Darkness Rising Read online

  She turned to find Sixty, his metal skull still partially exposed, and a long cable twisting out of his neural port and into his shirt. Curled on 6T9’s right arm lay Carl Sagan, eyes closed. Sixty held up his free hand. “The ‘bots aren’t going to be intimate with those men. That would be completely against our programming.” He grimaced. “They’re just propositioning them. Repeatedly and annoyingly.”

  There was a smack and a moan of pleasure. Sixty’s face became hard. “I upped their masochism settings.”

  The little boy in Volka’s arms said, “You’re Android General 1! You told me Miss Volka would save me, and she did!”

  Sixty smiled at the boy and held out his arm. “You’re a little heavy for Volka, BOY4. Why don’t you come to me?”

  The boy’s arms and legs released from Volka’s neck and waist, and he threw himself onto 6T9’s left side. For the first time, Volka noticed that the synth skin was removed from the back of the boy’s head.

  6T9 closed his eyes, and the little boy murmured, “They tried to take out my Q-comm.”

  “You’re lucky yours is more firmly attached than mine,” Sixty replied. His eyes opened and locked with Volka’s over the boy’s shoulders.

  Volka’s eyes went to the sex ‘bots in the hold, all busy propositioning the pirates, and then they went back to the little boy. Her lip curled, and her hand tightened on the metal bone. “He isn’t a—”

  “He’s not a cybernetic consort,” Sixty said.

  Volka’s ears perked forward.

  The boy sniffed. “I’m not a cyborg! I’m an android.”

  “Yes,” said Sixty. To Volka, he said, “I extracted two stunners from the one you gave a concussion.” Volka blinked. Those would have been useful if she’d seen them.

  Sixty continued, “Well done. Now come.” Inclining his head toward a spiral staircase at the rear of the hold, he started off at a brisk pace and Volka jogged to keep up. The sound of slaps, punches, what may have been artificial hair being pulled out, and moans of pleasure echoed behind them. Pressing his face into Sixty’s shoulder as they climbed the stairs, the little boy said, “The bad men took away the memory of my human parents.”

  Human parents? Volka swallowed. Once she would have thought humans having an android child was aberrant…now, knowing she was unlikely to ever have a child of her own, she understood.

  “All my memories are…broken…I think Time Gate 4 defragged the server I was on,” the little boy said.

  Volka didn’t know what the last part of that meant, but standing two steps behind Sixty, Volka thought she saw his shoulders rise and fall in a sigh.

  The boy sniffed. “Will they remember me?”

  “They couldn’t have forgotten you,” Volka said assuredly. He was perfect and looking at him made her heart hurt. Thinking of what android-nappers might have done with him made a growl threaten to rise in her chest.

  Sixty glanced back at her, his expression unreadable, and then a door at the top of the stairs opened. An amply endowed woman with blonde hair stood before them. “Hello, Android General 1, Miss Volka, and BOY4!”

  Someone downstairs shouted, “32DD, don’t open the door for them, you dumb ‘bot!”

  “Come in,” 32DD said, stepping out of the way and gesturing a hand.

  “Lock it behind us, 32DD,” 6T9 commanded. “And don’t let anyone back in.”

  “Yes, Android General 1!” 32DD replied, beaming at him and Volka and performing a bouncy salute. The door whooshed shut just as Volka stepped through. Another ‘bot who looked just like 32DD was in the hallway beyond. She smiled and waved at them.

  “BOY4, you have to stay with the 32DDs while Volka and I go to the bridge,” Sixty said.

  “No, they’re not like us!” the boy cried. “Please take me with you!”

  Sixty whispered, “BOY4, the 32DDs aren’t like us, but you can trust them not to hurt you.”

  “Oh, no,” the 32DDs said, mouths forming tiny moues. “That would be against our programming.”

  The boy didn’t move.

  “BOY4,” Volka said, “We have to hurry if we’re going to contact your parents.”

  He met her eyes, and his lip quivered, but he released his hold on Sixty. Sixty placed him in the arms of one of the 32DDs and handed the unconscious Carl to the other. The second 32DD’s nose wrinkled. “It will shed on me.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Where is the nearest empty crew quarters?”

  One of the 32DDs pointed at a door not a meter away.

  “You have access?” 6T9 asked.

  “We have access to all the crew quarters,” said one of the 32DDs, giving him a wink.

  “Get inside, take the boy and the werfle, and do not come out until I order you to,” 6T9 commanded.

  “Yes, Android General 1!” the 32DDs replied, giving jiggly salutes. Only after they entered the chamber did Sixty speak. “Volka, I cannot access this ship’s ethernet.” He touched a square rectangle tucked into his shirt. “I’m only able to connect to the ‘bots via the local ethernet of this handheld.”

  Volka stared at him, not comprehending.

  Sixty put a hand on her arm. “We’re at lightspeed which means we’re difficult to track.”

  Pulling from her sci-fi paperback education, Volka said, “We’re probably going to rendezvous with someone who wouldn’t mind buying stolen sex ‘bots, ‘bots with Q-comms, or humans.”

  For a moment, she thought she saw an incongruous flicker of relief in Sixty’s expression, but then he just nodded. “There are two more men not in the cargo hold. One is guarding the bridge; the other is on the bridge.”

  “We have to go there now.”

  6T9 inclined his head toward a heavy door at the end of the hallway. “The first man is right through there…” He pointed to the wall opposite the door to the bridge. “This is not a part of the hull—the part of the ship that faces open space—he may use a phaser, Volka.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  He took a stunner from his belt and handed it to her, and then his hand fell on a phaser pistol he must have picked up from one of the pirates. Sixty’s head did its robotic tic. “When I think what he wanted to do to us and BOY4. My programming…” He winced, shook his head, and his hand slipped from the phaser. “I can’t kill, Volka.” He took out a stunner instead.

  She nodded, feeling every second like a weight on her chest. “Let’s do this.”

  Jogging to the door, they clung to opposite sides of the hall. Volka felt the prickle of sweat along her spine. She felt cold, and knew it wasn’t the temperature of the ship. Sundancer’s worry was an arrow of fear in her gut.

  She could do this, she reminded herself and Sundancer, and she felt some of the ship’s anxiety lift. Volka still had her metal bone, but she’d shoved it into her belt in favor of the stunner. A few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have been able to use the pistol with confidence. On Luddeccea, she and her mother had often hunted rats with small bows—weere weren’t allowed stunners or phasers. While hunting on the asteroid, she’d practiced using phaser weapons. The stance was completely different, but the principle was the same: pick your target, be calm and confident, mind your form. She willed her heart to slow.

  Volka stood with her back to the wall beside the left side of the door. 6T9 did the same on the other side and put his hand on a large button. Nothing happened.

  Inclining her head to his phaser pistol, she whispered, “Can we cut through with that?”

  “Yes, but I have a better idea,” 6T9 said, the eye that wasn’t exposed narrowing. He smiled grimly and whispered, “There’s a sex ‘bot on the other side.”

  His unexposed eye closed, and a moment later, the door slid open, and a light voice with a lilt said, “I’m just opening the door for Android General 1,” And suddenly Volka found herself staring at a ‘bot that looked like a youth, barely taller than her. His torso was bare and crisscrossed with scars and burn marks. It looked like half of one ear had been cut off. Machine part
s had been used as piercings in his remaining ear and the remnants of the other. Volka felt something within her change, all fear within her melting. The growl threatening to bloom from her chest came out.

  A gruff voice just out of Volka’s vision said, “Get out of the way, ‘bot!”

  The ‘bot stepped out of the way, and Volka swung into the doorway, stunner up and aimed where her ears told her the man’s face was. She fired. The man’s stun rifle clattered to the floor. He slumped, instantly unconscious, and she got a chance to look at him. He wore thick, segmented, black armor on his chest, legs, and arms, and a helmet. She wasn’t sure if she’d struck him anywhere else if the stun would have worked.

  The new ‘bot dropped into a crouch beside him. Volka averted her eyes. His back was a mess of scars that hurt to look at. Her gaze landed on Sixty. His focus was on the other ‘bot’s scarred back. His nostrils were flared, and his lips turned down. The Luddeccean priests said that machines couldn’t feel, but the look on his face was pure rage. 6T9’s head tic returned. “I am having trouble with my programming.” His head jerked to the side, the motion small, but noticeable. “I cannot think what I feel.” The new ‘bot exclaimed, “A direct stun to the head can be lethal.”

  “Give him mouth to mouth,” 6T9 said, staring at a second door beyond the unconscious guard. To Volka, he said, “The captain doesn’t allow ‘bots on the bridge.” Pulling the phaser from his belt, he muttered, “But I can hotwire this if we burn the panel away.” His head tic started again. “We have to convince the captain to turn the vessel around.” He touched the rectangular shape in his shirt. “Droid General 1 is only allowed to pilot the ship if the captain dies.”

  Volka’s ears went forward, and then back against her skull, as she imagined trying to reason with a slave trading captain, and what she would have to do to make a pirate captain see reason. For a moment, the idea of hurting the person who had kidnapped 6T9, BOY4, Carl, and her almost brought her joy, and then she remembered her former lover, Alaric, before he began officer’s training in the Luddeccean Guard. He hadn’t wanted to join but had been pushed by his family. “At least,” he had said nervously, “I won’t be in interrogations. They don’t let the officers perform torture. They say it’s bad for us psychologically.”

  Later, he’d tried to kill Volka and destroy Sixty, but he was above torture.

  She snarled. She would not be a torturer. Pointing at the rectangular shape beneath Sixty’s shirt, she asked, “You can pilot this thing with that?” It was only after the words came out that she realized she’d shouted them.

  “In the event the captain dies only. We must reason with him.” Sixty emphasized again and then aimed the phaser at the corner of the octagonal plate. He must have set it to low power because it didn’t blast through the metal. Instead, the plate curled upward and then popped off. Sixty reached in with one hand and Volka heard the sizzle as his synth skin burned. How to reason with a pirate captain? You couldn’t...not without threats of pain, pain that you’d have to demonstrate to be believed. Pain that Sixty couldn’t inflict, and for her own sanity she didn’t want to inflict. Something inside her changed as quickly as if a switch had been flicked. She became so calm she didn’t recognize herself.

  Moving to his side, she eyed the gap where the door would open. “Only open the door a few centis,” Volka said. Or another person who sounded like Volka said. This Volka wasn’t shouting. This Volka had a plan.

  “That’s a good idea,” Sixty said, shifting the phaser to the far side of his belt—if she asked for it, she knew he wouldn’t give it to her. It would violate his programming. Reaching into the open hole in the wall with both hands, Sixty winced. The hallway filled with the smell of burning plastic and chemicals as his synth skin sizzled.

  “Will you be able to close it fast?” Volka asked.

  “Yes,” 6T9 said, grimacing in what might have been the ‘bot equivalent of pain. He remained intent on what he was doing.

  Slipping the stunner into a spare pocket, Volka got down on one knee, the plan set.

  “Kneeling is a good idea,” 6T9 said. “You’ll be less likely to be shot. We’ll take a peek, get the lay of the land, come up with a plan…”

  Volka said nothing.

  “On three,” said Sixty. “One, two, three…”

  The door rumbled and opened a hands-breadth. Volka peered in. She saw a shadow silhouetted against a window filled with grayish light. The shadow looked more like a giant robot than human, and it clutched a phaser rifle—the captain must have been wearing some sort of armor.

  “Give up, Worm,” said the shadow. “I know you can’t kill.”

  Its voice was female, and for a moment, Volka found herself angrier than she would have been at a man. Women were supposed to stick together! She tamped down her anger and focused on the window with the gray light. From her paperback education, she’d gleaned it was “the light of God from the beginning of the universe.” Alaric called it “radiation left over from the Big Bang. At lightspeed, it looks gray.”

  “Um,” gulped Sixty. “We might—”

  Reaching into the front of the coat, Volka pulled out the phaser pistol she’d stolen. Her form was rat piss-poor, but her target was large.

  “Go ahead, fire on me!” roared the woman. “This is a mech suit!”

  Volka fired. She missed the captain but not her target.

  Behind the captain, a crack spread across the window from the phaser’s point of impact like a frost spreading over a puddle.

  Roaring, the woman ran forward, metal armor thunking against the deck. Volka’s ears popped. An alarm blared, and the door shut. “I cannot open the door,” 6T9 said, hands back in the panel. “It is an emergency override in event of a breach.” His voice became softer and inflectionless. “You have most likely killed her. I did not expect you to do that, Volka.”

  Volka felt as emotionless as his voice, and she didn’t have the time or inclination to explain herself. He couldn’t kill, and she didn’t think he could have allowed her to kill, especially while the possibility of “negotiations” with the captain had been present. But that possibility had almost certainly been an impossibility. She put her ear to the airlock door, felt it vibrate, and what sounded like metal banging against metal in the distance.

  Springing up, Volka said, “She may be able to open the door. We have to get behind the next airlock.”

  Sixty continued to wrestle with the electronics inside the panel. She put her hand on his arm. He looked down at it and then up at her. “Or I’ll die, Sixty.”

  He dropped his hands from the panel. “I am programmed to save what life I can.” Grabbing Volka’s arm, he led her to the second airlock.

  “This human will die, too,” said the youth.

  6T9’s head tic resumed. “Move him!” he ordered.

  Lifting the pirate’s legs, the ‘bot pulled him after them. Volka looked over her shoulder and saw a dent forming at the edge of the door to the bridge. Her eyes went wide, there was a whoosh of air, another alarm sounded, and then the secondary door shut, and the alarms went silent.

  “We should get to where BOY4 is being held,” 6T9 said, pulling Volka along the corridor. “The captain may have magni-boots that would allow her to—” His head jerked back, and he halted. “Never mind. The captain is dead. I am in control of the ship now.”

  Fishing the rectangular device out of his shirt, he glanced up from the thing’s screen. “I don’t want to talk to the ship’s computer directly. I think the thing has to be crawling with viruses.” His expression was almost guilty.

  Volka shook her head. “I trust you on these matters, Sixty.” Her ears perked, and her stomach did a little somersault. Gazing down the corridor, Volka said, “I think Carl is awake. I’d like to check on him.” Sixty didn’t even like to kill rats, much less humans—even if they were trying to slag him. What must he be thinking of her now? Carl was a predator, and she suddenly needed to be with him. She was shaken by their adventure,
and her adrenaline was wearing off, but she didn’t really feel guilty. She felt relieved, like laughing. They were almost out of danger, they would go home, she would lope among the imported trees on the asteroid, stalking deer and rats and be content. She worried if she should feel guilty, or if 6T9 felt that she should.

  She began heading toward Carl Sagan, the werfle’s murmur of, “Oh, my head,” a sound in her heart, not her ears. Carl would understand and know what to say.

  Sixty called out to her, “Volka.”

  She turned.

  “Sundancer is off the portside,” Sixty said.

  Volka’s ears flicked, and she felt a sense of relief in her stomach that wasn’t her own. It was Sundancer’s. She smiled and tried to feel, Yes, we’re okay.

  She resumed walking down the hall.

  “Volka,” Sixty said.

  She turned again.

  “The captain...I wanted…” His tic returned, and he growled. Shaking his head as though he had a flea, he said, “I cannot think what I feel, Volka.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “But I trust you on these things.”

  Volka suddenly felt lighter. She bowed to Sixty, out of old habit.

  Lips quirking, Sixty said, “We’ll go back to Copernicus, and then home. I have a surprise for you.”

  Volka smiled at the thought of peace, quiet, rats, deer, Sixty, Carl, and maybe a Bengal tiger. Sixty’s eyes went to the rectangular device. “I’m being hailed by Copernicus Security. This may take some focus.”

  Pivoting on a heel, Volka felt at peace. Home would be enough of a present for her.

  4

  The General Returns

  In the cargo hold of the Copperhead, a member of Copernicus’s Security handed 6T9 the parcel he’d dropped. “Receipt chip says it’s yours. Wanna check it? If it’s damaged, we can impound it with the other evidence.” He gestured at the sex ‘bots milling about the hold. Some were in bad shape, thanks to 6T9’s brilliant plan. He knew they hadn’t minded…still...

  “Impounded,” Volka repeated, standing at his left holding BOY4’s hand, Carl sitting on her shoulder. Sixty peered into the cloth bag holding the parcel. Miraculously, it appeared undamaged.