Black Hull (6 page)

“It’s quite edible,” XJ reassured.

“Who goes there?”

Footsteps came from the hall. Someone
approached them.

“Get down, quick,” XJ ordered. He tried
to squat, but his gyromotor whined in refusal. Into the bright steel pantry
strode a woman. Blonde hair framed her rigid face. Her nose was fierce, leading
to slender lips. Mick approved of the rest of her, and quietly forgot his
hunger at the sight of womanly curves.

“XJ—What have you done to Givering?”

“Forgive me Sera, I’ve killed him.”

“You’ve cut his cord again. Did you
steal an electrosplicer too?”

XJ guiltily stood to his full height and
unclipped a small ring from his wrist. He handed it to Sera.

“And who’s this?”

“Mick Compton, ma’am.”  

“Ma’am? I suppose I look wholesome to
you.”

“Meant no offense, it’s a custom from my
time.”

“Your time?”

“The thirtieth century.”

“Surely as mad as the robots,” she
muttered.

“I’m not mad, not by any stretch. I’m
trying to get home.”

“Where is home?”

“Earth.”

“Well good luck then—no one’s been there
in centuries. Something else concerns us.”

She doesn’t care that I’m from nine
hundred years ago. But Givering said it was year fourteen. So maybe I’m from
the future.
Mick’s
reason melted before his wakening gut:
She’s half-pretty, in a sargeantly
way. Karen wouldn’t like her.

Mick stepped forward to shake Sera’s
hand. She shook it.

“Glad to meet you, Mick. I hope XJ
hasn’t been too—trying.”

“No. He’s been a great deal of help. He
saved my life.”

“The anomaly?”

“That was me. My ship, the Crake.”

“I understand he also picked up a load of
cargo.”

“He did. I don’t know what use it will
be to me now that I can’t get back home.”

“Why is it that you can’t get home?”

“Well, as I’m slowly accepting, I’m
hundreds of years from my correct spacetime.”

“Solved easily enough.”

“It is?”

“Surely. What has he told you?”

XJ spun around in confusion, checking
his memory banks.

“I’ve only told him the truth—that
quantum tech is outlawed; we cannot use it,” XJ said.

“Yes XJ, but is anything we do in this
system legal?” she replied.

The droid didn’t respond. His eyes
dimmed.

“So, you’ll help me?” Mick asked.

“Your cargo is quite useful to all of
us. Magnadraw and Hoila ore. It will fetch a good price. Enough to get you
home.”

This is it! I’ll be famous, a hero, absolved
of sin—an anomaly, some vortex of spacetime, and me, returning with the deep
future, or past, or whatever the hell this is. And I’ll be home.

Mick’s face split with a smile.

“It’s not as easy as taking a cruiser,”
she said, eyeing his contorting visage.

“You tell me the plan, and I’m with you.
The how and what doesn’t concern me. My life was forfeit up until a minute ago.
In fact, XJ here was the only reason I was hanging in—he’s a funny guy.”

XJ turned his head and attempted a smile
of his own.

“Thanks Mick,” XJ said.

Sera turned, paused some place between
speaking and moving. Finally she committed to the former:

“I’ll have to fix Givering first. Give
me some time. Eat up, the food’s fine.”

Sera strode out of the pantry. Mick turned
back to the crumbling powder on the counter below him. He sniffed it once more,
decided it wasn’t Lysol after all, and nibbled on a wafer. XJ steamed beside
him, eager to play chess.

“For a robot, you’re a son-of-a-bitch,”
said Givering. His barrel chest clanked against a rod jutting from the wall of
the starport office. The pink atmosphere was near to black, and the distant
mountains had become pointed silhouette apparitions of their day-glazed beauty.

“You curse your own kind, GR,” XJ said.

“Call me Givering, it is my rightful
name.”

“Quiet GR,” said Sera.

Mick eyed the party before him. Sera
seemed put-together enough: her clothing was professional—not an outfit he’d
ever seen, but military in appearance, which reassured him of her wherewithal.
The droids were another matter: XJ was mad, archaic, and full of faulty
information. Givering was a dumb utility droid, not good for much beyond
managing starport docking maneuvers and hauling small cargo.

“So what’s the game plan?” Mick said. “How
do I get back home?”

“We go to Utopia,” interjected XJ.

“How I’ve longed to go there!” whirred
GR, as if the concept of the place just now reached him.

Are they both AM? Maybe I should ask. I
need to know who I can trust. The human.

“The game plan. I like your expression
Mick. You’re a good soldier, I can tell.”

Let her think I’m a soldier. What’s the
difference?

If I can time travel back, then maybe I
can get to the point before the assault. I don’t even need the money. I can get
back to when we first had the boys. Start over from there. All my mistakes,
learned from, distilled, guiding me into happiness. My Utopia. Who knew it took
time away from home to realize what home means? I did, though it hadn’t
mattered before now.

“He looks like a human. I’d almost say
he is one,” GR said.

“Don’t be silly GR, he’s one of those
new model cellbots,” XJ said.

“Quiet you two. We have to get the
Magnadraw and Hoila to market. Problem is, I lost my license to sell ore. I
know someone who will sell for us, but he’ll take a cut. We’ll still have
enough to T-jump you when and wherever you want. And I’ll have enough to get us
to Utopia,” Sera said.

“So there is a Utopia?” Mick asked.

“You’re damned right there is. And your
ore is the pay dirt we’ve been waiting for. I may be a bandit, a scoundrel, a
liar, and a thief, but I will help you.”

A liar and a thief, but with a
conscience? Human AM, or is something mixed with the air here?

“Fine to me. You all get to your Utopia,
and I get to mine.”

“There are not two Utopias, Mick,” XJ
informed.

“Oh yes there are, friend, yes there
are.”

Sera’s Cozon Light-class space ship
embarked under the morning glow of a chrysanthemum sun. Pink ice glittered,
melted, stretching into preorganic pools far below the smear of the Cozon’s ion
drive.

Mick walked into the dining hall. Sera
had slow-boiled some kind of onion-smelling soup. A large pot, lid ajar,
releasing heavy steam, filled the center of the table. Sera slid the lid off,
avoided a roll of hot smoke, then doled out thick globs. Each member of the
crew drew a bowl close. The droids stared at theirs, as if unsure as to why
they’d received a portion.

“Sorry—I forget,” said Sera.

“Oh, no problem. I still have a tongue
for human food,” GR replied. He slopped some of the food into his mouth,
grinded unnecessarily, then swallowed.

“How did you three wind up on Bessel 2?”
Mick asked.

“XJ’s my father,” she replied. “And GR
is my brother.”

“Your what?” spat Mick. Lumps of mystery
splattered the side of the pot.

“You’re preneurocopying, aren’t you?”
Sera asked.

“I guess I am. They’re the minds of your
brother and father?”

“They are. But they’re not the same. I
couldn’t afford the best job, or a good job.”

GR and XJ continued to eat, although Mick
had a suspicion XJ’s model wasn’t meant to consume organics, as steam rose from
several thin crevices in his neck.

“What’s a good job?” Mick asked.

“A top-rate neurocopy takes all the
memories, personality—the spirit of a person—and puts it in an expancapacitor
droid system. Expancapacitor systems ensure not only that all the original
essence of the person transfers successfully, but also that the essence can
continue to grow, store new memories, and retain a sense of identity.”

“And neither of them have that?”

“Far from it. An expancapacitor system,
full transfer and all, and then the body on top, costs more than the worth of
all of Bessel 2’s resources. Mind you, the parts don’t cost that, and the labor
doesn’t either. It’s set up that way, so that only the ones
they
want
can attain eternal life.”

“They?”

“The ones we are going to kill right
now.”

“Who are they?”

“People like me call them the
tricklers.”

“Tricklers?”

“They trickle their intelligence,
wealth, and overall command over others through their seat of power, generation
after generation. The immortals. Governors. If everyone could become immortal,
hell, there’d be a lot more chaos around the universe.”

“So we’ve got to kill one of these
things?”

“Sure do. You see, that’s why I need
you. You don’t have a plant.”

“A plant?”

“Everyone in the Messier 82 galaxy has
to have a plant. You can’t get in without one. It tracks your location from the
moment a crime is committed. Now look, I have no idea how you got here. The
anomaly—whatever it was—was the answer to our dreams. You don’t have a plant.
You’re untraceable.”

“So I have to kill one of them? Alone?”

“Sure. You didn’t think I was helping
you for no reason, did you? It won’t be hard without a plant. Getting an
expancapacitor rig is much easier accomplished by theft than by purchase. You
kill him. Lug the hardware in. And dad gets an expancapacitor.”

“What about your brother?”

“One at a time.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Mick said.

“Well you should—you’re frightening your
sons,” Karen replied.

“This guy has been in our fucking house
Karen!”

“I know that, but you can’t go after
him.”

“What do you want me to do? Call the
police? You think they’ll arrest him? Are you that stupid?”

“They have to. He broke in.”

“I’m done with this—I’m taking care of this
myself.”

“Don’t go Mick!” Karen sobbed. Her voice
trembled.

“Get the god damn kids to bed. Stop
crying. It’s always more of the same with you. He comes into my house? I’m
gonna snap his fucking neck.”

Mick stood up from the dining room
table; Karen grabbed his arm, crying into him.

“Get the hell off of me.”

He pushed her away and smacked her jaw.
She moaned and whimpered in spasms.

“You sleep with this guy, he’s in my
house, and you expect me do the right thing now? C’mon Karen. Go upstairs, take
care of your children.”

Mick picked up his plate and threw it
against the kitchen wall. A treble explosion, the china shattering, sent his
sons deeper into the wells of their waking nightmares, those that can only
possess the young and innocent.

The boys cried from atop the stairs.
They listened in darkness to the insanity below them. A void existed in which
they had no power: it was the rage of their father.

“You’ve been drinking…”

“I’ve been drinking? Were you drunk when
you fucked him?”

“Mick please!”

The front door slammed. Karen slumped
across the dining room table, and the children crawled forth from the abyss,
seeking to comfort her with their own sadness.