Muses of Terra (Codex Antonius Book 2) (24 page)

Ocella watched Kaeso, wondering if he would do to Claudia what he did to the Lucia-golem. She didn’t know if she could stop him, but she would if he tried. The Claudia standing before them could be a real person, or it could be a golem. They didn’t know.
 

But Kaeso’s rage dissipated as quickly as it had struck. He laughed, but the mirth did not reach his eyes. He started clapping at the ceiling and yelled, “So you can make a better golem than we can. Well done!”

Claudia stared at him for several moments and then asked Ocella, “What’s wrong with him?”

Ocella pulled Claudia to one side of the room as Kaeso continued clapping. Varo glanced at Ocella and nodded at her unspoken order to watch Kaeso. Varo would not likely stop Kaeso from attacking, considering the wounds she had just inflicted on him, but he could sound a warning while Ocella talked to Claudia.

“There’s more going on here than you know,” Ocella said. “There’s more to
him
, than you can imagine.”

“What’s to imagine?” she said bitterly. “He pretended he was dead. It killed my grandparents. They both died within a year after he disappeared. He’s a selfish bastard. And apparently insane.”

“Perhaps we all are right now. But you need to know why he thinks you’re not real.”

Ocella quickly told Claudia how the vessel had used Lucia to create a golem that it then sent to them. Claudia stared in shock at the golem body on the floor, as if seeing it for the first time.

“He thinks I’m a golem?” she said. “I’m
not
a golem.”
 

Ocella tried to soften her words. “But we don’t know that.”

Claudia threw up her hands. “Well I don’t know how to convince you then. I remember everything about my life, at least as much as any normal person can. Golems don’t have personalities.”

“Not golems created by humans. That one on the floor came to us in different iterations, and each one was better than the last. Perhaps they perfected their techniques with you.”

Claudia’s lips started quivering again. “I am Claudia Abiff. My husband is Abram and my son is Pullus. I know who I am. I am not a golem.”

Ocella glanced at the remains of the Lucia golem, then back to Claudia. “That golem also had Lucia’s memories.”

Claudia had been on the verge of sobbing, but anger seemed to win out again. Her emotional swings were much like Kaeso’s used to be.
 

“In the last few minutes,” Claudia said through gritted teeth, “I’ve been kidnapped by aliens and imprisoned on their starship
with my dead father
. That’s enough to drive the sanity out of any person. Now you want me to believe that I’m not really me, that I’m a golem with the memories of—” She turned to Ocella. “How do you know
you’re
not a golem?” She raised her voice. “How do
any
of you?”

Ocella didn’t know what to say. How could she prove she wasn’t a golem?

She looked at Varo, his face still covered in dark red blood. At least his nose seemed to have stopped bleeding.

Ocella bit her lip. She looked from the yellow fluid of the Lucia-golem on the floor to Varo’s red blood.

“There is one way to tell,” she said. She explained her idea to Claudia, who flinched.

Claudia swallowed once and then asked, “Do you have a knife?”

“No,” Ocella said. She looked at Claudia’s fingernails. They were well manicured, painted purple, and longer than Ocella’s short nails, which were trimmed to the skin. “You have beautiful nails.”

Claudia looked at them and sighed. “I’ve nicked myself with them before. They’re certainly sharp enough.”

Ocella nodded. “I’ll go first.”

She held out her forearm, and Claudia asked, “Where do you want me to…um, do it?”

“Anywhere but an artery.” Ocella grinned, trying to put Claudia at ease, but the Liberti woman only looked pale.
 

I don’t know if she’s a “Liberti woman” yet.

Claudia took hold of Ocella’s forearm, then dragged the nail of her index finger over an inch-long stretch on the top. The nail barely broke the top layer of skin.
 

“Not deep enough,” Ocella said.

Claudia winced, then dug deeper.

A line of red drops welled up from the scratch. Claudia and Ocella looked at each other, and Claudia said, “Congratulations.”

They went to Kaeso, who by now had sat on the gel bed with his shoulders slumped. Ocella was about to explain her idea to him, but he simply held his forearm out to Claudia without looking at her. She grabbed his forearm with more force than she had with Ocella. Her cut went longer and deeper than Ocella’s and had no trouble drawing bright red blood.

Claudia looked at Ocella. “My turn.”
 

Without hesitating, Claudia drew her nail across her own forearm. It took many agonizing seconds for the bright yellow drops to well up along the cut. It was more viscous than human blood, for it did not drip down Claudia’s arm like the cuts she’d made on Ocella and Kaeso.

Claudia stared at her arm with a blank expression. Her mouth opened and closed. “I can’t— How—?”

Her legs gave out, and she fell backwards onto the floor before Ocella could catch her. She stared at her forearm and tried to push herself along the floor with her feet, as if she could get away from her own arm.

“This is a dream. I’m going to wake up any second now. Any second now…” When her back met the wall on the other side of the room, she stopped pushing and stared at her arm.

Behind Ocella, Kaeso wept quietly.

Varo approached Ocella. “Gods, every time I think this can’t get worse...”

“I’m sorry I lost control earlier.”

“I lost it, too, Centuriae. At least you woke me up.” He grinned. Though it made his bloody face more hideous, Ocella felt better knowing that Varo wasn’t gone like Kaeso and Claudia.

Claudia. It wasn’t Claudia sitting in the corner. It was a golem, a biological machine constructed from the remains of the real Claudia, which the aliens had destroyed to assemble this one.

She could barely contain her rage at the aliens. They killed her niece! Ocella had not seen Claudia since she was a child, just before Ocella had ‘died’ to join Umbra. She remembered a precocious, talented, and beautiful little girl. She had followed Claudia’s singing career from afar and felt nothing but happiness that Claudia’s life had taken such a wonderful track.

It wasn’t fair that this woman had to die just because these godsdamned aliens wanted to experiment on Kaeso and Ocella. To create “witnesses”.

She had so many questions. How could they create this golem and make it so much like the original human? How did they even find her on a planet of three billion? Why did they create her in the first place and put her here?

But all those questions were irrelevant. The golem was here. They were here. The only question was what were they going to do? Were they going to sit around on the gel beds until they lost their minds?

Ocella glanced at the opening. It had not closed since they returned from their walk. Did the aliens want them to leave? Maybe so, and she was loath to do anything the aliens wanted. But sitting in this prison cell was slowly driving them all mad. If they left again, at least they would be moving. At least they would be doing something.
 

And if they were doing something, they might find a way to truly resist the aliens.

“We have to leave this room,” Ocella finally said.

Varo objected, “We tried that—”

“Then we try it again. It’s either that or we end up killing each other in here.”

He thought about it and then sighed. “Maybe we’ll find some ice for my nose.” His voice had taken on a nasal quality, and Ocella gave him a sympathetic smile.

He nodded to Kaeso and Claudia. “What about them?”

Kaeso had his head in his hands, and Claudia continued staring at the yellow golem blood on her arm. Ocella went to Kaeso, sat down next to him, and put an arm around his lower back.

“Are you up for another walk?” she asked.

He sat up straight and blinked the tears from his eyes. “Yes,” he said, then stood up and strode to the opening.
 

Claudia looked up at him as he passed her. “Father?”

Kaeso ignored her and left the room.

The sadness and rejection on her face broke Ocella’s heart. She was a golem…but from her perspective, she
was
Claudia Abiff. Ocella couldn’t imagine the horror and shock this golem must be feeling right now. It was still hard for Ocella to even imagine a golem could feel such things.

What would I have done if my scratch had oozed yellow?
 

Ocella stooped down next to Claudia. “Come with us.”

Claudia gave her a hopeless expression. “Why?”

“No matter what you are now,” Ocella said, “there’s still a bit of Claudia in you. Her memories are all there in your mind. We’ll be walking a long time, so I’d like to get to know you better.”

“Why would you care about me? You don’t know me. Or her.” She issued a shaky sigh.

Ocella opened her mouth, but then hesitated. Why was she so nervous about revealing her old name?
It’s just a golem, it’s not the real Claudia.
It was partly due to her Umbra conditioning to never reveal her old identity to the people she once knew. It was also her shame at abandoning Claudia as well. She and Claudia had never been particularly close, only seeing each other on holidays and the occasional visits. When they did see each other, they shared many laughs and played many games. Ocella liked to think she had been the “favorite aunt”.

So it may not have crushed Claudia when Ocella’s old self “died”, but considering little Claudia had just lost both parents within the span of two years, it could not have been easy.

But if the real Claudia was dead, this was the closest thing to that woman left in the universe.
Maybe I can find out what kind of woman my little niece has become.

Ocella held her hand out to Claudia, and she took it. Ocella helped her up.
 

“Let’s talk,” Ocella said, then guided Claudia out of the room.

27

Cordus strapped himself into the command couch and looked with annoyance at his tabulari. Its displays were dimmed, which meant he was locked out of all the ship’s controls. He glared at Aquilina in the pilot’s couch, and she gave him a sweet smile.
 

“I appreciate your help,” she said, “but I still don’t trust you. I will be running the delta systems on this trip.”

“You and your people watched Dariya, Daryush, and me the whole time we ran the delta diagnostics and quantum way line calibrations. You saw us enter the coordinates for Terra. What’s the problem?”

She gave him a wink. “Because you’re not only pretty, but you’re clever. I wouldn’t put it past you to try something.”

Cordus leaned back in his couch. “Fine, run the damned ship.”

“No need to pout, Antonius.”

Cordus shot her a glare. “We still have a bargain, right? We take Blaesus to a Terran hospital, then we get Kaeso and Ocella. Once they’re safe, you can call me whatever name you want. But until then, I am Titus Aemilius Cordus.”

“Peace, Titus, it was a slip of the tongue. Of course we still have a bargain.” She turned back to her pilot’s tabulari. “All crew in delta couches. Starting delta sleep now.”

The displays for all the crew couches turned yellow, indicating they were under delta sleep.

Aquilina turned to Cordus. “Good night,
Titus
.” She tapped the delta controls…

…and then Cordus opened his eyes. He looked at Aquilina in the pilot’s couch. She was asleep. He checked the delta readouts for the rest of the crew. All the Romans were still asleep, but Dariya, Daryush, and Blaesus were awake.

He tapped his collar com. “
Vacuna
crew, report.”

“‘Ush and I are here,” Dariya said over the com.

“Blaesus here, too, Centuriae,” the old Senator’s voice croaked. He then chuckled, which transformed into a raspy cough. “That was fun,” he said after his coughing subsided.

Cordus felt an emotional dagger against his heart. Blaesus needed true medical attention yesterday. But first, Cordus needed to secure the ship before he could get Blaesus to a medicus that wouldn’t arrest him on sight like they would on Terra.

“Good work, Blaesus,” Cordus said, unstrapping himself from the command couch. “They weren’t watching you after all.”

“One of the perks of being old and wounded,” Blaesus breathed. “Nobody thinks to monitor my systems access. Quite insulting, actually. Just because I’m the ship’s scholar, diplomat, and comedic relief, doesn’t mean I can’t reprogram a delta system.”

Aquilina and the Romans had indeed watched everything Cordus, Dariya, and Daryush did as they programmed the quantum way line engines for a jump to Terra. But they had ignored Blaesus, who seemed asleep the whole time.
 

Except for when he wasn’t and using the tabulari in the medical hatch to set a little trap for the Romans.
 

Cordus checked the star charts and smiled. They had not moved. The delta sleep systems had engaged, but Blaesus had set a hidden program to cancel the way line jump yet maintain the delta sleep for the Roman couches. Cordus hadn’t given the idea much chance for success, but it was the only thing he could come up with so quickly.

It was something Kaeso would have done, and Cordus allowed himself a moment of pride.

I’m going to find you, old man. You and Ocella. But only as centuriae of this ship. And then I’ll give her back to you.

Cordus bent over the sleeping Aquilina and entered coordinates to a Liberti mining colony in the outer reaches of the system. It was likely overrun with refugees by now, but it was an hour away at their ion engine’s top speed and their only option to get Blaesus the surgery he needed.
 

As soon as Cordus sent
Vacuna
on its way to the colony, Dariya’s voice came over the collar com.