by Mary E. Lowd
Clarity hadn't realized she'd been backing away from Gerangelo during his speech until she hit the edge of the open door squarely in the middle of her back. She didn't know the extent to which robots could feel emotions, but this particular robot was certainly acting like he felt them.
"Got it," Clarity said, trying to keep all emotion, especially any uncertainty she felt, out of her own voice. "You have nothing to worry about."
All the paperwork was signed, and she'd already been paid for this job, pocket change compared to what she could make if she stuck this out, but Irohann was right. This was sketchy. Gerangelo had nothing to worry about, because she was done. She'd made a little money and watched a bizarre drama unfold. She didn't want to know where the money had come from, and she didn't want to be swept into some black market robotic slave trade. That would definitely cross Irohann's line when it came to illegal dealings.
Clarity turned around and walked out of R4R, leaving Wisper behind. She'd find some other way to earn enough money to keep The Serendipity. Maybe she'd even put the 2,000 credits from Wisper aside, tucked away, in case anyone unsavory ever came looking for it.
4 A Picnic Lunch at the Grav-Bubble Playground
Wandering through the Merchant Quarter, Clarity wondered how many of the aliens she passed were actually robots with a mere biological veneer disguising mechanical insides. Instead of fleshy hearts pumping sticky blood, encaged in rows of bones, were they all filled with tangles of wire, flowing with electrons, encaged in skeletons of steel? Did it matter? Clarity had never thought much about robots before, but today, everyone she met seemed to be one. Or obsessed with building them, at the very least.
Clarity's pocket computer chimed, and she swore under her breath, expecting it to be Wisper pursuing her electronically. She pulled the computer out and was relieved to see a message from Irohann instead: "Grabbed some sandwiches from a Golan kiosk. If you're done chasing wild Aldebaran geese, meet me at the grav-bubble playground."
Clarity had half a mind to message back that she wasn't hungry, then to go home to her room on The Serendipity. She could scroll through the list of potential passengers and look for options less sketchy than Wisper. And also less well-paying.
Clarity hadn't been chasing geese. She'd been chasing robots. But if she had been chasing a goose, it was the mythical goose who laid golden eggs.
Clarity could picture lining geese up in the cargo hold of The Serendipity. They could become a livestock ship. Long rows of grassy nests, bristling with yellow straw. The geese inside of the nests squawking and stretching their long necks, pecking amiably at each other. And, hey, while she was imagining, why not have the geese lay hyper-crystal eggs instead of mere gold? None of the planets in the Aldebaran system hosted anything vaguely goose-like anyway, so her imaginary Aldebaran geese might as well lay eggs with the power to grant wishes by fragmenting the multi-verse.
But then, a whole row of geese laying hyper-crystal eggs was probably overkill. A single hyper-crystal would be worth enough to finance her and Irohann's travels for another couple of decades. Too bad hyper-crystals were a myth.
Clarity's feet carried her to the grav-bubble playground in spite of her best intentions to sulk and avoid Irohann. She knew he wouldn't gloat, but his tail would swish a little, giving him away, when she told him how ridiculous her morning's errand had been.
The grav-bubble playground was the brightly colored bubblegum gemstone set in the ring that was the Merchant's Quarter. Crossroads Station was ancient enough it had been designed to simulate gravity with centripetal forces. Each of its concentric rings was a spinning wheel, and centripetal forces still supplied the majority of the station's gravity. However, artificial gravity generators smoothed out some of the tricky, awkward bits between the rings—spokes and elevators that would have been zero gee when the station was first constructed didn't need to be anymore.
The grav-bubble playground was the cherry on top. It was whipped cream. It was sprinkles. It was everything fun and shiny that made children of all species squeal and giggle and shriek with joy.
A hemispherical artificial gravity generator in the middle of the playground was painted like a gas giant with swirling creamsicle clouds. It was about two meters across, and right now, a Heffen child was dancing on top of it, tail swishing, singing something about gaining superpowers from its supposed radiation. Another Heffen child and a reptilian one came running to squabble over the acclaimed position. They wanted super powers too.
All around the gravity generator, tiny spaceships of all different styles flew through the air on twisty, bendy tracks, chasing each other like bumper cars. Each ship was beautifully painted like a carousel horse with intricate details—a gold spaceship with curved wings was decorated with black-and-purple speckles like a nebula; a silver spaceship with the classic lines of an ancient Earth rocket was embellished with billowing puffs of smoke and touches of flame; and a cerulean ship with almost fish-like fins was adorned with aquamarine and turquoise bubbles.
The spaceship carousel was a beautiful structure, impeccably maintained. Clarity had seen it covered with graffiti at times, but today all the colors were bright and new. It must have been repainted recently.
What made the spaceship carousel especially exciting, of course, were the pockets of weird gravity along the track. Low gravity, zero gravity, sideways gravity, and even patches of alternating gravity. In addition to the carousel, a complicated jungle gym laced throughout the playground so children could climb through the pockets of weird gravity. Floating above the carousel and the jungle gym, there was a whole pocket of zero gee stretching up to the windowed ceiling. Children floated and swam through the air under windows filled with glittering stars.
Clarity had played on the playground a few times when she'd wandered the Merchant's Quarter during the station's simulated night—dim lights, fewer people around, and an empty playground while all the children slept in their quarters.
The bubbles of zero gee under the ceiling felt genuinely like floating through space, except she didn't have to wear a spacesuit. So even better.
Benches encircled the playground. Irohann sat on one behind the carousel, with sandwiches laid out on paper wrappings beside him. As Clarity got closer, she saw a blue-and-silver skeletal robot sitting with him. It looked exactly like Wisper.
Clarity looked back over her shoulder and stared at the crowd of Heffen and other aliens behind her. Reptiles, avians, mammals with all patterns of stripes and spots. Shaggy, short-furred, or smooth skinned like herself. But she hadn't seen any other robots like Wisper. Nothing metallic and obviously mechanical. Wisper's build, the Orion model, couldn't be too common if Clarity had never seen one before. What were the chances one would be talking to Irohann on the same day Wisper had given her the runaround?
Clarity's steps slowed down, but Irohan looked up and saw her in spite of the tiny spaceships flying between them. His long muzzle with the white splish of fur down his nose split in a grin and the tip of his tail flicked. Clarity's heart always melted when he looked happy to see her. It never got old, no matter how long they traveled together.
Clarity walked the rest of the way over, carefully ducking as a gunmetal gray spaceship zipped past, carrying an avian child boisterously flapping her wings.
Clarity pushed the sandwiches on the bench aside and sat down beside her best friend. She didn't deign to look at Wisper, instead focusing on the sandwiches. Two kinds—a spicy meat sandwich on puffy bread and a pocket of flatbread filled with savory bean paste. Irohann had already split each sandwich in half, so they could each try both of them.
Clarity picked up the bean paste sandwich first, and said casually, "I see you've met Wisper."
Wisper hummed, "After I regained consciousness from my memory upgrade, you were already gone. I couldn't find you in the crowds—"
"So you looked up Irohann," Clarity said, leaving out the words, because you knew I was done talking to you. "I get it, but I doubt he's any mo
re interested in working with you than I am at this point."
Irohann was too busy picking the gristliest bits of meat out of his spicy sandwich and wolfing them down like candy to participate in their conversation beyond a simple ear twitch.
"I couldn't explain my situation before," Wisper said, "because there was only space in this body for half of my personality. I left out many of the details of my own life when I uploaded into here, leaving myself with guidance for what I needed to do next and an extreme sense of urgency—nothing more. Now I'm all here—well, as much as I'll ever be—and I can answer your questions."
"You're all here," Clarity said, letting the meaning of the words sink in by feeling them roll over her tongue.
The Wisper she'd wheeled from one robot shop to another had only had half of her brain. Clarity couldn't imagine what it would be like to be missing half of her brain, trying to operate with only the right or the left lobe. Perhaps she should give Wisper another chance.
"Okay, first question," Clarity said. "Where did the money come from?"
Wisper intoned in her humming voice, "The money came from a grant to study a rare interaction between a black hole called the Devil's Radio and a pulsar named Merlin."
Clarity blinked. That answer wasn't anything like she'd expected. She'd been picturing stolen robots on the black market. She was afraid she'd inadvertently helped to steal one, and from the way Gerangelo had chewed her out, it sounded like she was participating in outright kidnapping and enslavement. "Okay... but you're not studying, what was it? Black holes and pulsars?"
"Actually, I am," Wisper said. Her glassy eyes were eerily blank except for Clarity's own reflection in them. Clarity's green hair looked garish next to Irohann's red fur in the tiny reflections. "Well, I was, but an unexpected electro-magnetic flare knocked my ship out. I was the onboard AI system, and I was able to transmit myself across space slightly before the EM-wave hit. After bouncing myself between various satellites and vessels, I managed to work my way here. But my team of scientists is waiting for me on a dead vessel. The backup life support systems will keep them alive, but they'll be stuck out there until I bring help."
"That's awful," Irohann said, trying to lick the spicy grease out of the fur around his mouth.
Clarity was suspicious—she wasn't sure they could trust this rogue AI-turned robot. "Why doesn't someone else help them?"
"Who do you have in mind?" Wisper asked.
Clarity hadn't known robots could be snarky. She was learning so much today. She took a bite of her bean paste sandwich and chewed it carefully, while also chewing over Wisper's story and thinking about the possible holes in it. "How about Wespirtech?" she asked, remembering the diploma on Maradia's wall.
Wisper's head turned slightly, and the reflection of the zipping bumper ships caused her glassy eyes to flash. "This was a small expedition. Wespirtech is a science institute, and I'm sure they'll be interested in our findings. But they're not in the business of rescuing other institutes' stranded researchers."
"So, what's the hurry?" Irohann interjected. He'd finished both his sandwiches and was eyeing Clarity's half. "Are your people dying?"
"Not if I get to them in time."
"450,000 credits is a lot of money," Clarity said.
"Not compared to the cost of a three-year scientific research mission."
Clarity couldn't argue with that. She had no idea what such a mission costed. She finished off her bean paste sandwich. She had to bat Irohann's paws away from her half of the spicy meat sandwich. Once it was safely in her hands, she said, "Your original message said something about unspecified cargo. I'd like you to do a little specifying."
"I can do better," Wisper said. "I can take you with me to meet them."
"Meet them?" Irohann said. He and Clarity exchanged a glance. "They're people?"
"Three crew members," Wisper answered. "I'll need their expertise when we get to my ship."
"Your ship?" Irohann had picked up the paper wrapping from the spicy meat sandwich and looked sorely tempted to lick the grease drippings off it.
"Yes, I have a more appropriate science vessel waiting for us at Eridani 7. You won't have to take us all the way to the Devil's Radio."
"Even so," Irohann said, giving up on the greasy scrap of paper. "Three passengers plus the three of us sounds kind of crowded for our ship. The Serendipity is only a Solar Class III vessel..."
"Could we have a moment to discuss this?" Clarity cut in before Wisper could say anything. "Alone?"
"Certainly," Wisper said. "I'll shut off my external sensory organs for five minutes. It'll be like I'm taking a nap. Feel free to say anything you desire, I won't hear or see anything." The metal irises spiraled shut over Wisper's eyes; her silver skull slumped forward; and her entire body emitted a soft whining hum like a computer powering down.
The change was subtle, but it seemed awfully dramatic to Clarity who had watched Wisper pretend to go in and out of consciousness for Maradia's benefit only an hour earlier.
Irohann poked his long nose up close to Wisper's metal face. His breath left a cloud of fog on her metal cheek where Maradia had left a handprint earlier. "Can we trust she's out?"
"I don't know," Clarity said. "But if she walked over to the other side of the playground, how would we know she wasn't using some ultrasonic super-hearing robot power?"
"Good point." Irohann leaned back. "So, why the word alone?"
"I don't trust this robot," Clarity said. "You didn't see what happened in the robot shop where I met her, but there's something very shady going down."
"Then it's easy. We don't work with her." He looked like he thought the matter was settled.
"It's a lot of money." Clarity narrowed her eyes, looking at Irohann closely. His red ears were perked, and his muzzle split in a half-grin. He was so hard to read at times. Other times he was obvious, like a dog with a wagging tail when he was happy to see her. But occassionally, he held his cards so close to his chest she didn't even realize he was keeping something from her.
Clarity tried to see a flicker of the person she'd first met, hidden inside those amber eyes. The first day he'd walked into the All Alien Cafe while she was tending bar, Irohann hadn't looked anything like he did now. Instead of a Heffen man, he'd been an amphibioid woman named Sloanee.
Sloanee and Clarity had instantly hit it off. It was like they'd been friends before they'd even met. Something in her bulging eyes had spoke to Clarity, and the still-teenaged human girl had poured her heart out to the older amphibioid woman. But Sloanee had been on the run. She'd committed treason against an empire of sentient plants called the Doraspians.
Clarity had been so young back then. She'd never heard of genies—people who genetically modified themselves to drastically alter their exterior phenotypes. Since then, she'd even been to a genie shop for herself. It had taken her ten years to build up the courage, but she'd gotten her hair modded green. There were photosynthetic cells in her hair now. She had more energy and had felt brighter, happier ever since she'd had the modding done. And she looked more worldly. And futuristic. At least, she'd thought so at first. Now she just felt like herself with green hair, like this was how she'd always been meant to look.
No one on the backwater planet she'd come from had gene-modded hair. A few animated tattoos were the most outlandish things anyone did to their bodies back there.
After Sloanee had had her body entirely reworked at the genie shop, with gene-tech that practically amounted to magic, Irohann had emerged. Frog had transformed to fox. Sometimes Clarity could still see the small slump-shouldered, bulgy-eyed frog-alien in the way Irohann moved or in something he said. Other times those first three days, decades ago, seemed like a dream. And yet, their entire friendship was built on that foundation. Deep inside, Clarity was a teenaged girl who'd run away from home, and Irohann was an older, wiser, more world-weary woman on the run. Clarity had been following that woman for most of her life.
Clarity and Sloanee ha
d known each other three days. That bond had held them together for decades. Clarity was the only thing Irohann had held on to from his former life; and Irohann had become the only constant in Clarity's life.
Except for The Serendipity.
Clarity and Irohann had lived together aboard that ship for years. It was the physical manifestation of their friendship, their lives together. She was not losing her ship, no matter how sketchy this robot seemed, no matter how much Irohann worried about his disguise being discovered by the Doraspians, even after all these years. Clarity was not losing her home. This time, she wouldn't follow Irohann's lead.
"It's a lot of money," she repeated, saying each word slowly, letting them feel hefty and powerful. "And we'll find a way to fit everyone onboard. Share rooms, throw a sleeping bag on the floor of the cargo bay, whatever we have to do. We can make it work."
Irohann skewed one red ear. He looked skeptical.
"If we're flying to Eridani 7, it's only for about six days. We'll make do. Then we get paid, and we're on our way to wherever you want to go."
Irohann made a huffing sound, and both triangular ears flicked back. But he didn't object.
Clarity didn't put her foot down often, so it had real power whenever she did.
Finally, Irohann nodded curtly while crumpling up the greasy sandwich wrappings into a crinkly ball. "We'll make it work," he agreed.
A few moments later, Wisper's body hummed back to life. She lifted her head, looking slightly dazed or confused, like someone who'd just woken from a vivid dream.
Clarity wasted no time. "Take me to meet our passengers," she said. "Irohann will go back to The Serendipity and ready her for our voyage."
Wisper's voice hummed electronically. "Then you've decided to work with me. I'm delighted." Wisper's face clearly wasn't designed to display emotion, but the irises over her eyes constricted slightly, and her metal jaw tilted in such a way that it almost looked like she was smiling.