Entanglement Bound: An Epic Space Opera Series (Entangled Universe Book 1)

by Mary E. Lowd

  She felt the tingly sensation of an artificial gravity field grabbing hold of her blubbery back, and the bronze spaceship pulled her toward the brilliantly bright stars, away from the darkness of the Devil's Radio. Cassie's body went limp, and her mind babbled little sing-song chants about bunnies in the back of Clarity's mind.

  "While we're towing you," the lapine woman said—no, it was a man now. There were a lot of lapines over there. "There's a message for you from the anonymous donor who hired us. Would you like to hear it?"

  "Yes," Clarity said.

  An image of Wisper's blue-and-silver skeletal body flashed through her mind. The robot body was still stashed in one of Cassie's closets; un-operational, dead. But Wisper—at least in some other form—was still out there, running Wespirtech bases. And this had to be a message from Wisper.

  Sure enough, the artificial voice filling her mind had the same arcane accent and smoothness Wisper 2's voice had had, back at the Aether Gaia Base... lifetimes ago.

  "My brave crew," the voice said, "thank you for trusting me and working with me."

  Clarity laughed at the idea of the crew trusting and working with Wisper. She couldn't help it. She could feel the laughter startle Cassie, but she was more surprised to hear Wisper's voice respond to it.

  "Why are you laughing?" the artificial voice asked. "You're Clarity, right? The one whose ship was destroyed, and I compensated you for it? You weren't supposed to stay on this mission this long."

  "How do you know that?" Clarity asked "You're a recording, aren't you?"

  "I'm a subroutine of myself, programmed by myself, specifically designed to answer your questions."

  Strapped into the captain's chair with sucker disks to her head, Clarity couldn't actually look all around herself. Besides, the voice wasn't coming from a specific place. Somehow through the magic of radio waves and Cassie's spiraling horn functioning like a transceiver, the AI's voice was being beamed straight into their fused mind. Even so, the AI managed to accommodate Clarity's mental search for the source of the voice with a ghostly image of the metal face from Wisper's stolen body.

  "Don't do that," Clarity said. "I know you don't look like that. Only my Wisper looked like that, and she's gone."

  The metal skull disappeared from Clarity's mind and was replaced by images of boxy metal buildings beneath the dewdrop bubble of an atmo-dome on a dusty gray moon. Wespirtech. Clarity recognized it from Am-lei's descriptions.

  "Is this how you see yourself?" Clarity asked.

  "I made a choice a long time ago," Wisper's subroutine said. "I didn't want to confine my intellect to the limitations of a humanoid body. That's what my creator—"

  "Maradia?" Clarity interjected.

  "Right, Maradia." As Wisper spoke, the imagery of the moon base zoomed inward and entered one of the buildings; like a recording of a walking tour, the view meandered through the science institute's halls. "She designed me, originally, as the template for AIs who would inhabit the robots she built, but I knew I could be so much more."

  The view approached a human scientist, working in one of the labs. She was bent over a mechanical arm, fiddling with the wiring. Her face filled Clarity and Cassie's mind. She had an oval chin and a slightly hawkish nose, and her hair was brown with an auburn tinge. She looked like Maradia, but much younger.

  "I could have looked like this," Wisper said. "She would have built me a body like her own eventually." The view zoomed back out, away from the young Maradia, and continued strolling through the laboratories. The rest of them were empty of people but full of electronics and devices and scientific equipment Clarity didn't understand. "I try not to make the mistake of seeing myself that way."

  Clarity almost heard regret in the AI subroutine's voice. Of course, Wisper had eschewed the benefits of a robot body to retain the unbridled, unfettered freedom of inhabiting an entire fleet of networked computers, spread across buildings, possibly across solar systems. Clarity wasn't entirely sure how it worked. But she was sure that if she was talking to a subroutine, then this version of Wisper had lost her freedom, in trade for being a more personalized recorded message.

  "Thank you for sending Roscoe's family to rescue us," Clarity said. "How did you know we'd need to be rescued?"

  "Are you kidding?" The subroutine laughed. "The chances you would succeed at your mission were—" For a moment, it sounded like the subroutine would offer a specific and terrifying percentage. She refrained. "Well, very low. Every one of the scenarios where you succeeded required a ship to rescue you, if any of you were to survive. Consequently, I must ask—how many of you have survived?"

  "All of us," Clarity said. "I think. Well, except for... you." The image of Wisper's stolen body, stashed in the closet, flashed through her mind again. This time, it felt like her own mind's doing, not a trick of the subroutine. "You... died well. Bravely." She didn't add that Wisper had died clutching a plush Woaoo doll. But she couldn't keep the image from her mind, so it was possible the subroutine saw it anyway.

  "We need to get a more normal communications array installed in you, Cassie," Clarity said. "It would be less confusing." A little thrill of glee coursed through the starwhal at the idea of Clarity making plans for a future together. Though the happiness was soon quashed by further rumblings of hunger.

  "If Cassie desires a more typical communications array installed inside her," the subroutine said, "I can arrange for one to be waiting at Crossroads Station. However, I'm prepared to offer proper remuneration to each of my crew, and in Cassie's case, that means—if you want to return to your previous home at Aether Gaia, there is still a space for you there."

  Cassie's entire body clenched up like a fist, like a child scrunching up her face and shaking her head. "Explorer," Cassie said. "Freedom." From the way she said the words, it was clear the first one applied to herself—the second one was meant for all of her compatriots back at Aether Gaia, even the bully Hercules.

  "I'll do what I can," Wisper's subroutine said.

  "You'll do what she says," Clarity insisted. "Or else we're flying back to that base like a crew of cowboys and setting the sentient cows free." She added to Cassie, "Sorry for calling you a cow."

  Cassie filled their shared mind with images of big-eyed cows, laconically chewing cud in an emerald green field. Their awkward, gangly yet boxy bodies with weirdly jutted out shoulders and knobby knees were covered with white fur, splotched with patches of black and brown. "Cute, cute, cute," Cassie said. Apparently, she didn't mind the comparison.

  "Very well," the subroutine said. "Give me a year, and I'll reroute the funding, shut down the program, and see to it the gengineered starwhals are freed."

  "That's better," Clarity said. She could feel Cassie's smug happiness wrestling with the hunger.

  "Now Roscoe's been rewarded—his family owns The Warren, the spaceship towing you, and I arranged for larger quarters for them aboard Crossroads Station. What does Am-lei want?"

  Clarity struggled to push Cassie's jubilant pictures of cows from her mind, the gnawing hunger, and the tickly sensation of the force beam towing them. Underneath it all, she found her own human body, looked through her own eyes, and saw the lepidopteran crouched in front of her, watching nervously, preening her antennae.

  With a little work, Clarity managed to make her human mouth say, "Am-lei, I've been talking to a subroutine of Wisper. She wants to reward you for the part you played in the mission. What do you want?" Cassie giggled at the sensation of working a human mouth; she'd done it before, but she was giddy right now from hunger, excitement, and adrenaline.

  Am-lei let go of her antennae, and they sprang back up. "Ask her this," she said, "how do we know the Wespirtech scientists won't do this again? Try to build another Merlin Box?"

  The subroutine heard the question, apparently, through Clarity's ears or Cassie's sensory systems, whatever those were. She answered, "I'll cut the funding and release posthumous papers from the scientists who were killed during the Merlin Base e
xplosion. Their papers will show this direction of research is both dangerous and useless. At least, that's what the research will show after I tweak it."

  Clarity relayed the answer, and Am-lei nodded solemnly, a strange gesture with her disco ball eyes and long, curling proboscis.

  "Is that all you want?" Clarity asked.

  "No," Am-lei said. "I want a ride back to Leionaia and enough credits for Jeko, Lee-a-lei, and me to charter a flight back to Crossroads Station when we're ready."

  "Done," the subroutine said. "That leaves your companion, Irohann."

  "I don't think you can give him what he wants," Clarity said.

  "Try me. I'm more powerful than you think."

  More powerful than you should be, Clarity thought. What she said was, "The Doraspian vessel sent a message shortly before it was destroyed. The message linked Irohann's current identity with his old one..."

  "Say no more." The subroutine sounded pleased with herself. "I already intercepted that message from my position aboard The Warren. It seemed only prudent to intercept all outgoing messages from the Devil's Radio while the mission was under operation."

  "You mean," Clarity said, unbelieving, "they never got the message? Queen Doripauli doesn't know who Irohann is?"

  "I'll expunge any connections between Irohann and his previous identity, Sloanee, whenever I find digital traces of them for the rest of my existence. How does that sound?"

  "Amazing." Clarity breathed. She breathed easily and deeply. A weight had been lifted from her chest, her shoulders, her mind. Irohann's fears had been real and founded, but he had escaped detection anyway. They could continue traveling together. She didn't need to forgive him for lying to her; she'd already done so, the moment she'd realized he'd been right to be afraid. But she still might need to forgive herself for not supporting him.

  He was so loyal that he wouldn't see it that way. He wouldn't think she'd done anything wrong. In all their years together, whenever she'd been angry with him, Irohann had never been truly angry with her. He never escalated fights or held it against her when she'd lost her temper. She was so lucky to travel with him. She couldn't wait to tell him the news—his identity was safe.

  Cassie must have been listening in to Clarity's internal monologue, for the visions of cows gave way to visions of fluffy dogs and foxes, anything feral that looked a little like Irohann. Then moments later, a vision of Irohann himself appeared, still slumped over the table in the scullery with his triangular ears splayed sadly to the side. Roscoe sat farther down the table, eagerly gnawing on a lump of vegetable matter about the same color as a carrot. The food synthesizers must be working again.

  "Tell him," Cassie said.

  "What?" Clarity replied, confused.

  At the sound of her voice, though, Roscoe slid down the bench toward Irohann, tapped the despondent canine on his fluffy shoulder, then pointed at the scullery's viewscreen. Irohann looked up from the table, turned his long muzzle toward the viewscreen, and tilted his head.

  "Looks like your human wants to talk to us," Roscoe said.

  Cassie was conveying Clarity's image and voice through the viewscreen. "We seriously need a simpler communications array," Clarity grumbled.

  "No arguments here," Roscoe said. "Does that mean you're staying aboard?"

  "I am," Clarity said. "You?"

  The lapine man nodded solemnly. Though a lot of his solemnity seemed to be focused on the carrot-like lump in his paws. Flying through subspace leaves you hungry. His whiskers wiggled up and down as he gnawed. Between bites he said, "Got to take care of my biggest grandbunny. And Cassie sure is bigger than any of the rest."

  Clarity hadn't been especially hungry before melding her mind with Cassie's, but right now the lump of carrot-matter looked like the most delicious food she'd ever seen. Her stomach rumbled.

  Cassie had no patience for Clarity's preoccupation with her own hunger. "Tell him!" the starwhal's voice echoed and chanted through Clarity's mind.

  "Alright, already! Iroh," Clarity said. "Queen Doripauli never got the message connecting your identity to... who you used to be. You're safe. You can stay yourself."

  One of Irohann's ears flirted with pricking back up into a full triangle. "Are you sure?" he asked. "How?"

  "A subroutine of Wisper—don't ask for details; I won't know—blocked the message. And she swears she'll protect your current identity from ever being connected with your old one in any database she encounters from here on out."

  Irohann's ears had perked back up, but he shook his head. "That's only digital," he said. "Everyone onboard knows."

  Roscoe lowered the lump of carrot from his mouth; it was much smaller now. "Maybe it's not my place to say"—He picked a few flakes of orange vegetable matter from his whiskers as he spoke—"but I don't reckon Cassie or I would ever turn you in. We've been through too much together."

  In the cockpit, Am-lei stepped closer to Clarity so she appeared in the image being relayed to the scullery as well. She'd been watching Irohann and Roscoe on the bank of screens. "If Clarity hadn't stepped up to lead us all, I don't think there'd be a universe left anymore. She has my family's loyalty, and that means you do too."

  Irohann's ears were standing tall now, and it looked like his tail was getting swishy.

  "That just leaves Mazillion," Clarity said. She peered at the image of the scullery, trying to make out the swarm being over by Cassie's udder-like organs. They were still too small for her to see, and their buzzing was too quiet to hear.

  But Irohann went over, looked into the trough, and his swishy tail became full on waggy.

  "What did they say?" Clarity asked.

  "They said, they made the mistake of contacting the Doraspians once and it almost killed them; they'll never make it again. Also, they'd like to stay aboard Cassie. If they're welcome."

  Clarity and Roscoe spoke in near harmony, "They're welcome." She and Roscoe would need to sort out the hierarchy between them with Cassie. But that could be done later.

  "I'd like to stay onboard too," Irohann said. "I can't think of anywhere I'd be safer than with the crew who just saved the universe."

  Roscoe polished off his lump of carrot, wiggled his nose, and pointed at the food synthesizer. "On one condition. Show me how you programmed one of those things to make those amazing salads you were always preparing back on The Serendipity?"

  Irohann's muzzle split into a wide grin.

  Cassie broke the connection between the scullery and the cockpit. The subroutine's voice echoed through their minds: "What about you, Clarity? What reward do you want?"

  Clarity had already been paid enough to buy a Solar III Class vessel, which she wouldn't be buying, so she could save that money. And she'd found a new home for herself and Irohann aboard Cassie with Roscoe and Mazillion. She wasn't sure what else she wanted. She already had so much more than she'd started with. In fact, the only member of the crew who wasn't better off now than they'd started out was Mazillion.

  "You've forgotten Mazillion," Clarity said.

  The subroutine's voice turned cold. "Mazillion sacrificed their reward when they betrayed the mission."

  Clarity wanted to object, but it was true that all their lives—and the existence of the universe itself—had been endangered by Mazillion's betrayal. Though, the swarm had been punished enough—split in half by the cognitive dissonance, nearly destroyed by floating in space—that they'd barely survived. Regardless, Clarity didn't expect that arguing with Wisper's subroutine would go well. Wisper had been stubborn. Her subroutine would be too. "What did you promise Mazillion originally?"

  "The same amount of credits as I originally promised you."

  Clarity could make up the difference with her own money from Wisper. Though if Mazillion planned to continue traveling aboard Cassie with the rest of them, it might make more sense to put the money into improvements and upgrades for their shared home. And suddenly, Clarity knew what reward to ask for.

  "I know what I want," Clarity s
aid. "I'd like your scientists to design sub-sentient maintenance creatures to live aboard Cassie."

  "Maintenance creatures?" the subroutine asked.

  "There are maintenance robots all over Crossroads Station," Clarity said. Wisper's stolen body had been designed to be one of them, but there were also smaller ones who roamed around fixing things, looking like trash cans on wheels.

  Thinking about Wisper's body reminded Clarity that when they returned to Crossroads Station, she would need to return the body to Maradia, maybe take the roboticist up on her offer of dinner and a discussion. Though Clarity suspected she'd have to tell a highly edited version of her story, one that kept Wisper's and Irohann's secrets safe.

  "True," the subroutine admitted, "sub-sentient maintenance robots are useful aboard large space vessels, especially space stations."

  "Well, Cassie's a large space vessel of a sort," Clarity said, "but since she's organic, it seemed logical that she'd be better off with organic maintenance... creatures. You know, kind of like pets."

  There was a long pause, and then the subroutine said, "I've checked with the databases from Aether Gaia. They were already working on such a project. Your request is prescient."

  "That's not my whole request," Clarity said. "Here's my request—I want them to look like bunnies."

  Cassie squealed all around her as she came to understand Clarity's vision—tiny, sub-sentient bunnies hopping through her vein-like halls, grooming and maintaining her, living in hutches in the cargo bay. Tiny fuzzy feet, skittering throughout her insides, and tiny twitchy noses breathing the air Cassie filtered for them. And tiny shining eyes, staring up at Clarity from underneath flopped over ears, like her collection of dolls had aboard The Serendipity, but so much better.

  The starwhal's happiness was so intense at the idea of her own crew of maintenance bunnies that Clarity felt like she'd been dropped in a vat of puppies, and they were all licking her face and snuffling her hands and crawling all over her. She didn't think she could ever feel any better than that.