka had defied her programming because it had been the only solution besides surrender, and surrender wouldn’t have saved Alexis or the Republic-Luddeccean alliance. It might have even weakened the alliance further if the Guard had tracked down the pirates and Volka had been found among them, infected, and “in league” with them. Machines liked to think of themselves as more advanced, but Volka’s biological processor had seized upon that truth before 6T9 had.
She’d defied her programming at great personal cost, and every step of the way, he’d questioned her. He’d aimed a stunner at her. She hadn’t even been angry. She’d understood his programming better than he’d understood hers. His words might have been worse than the stunner, reinforcing her sense of failure in her inability to obey her own morality.
Static itched under his skin. He’d thought that his programming was less savage than humans’ more “flexible” biological “moral” programming. But maybe it just saved him from making hard decisions?
Bowing his head, he closed his eyes. His Q-comm sparked, and the dark of his eyelids changed to the gray of a mindscape. Time Gate 1’s voice rumbled in his consciousness. “The research team wishes to share their findings with you.”
6T9 didn’t give permission for Time Gate 1 to patch the team through, but a moment later he was staring at all six of the research ‘bots, all wearing avatars of their human forms. They stood in the gray ‘scape in a neat line, chins high, shoulders back. They’d brought avatars of their helper drones into the ‘scape too, and they hovered behind them in a gleaming golden chain.
“Where is he?” Lishi whispered.
“The general’s here,” said JackHAMR. “I felt a buzz.”
Which is when 6T9 realized he hadn’t assumed an avatar. He made himself visible in the mindscape, and Lishi, JackHAMR, and their companions snapped to attention. He’d wanted so much to hear what they had to say—but now his thoughts were on his failure to aid Volka.
“Android General 1, sir!” all the research ‘bots said in unison. The golden chain of their worker drones bobbed in the air as though bowing.
He wasn’t a general. Generals made hard choices.
In the real world and the mindscape, his hands made fists, but he didn’t have the energy to protest the title they’d given him.
He swallowed. Playing the part would be faster than protesting, and they might have intel that he could share with Volka and the Luddecceans. Also, it was in his programming to make them happy. Snapping his hands behind his back, lifting his chin, and falling into the role they’d picked for him, 6T9 said, “Report?”
JackHAMR stepped forward with another sharp salute. “Sir, yes, sir!” And then he frowned, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Your interface with the Dark enabled us to scan every line of script we have discovered.”
Lishi stepped forward. His avatar was his human form—a slender male with slightly mussed brown hair, a long thin nose, and high cheekbones who appeared to be in his mid thirties. He looked like he didn’t eat enough, which was intentional because, “scholars are too involved in a life of the mind to notice they are hungry.” Lishi had explained that while devouring a double portion of fish and chips covered in mayonnaise and brown sauce and washing it all down with two pints of Guinness. Lishi insisted worn coats were also scholarly. His avatar wore such a coat, complete with patched sleeves that were evident when he saluted again. “We’ve loosely translated it. Loosely. A lot of it is literature—”
“That we would like to study,” Jack said earnestly.
“—but we were looking specifically for any mention of defensive measures the aliens had taken against the Dark,” Lishi said.
“—or offensive maneuvers,” JackHAMR interjected.
Nodding, Lishi nervously slipped his hands into his coat pockets. “We also wanted to confirm the validity of Miss Volka and Mr. Sagan’s observations of the alien vessel.”
“We did confirm their observations,” JackHAMR interjected again. “All of it. They only had EM drives for propulsion, no time bands—they had no time gates or even lightspeed.”
Lishi’s hands rose, though they were still in his pockets. It gave 6T9 the impression of stunted wings. “They depended on what we’ve translated as ‘Universe Ships’ for faster-than-light travel…there’s a symbol between ‘Universe’ and ‘Ship’ when they are mentioned that we can’t comprehend, but it is obvious they were talking about Sundancer’s species.”
Jack put his hands behind his back. “They describe a fleet of ships that were telepathic, white, and shaped like your Sundancer.”
6T9 exhaled. Just as Volka had suspected, there had been more than one.
Lishi bowed his head. “Though they hadn’t seen any of her ship’s kind in generations. They hoped they would return. The ships seemed to have had a relationship with the aliens for many generations. The aliens feared they were destroyed by the Dark.”
Jack cleared his throat. “They built their colony ships to accommodate them.”
6T9 rolled on his fee
t; he had been right, too. The colony’s ship’s multiple airlocks were too perfectly designed to be accidental—and too expensive as feats of engineering to be for just one of Sundancer’s kind.
He shook it off. “They must have had a plan for defense of the World Sphere and the colony ship.”
Lishi’s and Jack’s gazes slid to one another.
“Spit it out,” said 6T9.
JackHAMR focused on him. “Sir, in all their literature there is no talk of warfare with the Dark—”
Lishi interjected, “No evidence of violence of any kind amongst themselves, either.”
Jack cleared his throat. “The colony ship wasn’t the only one of its kind. The aliens in the World Sphere knew the Dark was approaching them again…there are references to many colonies being subsumed. They were hoping to evacuate the sphere before it reached them and were in the process of building many such vessels.”
6T9 shook his head. “They must have had some sort of defense—the singularity beams…”
“For disposal of trash, and de-radiation of airlocks. That was the only reference we’ve found for their use,” Jack said. He frowned. “And before you ask, we haven’t found technical manuals yet. We know how important they are, and we are looking—”
6T9 cut him off with a movement of his hand. “The Dark used the singularity beam as a weapon in the battle of S33O4.”
JackHAMR shrugged. “The Dark used wildlife in the battle of S33O4.”
6T9 and Lishi both stared at him.
Lishi lifted his hands again, still not taking them out of his pockets. “I’m afraid I’m not catching your point, my friend.”
JackHAMR shrugged again. “The Dark seems to use everything as a weapon.”
6T9’s Q-comm sparked. It even used children.
“Of course, all this is preliminary,” Lishi said. “As James and Darmadi theorize, they could have had a warrior class, and all of the records of that could be classified…we just may not have discovered any evidence yet.”
If a species could be so violent as to use children as its weapons…couldn’t another species be completely non-violent? He remembered Volka describing Sundancer’s vision of the aliens—how she felt like Sundancer had felt it was essential that she see it. Maybe it was essential; maybe Sundancer had been warning them they couldn’t be passive. Maybe Sundancer had been trying to tell Volka, Carl, Solomon, and Alaric and through them, Luddeccea and the Republic, that they had to fight. Maybe Sundancer had shown them the most essential truth…they couldn’t just run away and survive.
Jack added, “Maybe this particular colony was non-violent, but others weren’t. There’s considerable variation among human societies.”
“And maybe we are completely misreading what we have discovered,” Lishi added.
6T9 didn’t think they had, not when he took into account the dream Sundancer had shared and the importance Volka felt it held. And hadn’t Dr. Khan, the research scientist infected by the Dark, commented that Volka had “become more primitive” when she’d nearly hit him? But 6T9 didn’t mention any of that. They should go forward with the presumption that they were wrong. That was still logical.
“We’ll continue the research,” Lishi assured 6T9.
Lishi’s and Jack’s avatars straightened and saluted. All the other researchers’ avatars did likewise. The drones bobbed their bow mid-air. 6T9 realized they were asking to be dismissed.
6T9 saluted them in return. “Good work, Machines. You are a credit to our kind.”
Lishi beamed. JackHAMR flushed. And then they, and the rest of their team, faded out. 6T9 was left staring in the gray of the mindscape. He blinked. And blinked again.
The mindscape was gone. He was back in the hallway outside Volka’s room. Davies was still blocking his way. He wasn’t armed. Security would have disarmed the Luddeccean Guardsmen. 6T9 had no doubt that if he attempted to enter Volka’s room, the man wouldn’t hesitate to use force—even though he probably thought 6T9 was stronger than him and could easily overpower him. Sometimes humans didn’t run even when it was the most logical thing to do. He thought of Volka giving away her home—of not retaliating against the weere woman who had squatted in it and claimed it as her own. Sometimes humans turned the other cheek. Sometimes humans killed.
Humans weren’t as violent as the Dark. Nor were they as passive as the aliens—and that might be the very thing that saved them. Humans’ natures were decisions—and 6T9 had blamed Volka for the hard decisions she’d had to make.
Would she ever want to see him again? She shouldn’t be alone, not now, after defying her programming. What if she had to make decisions like the one she’d faced in the pirate camp again? Would he fail her again?
6T9 took a step closer to her door. Davies stepped toward him, putting his hand on 6T9’s chest. 6T9 didn’t move any farther. He didn’t need to; he could see inside. Captain Darmadi and Volka weren’t having wild explosive sex.
It was much worse than that.
Volka finally went to sleep with Alaric sitting beside her. She was beneath the covers and he was above them, back against the headboard, long legs stretched out, still in his dress greens...his coat wet where she’d cried against him. Only their hands touched, fingers entwined. She wasn’t sure how long he stayed, but it seemed like it must have been hours, because every time she jerked awake with nightmares, he was still there.
She did whisper that he shouldn’t be there—in a dream or reality, she wasn’t sure. In a dream or reality, he had said, “I can’t get in worse trouble than I am already.” She’d looked up at him and seen the weight of a terrible secret looming over him, something horrible and tragic, something about Alexis that made Volka not envy her for all the universe. “You must tell her,” dream Volka had said. “Nothing will get better if she doesn’t trust you.” It was a strange thing to say to a married man sitting in her bed, even if the door was open.
Eventually, she fell into a deeper sleep without dreams of Alaric or otherwise.
When she woke up, the first thing she noticed was that the side of the bed where he’d been was cold. She tried to go back to sleep, immediately had a nightmare, and lurched up, her body chilled, heavy, and nauseous.
“Easy, Hatchling,” Carl said, hopping up from her feet, his necklace crackling. Sundancer sent her a tentative mental nudge that warmed her…a little. She sniffed…And smelled beef. She rolled over. There was a tray on the end table laden with hard-boiled eggs, elegantly arranged beef tartare with a few more hard-boiled eggs chopped on top, raw fish, a few carrots, and a bowl of watermelon and blueberries—vegetables and fruits that didn’t make her sick. There was also a sealed mug she’d guess from the scant fragrance emerging to be chicken broth.
Sitting just beyond the tray was Sixty. He wore hospital scrubs and was frowning. She looked down at the food. Surely his doing. “You didn’t have to do this,” she said. Maybe he had had to do it though; maybe it was just his programming. But would his programming have forced him to cut the carrots to look like roses?
“I wanted to do it,” 6T9 said. “Volka…” He took a deep breath. “I ran simulations…hundreds of them. There was no other way. If you hadn’t done what you did, you’d be infected now, I would probably be scrap, and the Luddeccean-Republic alliance would be endangered. I’m…I’m…sorry I could not help you. Sorry for the things I said.”
She could still see his stunner aimed at her. Could remember him reminding her she was shooting children and unarmed civilians, and that there had to be a better way. It still stung.
But then, he’d seen the worst of her nature—her programming—hadn’t he? And he hadn’t taken advantage, or been disgusted, or turned her away afterward. He’d sat beside her in the bathroom while she vomited and given her water.
He’d just been conforming to his nature. He couldn’t help it, just as she couldn’t help how she’d treated him in No Weere. She hadn’t slept with him. He hadn’t stunned her. Now he had made her breakfast. He couldn’t
kill or harm and he had to help where he could, but he didn’t have to make carrots look like roses. That was for their friendship. She nodded to herself. “Angels live by a higher standard.”
Sixty’s brow furrowed. “I think it’s more that I don’t have a processor honed by billions of years of evolution to have superior mammalian fight or flight responses.”
Carl coughed, and Sixty added, “Or werfilian responses.”
“We are superior,” Carl said, gazing at a claw. “In practically every way.”
Volka’s lips pursed. Sixty raised an eyebrow at the werfle. Clearing his throat, Sixty looked back at Volka. “You are the only human or android who has ever described my programming as angelic.” He swallowed. “I don’t deserve your high regard.”
Volka wanted to say something, but he tapped his temple and began to rise. “They’re calling me back to quarantine. Alexis’s fever has begun, along with the delusions.” He touched his cheek. “She’s helped with the translations—”
Volka took a breath. They’d succeeded at something.
Sixty continued, “But she’s become violent, and she’s scaring people.”
Volka’s lips parted in dismay—the fever, delusions—Volka had failed Mr. Darmadi, Alaric, and three little boys, whatever she thought of the woman herself.
“She’s sick…after everything?” Carl squeaked, his previous bravado gone.
“It’s expected,” Sixty said, looking over his shoulder as he walked to the door. “In the simulations, fever was essential to successful treatment.” He stopped. “Volka, the treatment and following quarantine will last weeks. I have to stay here—even if I would like to go back to Luddeccea with you. I know you’ll be needed there.”
He had to stay with Alexis. It was how he was made, but he wanted to go with her. She almost smiled. He was right, too. If it helped in the battle with the Dark, Volka would go back to Luddeccea and face the ambassador’s irritation alone…even if she’d rather be with him. “Thank you, Sixty. I understand.”