part0016

As James crept after Noa in the darkness of a small side street, he heard footsteps, the murmur of voices, and shouts from patrols. Closer to him, he heard Noa’s breathing. It was too loud and too fast. Still, she didn’t hesitate as she guided him around a corner. They were in a neighborhood a few kilometers beyond Port of Call. The buildings were still stucco, but they were surrounded by high- wrought iron fences covered with red-leaved ivy and bright white and yellow flowers. Most had at least one hover parked on the rooftop between solar cell wind turbines.

Noa reached a gate in a fence that looked no different from the rest. “There should be a buzzer … ” Noa muttered, gently probing among the flowering vines as Carl Sagan peeked out the neck of her shirt. A moment later, James heard the sound of a doorbell ringing in the home beyond. And then there was silence … for two minutes and forty-five seconds.

“This person—”

“How well do you know her?” James whispered.

“We’re practically family,” Noa whispered. “Great, great, great, great aunt thrice removed.”

The answer didn’t fill James with confidence. Fifty meters down the street there came the shout of a patrol.

“Could she have been arrested?” James asked as another precious thirty seconds went by. He scanned the small street for a manhole and saw none.

“She was one of the original settlers,” Noa whispered back. “They couldn’t have possibly arrested her.”

“One of the first settlers?” James protested. “But that would make her—”

“Really, really old,” Noa finished.

“And a fanatic!” James whispered back.

“Ahhhh … ” Noa winced. “No … sometimes we wished she were. She has some eccentricities … ”

“What kind of eccentricities?” James said.

Noa turned to him, her mouth opened, but before any sound came out a beam of light at the intersection caught James’s eye. Arm looping around Noa’s waist, he pressed her and himself into the ivy. Her dark eyes widened and met his.

“We can climb the fence,” James whispered.

Noa shook her head. “No, there are alarms. Would draw even more attention.”

At the intersection, someone called out, “I think I see someone! You there, show yourselves.”

“Nebulas,” Noa hissed.

“Fight or flight?” James said, hand tightening on her waist. Noa closed her eyes. A flashlight beam caressed the curve of her back just peeking out from the flowers and leaves. James ducked his head into the space of her shoulder and neck and breathed deep, his arm tightened around her.

Noa didn’t answer.

“You there,” the man called again. “I see you.” James could see the flashlight beam bouncing. He counted no fewer than six pairs of footsteps. He remembered the laser pistols of the Guard in the bar. At that thought, a red spotter beam grazed the ivy above Noa’s head and began to drop. James took a deep breath. He wanted to explode from his skin. He felt trapped in a nightmare, knowing what would happen and helpless to do anything about it. The tracer dropped to a centi from her head … and then there was a creak of metal and darkness came too quickly for James’s vision to adapt.

“Quick, inside,” a raspy voice whispered.

James blinked. The gate had opened between them and the approaching patrol, and a stooped figure was standing there, wobbling on a cane. He blinked again, and two exceptionally bright blue eyes came into focus. The eyes were situated in a face more wrinkled and worn than any he had ever seen.

“Halt!” cried the patrol officer. James heard the troops break into a run.

Before he could gather his wits, Noa pulled him through the gate into the garden between the ivy-covered fence and a lavender stucco home. The gate slammed behind them. From the house came the thunderous sound of a piano playing the opening to Carlos Chen’s Time Gate Ten Overture. Behind him, he heard the woman cry in a warbling voice, “Fluffy! Fluffy! Where are you!”

James blinked. He felt Noa lean against him, the barest soft touch of her breast against his upper arm, and the faintest brush of her breath against his ear. His body went warm, his vision lightened, and gravity seemed to dissipate. What was the reason for this sudden intimacy? It struck him that he didn’t care.

“Fluffy is a popular name for pets in our family,” Noa whispered and then pulled away from him.

The lightness in his vision dissipated, and his skin prickled with annoyance or disappointment, or both.

Grabbing his hand, Noa pulled him toward the house along a pathway of sparkling recycled glass beads. A patrol man outside the gate shouted, “Hands above your head!”

He heard the old woman cry, “Oh, Officers, thank goodness you’re here! Have you seen my cat?” His and Noa’s feet crunched slightly as they walked—no, stalked—but thankfully, the piano music covered the noise. On either side of them were walls of pink and lavender flowers as high as his head. They walked toward the steps of a back stoop encrusted with a blue mosaic set into white stone. A door atop the stoop was open to a kitchen from which the piano music poured, and warm yellow light glowed. Just before they reached the steps, a voice, young and male, whispered from the wall of flowers to their left. “This way, quickly. Eliza says they’ll ask to come inside next, and she doesn’t want us to be found.”

Noa dragged James in the direction of the voice down a path so narrow James wouldn’t have seen it if they hadn’t been right beside it. The path curved around to the side of the house. He quickly found himself staring over Noa’s shoulder into the darkness of a door, just slightly ajar. He was completely unable to see inside, although the tops of the flowers were well-lit by the kitchen light. Apparently, his augmented vision had trouble adjusting to sudden differences in brightness.

“Ma’am?” said another officer, less than five meters behind him just beyond the fence laden with ivy and head-high flowers.

“She’s a brown and black tortoise shell,” the old woman continued.

“I thought I saw someone hiding in the vines, Sir,” said the man who’d spotted them.

“Ohhh!” squealed the old woman. “That was her, that was her!”

“Are you sure, Ma’am?” said someone else just before James and Noa stooped to enter the darkened door. James’s vision slowly adjusted, and he found himself in what might have been a gardener’s shed, except it was set into the main building of the house. In front of him was a wall of old-fashioned pruning equipment, shovels and spades of every sort, rakes, gloves, aprons, and little houses he estimated were for the pteranodon-like creatures that flew in Luddeccea’s skies.

He heard the door click behind them, and the male voice said, “I’ll show you the way.”

James turned toward the man and his eyes went wide. Striding through the shed toward the wall of gardening supplies was a young man with Mediterranean features too symmetrical to be natural. He appeared to be wearing only a pink apron. The man strode by them … and … he was only wearing a pink apron.

Apparently unconcerned with his nudity, the man went to the wall and lifted a spade. The wall opened with a click. Turning to James and Noa, he beckoned with a hand and whispered, “This way, Noa.”

“I can barely see, Sixty,” Noa said.

“Oh, it is dark,” the man who was apparently “Sixty” answered. “But Eliza told me not to turn on the light until you were inside the safe room.” The man stood ramrod straight by the door without a word after that statement.

“Maybe if you gave me your hand, Sixty?” Noa suggested.

“Of course,” said Sixty, lifting an arm James could not help but notice was well-muscled.

James’s vision darkened. Guiding Noa past Sixty, he said, “I can see fine.”

Standing oddly still, Sixty didn’t put down his hand as James led Noa into the narrow half meter-by-three meter space beyond. It was completely devoid of furniture, and there were handles set into the white-painted walls at regular intervals. James drew up short, the compact space making his neurons and nanos pulse in alarm.

“What is it?” Noa whispered.

The door to the garden tool room shut, a light flicked on, and white flashed behind James’s eyes as they struggled to adjust. Noa’s hand dropped from his and he felt her spin around.

“Sound and light proof!” exclaimed Sixty.

James turned around, rapidly blinking his eyes. As his eyes recovered, he found Sixty standing not ten centis from Noa’s nose. The man was smiling brightly. Clutching the coat that contained Carl Sagan, now completely hidden in the folds of fabric, Noa stumbled back against James’s chest with a yelp. James put a hand on her shoulder, and he heard her swallow.

“I was going to say cramped,” James finished. He saw no sign of another exit.

“Please tell me you’re wearing more than an apron, Sixty,” Noa whined in a way quite unlike her.

“You know a lie would go against my programming,” Sixty said. “And I was cooking—I have a new cooking app. Of course I would be wearing an apron.” He looked up at James and held out his hand. “You haven’t introduced me to your companion.”

James stared down at the hand, an inkling beginning to form at the back of his mind.

Noa sighed. “James, this is Sixty—”

“6T9,” the man corrected. “The number, the letter, and the number again.” He smiled and winked.

James stared at the hand. The inkling in his mind became a 99.99% certainty.

“6T9,” Noa said. “This is James.”

“Hello, James,” said 6T9, hand still outstretched. Looking to Noa, he said, “Noa, are you and James in a mutually exclusive sexual relationship?”

James’s hand on Noa’s shoulder tightened. He almost said “Yes,” estimating it would end the line of questioning.

“Why are you asking?” Noa said.

Hand still outstretched, 6T9 said, “Because James is a fine specimen of the masculine gender. Sometimes Eliza likes it when I and—”

“Not interested.” The words spilled from James’s mouth in the same unconscious way he’d pulled the trigger in the forest, or kicked the man on the train.

Finally dropping his hand, 6T9 shrugged. “I have to ask. It’s part of my programming. Please do not take offense.”

“You are a … ” James could not bring himself to finish.

Noa sighed and rubbed her temples.

6T9 smiled. “A sex ‘bot. A very high-end one.” He winked again.

James echoed Noa’s sigh. Most ‘bots were designed with a function in mind, and being human-formed was rarely the most ideal for that function—whether it was cleaning a home, sailing through the clouds of gas giants, or doing archaeological digs. It took a lot of processing power to move like a human, smile like a human, and sound like a human when speaking. When you created a ‘bot that could do all those things, you didn’t leave a lot of room for processors that could do other things. Like thinking. Sex ‘bots were designed for their primary function, and that involved looking like a human. James had heard that they were very good at their primary function, but he hadn’t indulged. It was considered extremely gauche. However, it wasn’t just that. He remembered being really drunk and telling a friend, “Even when I’m this pissed, as soon as they open their mouths, I feel let down and annoyed.” He must have had some need to connect on an intellectual level ... His head jerked at the unconscious past tense. Not must have had. He was the same person, no matter how different that person sometimes felt. He looked at the vacant expression on the ‘bot’s face and felt a mild revulsion sparked by more than just his preference for women. Some things he still had in common with that other him.

6T9 lifted his head, as though hearing a far-off sound. “I am supposed to turn on the monitors to the rest of the house now.” He turned around, exposing his back side.

“Couldn’t you put on some clothes?” Noa groaned.

Grabbing a handle on the far wall, 6T9 looked over his shoulder. “You know I can wear clothes, Noa. And I am wearing an article of clothing.” The ‘bot’s head tilted. “Was that a rhetorical question?”

“It was a request,” James supplied, intensely irritated by the ‘bot after only a few minutes.

“Oh,” said 6T9, opening a cupboard and pulling out a hologlobe that had a tail of cords trailing from its underside into the wall. It was hardwired—of course, if the signal was transmitted wirelessly, it could be picked up with signal augmenters.

“I don’t have any other clothes down here,” 6T9 said. He turned around so only the front of his pink apron was showing and Noa muttered, “Thank you,” and wiped her eyes.

“Whatever for?” said 6T9, the hologlobe flickering to life in his hand. Neither Noa nor James bothered to answer. They both turned their attention to the globe. In it, James saw the old woman he’d briefly seen before, apparently in her kitchen. With her were two Luddeccean Guard members. The woman’s voice filled the room. “Would you boys like some fish stew?” James shifted agitatedly on his feet and looked up at the ceiling feeling as though it might fall on his head. She was suggesting they stay?

“Ma’am, we can’t have any when we are on duty,” said a man who appeared to have a lot of ribbons on his chest.

“But it smells delicious,” said the other.

6T9 smiled. “It is delicious. I have a fantastic cooking app.”

“Well, I’ll do anything to help the fellows who find my cat,” said the old woman.

“Why is she encouraging them to stay?” James asked.

“Where are the others?” asked Noa.

“Probably looking about the house,” said 6T9.

The globe flickered again, and James was staring at what appeared to be a sitting room. One trooper was staring at a chess set. It was set up on a coffee table next to an enormous blue couch draped with a knitted afghan. Pieces were arranged on the board as though it had been halted mid-game.

“Ma’am, is there someone else in the house?” one of the troopers asked.

“Oh, no,” Eliza’s replied wobbling over to the set on her cane. “I was playing with a friend on Earth over the ethernet.”

6T9 made a sound that sounded like a sigh. “I’m not a good enough player to offer her sufficient competition.”

“Shame about those aliens, I may never finish my game,” Eliza said breezily.

“Ma’am,” one of the Patrolmen said, “I hope you’ve turned off your neural net.”

“Turned it off?” said the old woman. “Son, I am one of the original settlers. I never fooled with any of that newfangled gadgetry! I chat with my Earth friends via holo chat.” She harrumphed, and the trooper actually tipped his helmet.

“Sorry, ma’am, just had to say so.”

“There were more troopers,” James said.

The globe flickered, and James was looking at two troopers in what looked to be a laundry room. “That’s just to your left,” said 6T9 cheerfully.

Before James could take a breath, the globe flickered again, and the gardening room came into view. There were two troopers in the room, stunners upraised. “And that,” said 6T9, “is the room to your right.”

“Shhhh … ” said Noa.

In the globe, one of the troopers approached the wall of equipment and reached toward the wall.

“Oh,” said 6T9, “perhaps they know we are here.” James glanced up at the ‘bot. His face was completely serene.

James’s eyes dropped back to the globe just in time to see the trooper’s fingers passing within inches of the spade. James found one of his hands balling into a fist, the other on Noa’s back.

Instead of picking up the spade, the trooper picked up one of the pteranodon houses. Stunner upraised in his opposite hand, he turned to his companion and said, “This is really well done.”

His companion shook his head and swung his flashlight beam around the room. “Don’t take granny’s ptery house.”

“I wasn’t going to,” the first protested.

“Come on,” said his companion. “There are still rooms to check upstairs.”

The globe flickered once more, and James saw four troopers in the kitchen around a table eating bowls of soup. “This is really good!” said one.

“Undisciplined.” Noa shook her head. “Eliza is still an old fox.”

“Oh, yes, she is,” said 6T9. “I call her my silver fox.”

“Please don’t tell me any more,” Noa said, throwing up a hand.

“That comment wasn’t gratuitous at all,” said 6T9.

“But you wander off on gratuitous tangents all the time,” Noa said. “And I’m trying to nip it in the bud.”

6T9 tilted his head. “I like to nip—”

“Shut up,” said Noa.

6T9’s mouth snapped shut, and James found himself unexpectedly feeling pity for the ‘bot. In the twenty-first century, humankind had hoped for so much from robots, androids, and AI—and feared so much, too. But that was before Moore’s Law ran smack into Moore’s Wall—significant improvements in computer processing power hadn’t been made in centuries. Instead, humankind had plugged into perhaps the most sophisticated processor in the universe with nanos and neural nets … their own minds. Augmented with nano storage, and apps for memorization tasks and computations, humans could do all the feats they’d imagined AIs would do. ‘Bots, on the other hand, seemed like simple humans.

A few breathless minutes later, in the hologlobe the Luddeccean patrolmen said goodbye to Eliza.

Her head bobbled, and she grinned and waved as they left—the perfect granny. As soon as she shut the door behind them, her demeanor changed completely. Her eyes went to slits. She looked directly up at one of the cameras and shook her cane.

“That is the sign for us to go up,” 6T9 said. Putting the hologlobe back in the cabinet, 6T9 jumped up, grabbed another handle set into the ceiling, and pulled. A chunk of the ceiling opened up and 6T9 pulled down a ladder. He was about to start up it when Noa said, “I’ll go first. I don’t need the view of your moon and saber.”

Lifting his chin, 6T9 smiled. “I know those metaphors. They have sexual overtones.”

From above came a cackle. “I quite like the view of your moon and saber, 6T9!”

6T9 pointed up. “Eliza quite likes my—”

“Shut up,” Noa grumbled, sliding by him, arms protectively around the still completely-hidden Carl Sagan.

6T9’s mouth snapped shut.

From above, Eliza said, “Noa, are you insulting the love of my life?”

6T9’s face went blank. He turned to James, and for just a moment James thought he saw a flicker of something—concern maybe?

But then 6T9 smiled at James. “Would you like a view of my moon and saber?”

“No,” said James.

“After you then,” said 6T9, holding up a hand, a pleasant smile on his face and all trace of concern gone.

For a moment, James froze. ‘Bots of all sorts could “feel” concern for matters within their primary function—James’s dig ‘bots “fretted” often enough about the proper force to use when clearing dust from artifacts—although “voiced concerns” was perhaps a better description than “fretted.” But what about Noa or Eliza’s statements could concern a sex ‘bot, James couldn’t imagine. Shaking his head, he hastily climbed up the ladder.

Noa ducked her head and crawled out of a narrow doorway into Eliza’s kitchen. She blinked back over her shoulder. The doorway was cleverly disguised as a kitchen cabinet. Scrambling to her feet, wobbling only a little in exhaustion, she smiled at Eliza, a snappy comment on 6T9’s nudity on her tongue. The comment died as she looked at Eliza for the first time in proper lighting. It had been only a few years since Noa had last visited her—but the woman seemed to have aged decades in that time. She was shorter, more stooped. Her hair, once steel gray, was now completely white, thin and wispy, and didn’t completely conceal her scalp—although Noa noted that the fine wisps were strategically collected with a colorful rose bloom pin right above the spot her data port would be. Her face seemed to have collapsed in on itself in wrinkles. Inwardly, Noa’s heart sank, but with some effort she was able to keep the smile on her face. Carl Sagan poked his nose out of the cocoon of her jacket. She stroked her fingers between his ears.

“So you’ve got a young man at last,” Eliza cackled, leaning on her cane. “About time.”

Noa scowled as the werfle ran up behind her shoulder. “I do not have a young man,” she hissed in irritation. Eliza had never remarried, and the implication that Noa was better off with a significant other was downright hypocritical.

“Really?” said Eliza, her voice wheezy, high, and chiding, an impish smile on her thin lips.

Before Noa could retort, James poked his head out and nodded politely up at Eliza.

The old woman’s eyes went wide, the chiding smile vanished. “He looks like—”

Tim. It wasn’t just Noa who saw the resemblance, and Noa wasn’t sure how that made her feel. She shook her head, to say, no, we’re not a couple , or no, don’t talk about Tim, please.

“Like who?” James asked, climbing to his feet and dusting himself off.

“Like he’s hungry!” Eliza said brightly, in true Luddeccean grandmotherly fashion. Noa nodded her head at Eliza in acknowledgment of the small mercy.

Thumping her cane, Eliza commanded, “6T9, get these people”—Carl Sagan chirped from Noa’s shoulder—“and their werfle some soup!”

Poking his head out of the cabinet door, 6T9 stared up at Carl Sagan. “That’s not a rat?”

Noa barely heard Eliza’s response. On shaky legs, she sank gratefully into a chair. Following her, Eliza said, “And while he’s doing that, I expect you to tell me all about how you came to be on the Luddeccean Most Wanted list.” Her voice lowered and her eyes narrowed sharply. “And then you can tell me why you need my help .” There was accusation in that voice, and oddly it made Noa smile with relief. As much as Eliza’s body had aged, her mind was still sharp.

An hour later, Noa was still at Eliza’s table, a half-eaten bowl of soup before her. 6T9’s cooking app was very good, but Noa was too anxious to finish. Next to her, James was on his third bowl. Carl Sagan was asleep by the stove. 6T9 had left the room to prepare rooms for James and Noa to sleep in.

Eliza was sitting in front of her, nervously playing with some beads around her neck. Her eyes were still bright and sharp—Noa’s relief at that was tempered by the fact that the more of her story she told, the deeper Eliza’s frown lines became.

“So,” Noa said, “I think at this point the best option is to bring in outside assistance.”

“The fastest any deep space vessel can reach the next time gate is 9.633 years,” Eliza said. She exhaled shakily.

Noa leaned back in her seat. She wasn’t sure how many details of the hidden time gate to reveal—she trusted Eliza, but good intentions weren’t enough to hide the truth if someone were to pry loose your neural net. And Eliza still had her neural net in place, that was for certain. Although Noa couldn’t see the port, the old woman’s observations were too precise to be anything but net enhancement. One of Eliza’s eyebrows rose. “And frankly my dear, I don’t think I’ll live that long.”

Before Noa’s brain and net had a chance to process that reply, 6T9 walked into the kitchen and interjected, “The doctor said you’re perfectly healthy. The cancer you had was completely eradicated by the immunotherapy and the plaques in your heart and brain were removed by nanos.”

“It isn’t my health I’m worried about, dear,” Eliza said.

6T9 came over to the table; it put his derriere closer than was comfortable to Noa’s nose. He’d thankfully put on a pair of boxer briefs beneath his apron—hot pink boxer briefs—but it was still disquieting. She found herself leaning away from him. Where he sat between Eliza and Noa, one of James’s eyebrows rose.

“If not your health, then what, darling?” 6T9 said, leaning over the table, putting a hand on Eliza’s shoulder. His expression was such a facsimile of human concern that Noa nearly shivered. She didn’t mind ‘bots that looked like ‘bots, but the ones that looked human and talked like humans made her uneasy. It was, as her military psyche training taught her, too easy to bond with a human-like ‘bot—a faulty glitch in the emotional centers of the human brain. For that reason, military ‘bots never looked human, so no commander ever felt guilty sending a drone on a self-destruct mission.

Eliza was silent. Noa’s eyebrows rose. 6T9 hadn’t heard her conversations, and Eliza hadn’t told 6T9 that possessing a ‘bot was illegal … If she had, 6T9 might have wiped his memory and turned himself in. Eliza was risking her life for a ‘bot … Noa rubbed her temples. If she didn’t need Eliza’s money, she might call her on it. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught James’s gaze on her, inscrutable, emotionless, and probably judgmental. She got the feeling he didn’t approve of 6T9. She wished she could reach him through the ethernet to reassure him that she didn’t approve of 6T9 either.

“You contributed to the premier’s campaign fund,” said 6T9, snapping Noa back to the present.

“What?” said Noa, eyes going wide in alarm. Apparently, Eliza had been discussing some politics with her ‘bot. James sat up straighter in his chair.

Waving a hand at Noa and James, Eliza said, “Don’t worry, I never supported his policies.”

“Then why did you fund him?” James said.

“Because he was going to win,” Eliza snapped.

“You said contributing to his campaign fund would protect you against vicious gossip and wagging tongues,” said 6T9. “That’s what you’re afraid of, right?” He shook his head and tsked. “You shouldn’t be. Gossip won’t kill.”

Noa sighed. Gossip was all the danger 6T9 could conceive of, she supposed. It was probably beyond his processing power to understand that they were in the midst of a genocide.

Turning to 6T9, voice soft, Eliza said, “My money won’t protect me anymore, dear.”

6T9’s head tilted to the side. “Why not?”

Eliza gave a wry smile. “Because I don’t think there will be any more elections.”

“But that is part of the charter, elections every six years,” 6T9 protested.

“They will change it,” said Eliza.

Next to her, James sighed and put down his spoon. “If history is any indication they’ll find a way.”

Noa took a deep breath. “Yep.”

Eyes glued to Eliza, 6T9 said, “I do not understand.”

“Don’t worry about it, darling,” said Eliza.

6T9’s expression softened immediately. “Okay.” He smiled a smile of utter peace and contentment—because an end to worry was simple as an order when you were a ‘bot.

Stroking her beads, Eliza said, “Why don’t you go upstairs, prepare some towels and clothes for Noa and James, too. You gave them separate rooms, right?”

6T9 nodded, and Eliza smiled brightly. “I’ll join you shortly.”

6T9’s smile dropped. Dipping his chin, he raised an eyebrow and then winked at Eliza, giving a look that Noa supposed would be “smoldering” … if you didn’t know it came from a ‘bot. She glanced between James’s light features, and 6T9’s more conventional tan skin and brown eyes. Both of them were two of the most beautiful examples of masculinity she’d been around in a while. And she wasn’t attracted to either of them, for very different reasons. She smiled bitterly to herself. It was unfair, but sadly convenient.

“I will be expecting you,” 6T9 said in a low voice.

Putting a hand to her chest, Eliza giggled like a schoolgirl. “Yes, sir.”

Noa rolled her eyes as 6T9 prowled out of the room. As soon as he was out of sight, Noa turned back to Eliza. “You see why this is so important, then.”

Looking at the table, Eliza fidgeted with her place mat. “Yes … but I must consider my options. 9.633 years … ”

“There is a faster way,” said Noa.

Eliza’s eyes narrowed. “You said you need money to help finance a mission … I know you have no ship, so you must be stealing one, and I don’t know how you can get by the grid … ”

“I have a plan. But the less you know the better.”

“So you say,” said Eliza, looking away. “To get past the blockade you’d need either a very big ship or a very small one, but a very small one wouldn’t last in deep space … a big ship … ” she rocked in her chair.

Eliza’s eyes slipped to James. He was dipping a roll in a plate of rinseed oil. It struck Noa that he looked too big for the tiny table, and just the simple act of dipping the bread seemed a feat of difficult maneuvering for his large frame.

“Are you privy to the whole plan?”

James put the bread down. “Yes.”

Noa prepared herself for Eliza to pry him for details, but instead she said, “What do you think of it?”

“That it is near suicidal,” James replied.

“And yet you are going along with it,” Eliza said. Her voice had become softer as the night had worn on. Her eyes were drooping. “May I ask why?”

One of James’s eyebrows rose as they did when he was telling a joke. “I’m still asking myself that.”

“You are a wry one,” Eliza chuckled. “And what is your answer?”

James was quiet for a long time. Noa found herself shifting in her seat.

“I am a hyper-augment … ” His head ticked, and straw-blonde hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it back. “I don’t have a lot of options, and … ” He looked at Noa, and then away and shrugged.

Eliza stared at a spot on the table between her and Noa. “This is a big decision for me.”

Noa’s jaw got hard. “So many lives are at stake, Eliza.” Kenji’s life was at stake. Her thumb went to the stumps of her fingers.

“Including my life,” the old woman said.

Noa sat back in her seat. “You’re a founder of the colony … surely if you just got rid of 6T9 … ”

Eliza’s nostrils flared.

Noa felt her skin heat in anger. “He is a ‘bot.”

“But I’m not,” Eliza said.

“Of course not,” Noa said, not sure where this was going.

Eliza’s eyes became pained. “You think he is just a sex toy, but he’s not. He’s my hands, my arms, my legs.” Her hand shook. “My body is falling apart, no one can fix that at this point; but my mind is still alive thanks to nanos and apps. Without 6T9, they’ll find some way to put me in a home. They don’t allow nano flushes or apps anymore.” Her eyes dropped. “I’ll become a vegetable.” For a moment it looked like Eliza might burst into tears.

Noa released a breath. “Eliza … ” She reached toward the old woman.

“And if I’m going to die,” Eliza said, “I want to be having as much sex as I can with the most beautiful man I can for as long I can.”

Eliza’s thin eyebrows waggled, and she giggled, her bony shoulders rising. “He really is excellent,” she whispered. “It took me centuries to get lovin’ like I’ve got now.”

From the doorway came 6T9’s voice. “Did you call me, Eliza?”

Eliza turned to him. “No, I … ” Her brow creased even more. “Actually, I think I could use your help getting up the stairs.”

6T9 strode into the kitchen, thankfully wearing pajama bottoms. “You know I live to sweep you off your feet.”

“Eliza … ” Noa said.

Eliza waved her hand. “You know where the spare rooms are … I’ll give you my answer in the morning. I need to sleep on it.”

Kneeling beside her, 6T9 said, “I hope you won’t sleep too much.”

Eliza waggled her eyebrows again and let him help her into his arms. “Oh, you … ” she giggled as 6T9 gently stood, nuzzling her neck as he carried her from the room.

Noa put her elbows on the table and stared at her bowl of half-eaten soup. She dropped her head in her hands.

“That sounded like a ‘probably not’?” James said.

Noa felt sick to her stomach. She was asking Eliza to give up more than a toy. She was asking her to give up her freedom, her independence … and her very life.

“What do we do now?”

Head still in her hands, Noa sighed. “Sleep, I guess.”

“I meant if she says no?”

Noa rubbed her eyes. “I have no idea.”

When Noa woke from a nightmare at 25:43 Luddeccean Time, even though James was dozing, he knew it. Since he’d awakened in the snow, he had been unable to truly sleep. His body was still, his eyes were closed, his breathing was slowed, his temperature was lower than normal, and memories were tripping through his mind in a semi-dreamlike way. At the same time his mind almost dreamed, there was, off in the corners of his neural net, a running inventory of what was still going on around him—minus vision, of course. At 01:00, Noa went downstairs and he heard her start to pace back and forth. That brought him out of his semi-conscious state. With his augmented hearing, even from the second floor he could hear her sigh.

He wasn’t really sleeping, anyway.

Sitting up, he shook off the last vestiges of his doze—an image of Ghost’s face flickering from a perfect hologram—and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Just before he stood up, he caught sight of the skin of his arms. He swallowed … and part of him registered that was a very peculiar reaction to unease. Was he trying to devour his disquiet? It didn’t work; the strange markings on his skin still had him on edge. Earlier when he’d taken a shower, the strange tattoos had risen in stark black relief on his skin. They hadn’t disappeared like they normally did; they’d only faded. He exhaled sharply. They always made him nervous, but they were too regular to be some nano-inspired tumor. He closed his eyes. He could do nothing about them right now. If they succeeded with Noa’s plan, on Earth he’d reunite with his parents. They could help him recover the memories locked away in his mind, explain the tattoos, and hopefully give him the ability to smile and frown again. James drew his hand across the slightly raised flesh of the designs. When they were faint, they looked less like a leaf pattern and more like ... feathers. The thought made him bolt up from the bed. He pulled on the long-sleeved train operator uniform shirt before he left the room to hide the tattoos—from either himself or Noa, he didn’t know which.

Minutes later, he found Noa in the room with the chess board. She was standing by a bookshelf, staring at a small glowing hologlobe. In it, many people, all facing the camera, were smiling back at her. As he padded forward, Noa jumped. Spinning in his direction, her body dropped to a semi-crouch, but then seemingly catching herself, she straightened. Wrapping her arms around herself, she asked, “Did I wake you?” Carl Sagan poked his bewhiskered nose out from between some books.

James shook his head. “I wasn’t really sleeping.” Which was the truth, if not the full extent of it. He walked toward the holo, and his head tilted. He saw Noa in the holo, near the front. She looked to be about twelve. An older man had his arm draped protectively over her shoulder, and the younger Noa had her own arm wrapped around a boy slightly shorter than her. Noa’s mouth was split in a wide grin. The boy wasn’t smiling, but he had one of Noa’s hands in his. No one in the holo shared Noa’s unique coloring, but … “They are your family,” he said. He could see Noa’s small, delicate, rounded nose on a man’s face, her wide lips on another woman, her brows on another, her high cheekbones on someone else. The boy she was next to in the holo looked like Noa, but he was tan instead of dark brown, his eyes were so light they were almost gold, and he had wavy hair instead of her tight curls.

Pointing to the boy, Noa said, “That is my brother, Kenji.” Her thumb caressed the place her missing fingers would have been. She bowed her head, touched the globe, and it went dark. She touched another globe, and it flickered to life, casting her profile in sharp relief. Like him, she’d taken a shower. She also must have cut her hair. It was now tight against her head and paradoxically looked thicker than before. The angle of the light emphasized the indentations of the scars on her cheek and forehead, but also her high cheekbones, her full lips, her wide eyes, and the overall smoothness of her dark skin—the way the bluish light caressed it, it looked almost like velvet.

“The older woman at the center, that is Eliza,” Noa said, pointing at the new holo. James followed her finger. In the holo, there was a man and a woman who both appeared to be about sixty, if they weren’t augmented. Around them stood eight younger men and women. There was something restrained in their expressions. They weren’t smiling as brightly as the people in the other holo.

“That is her late husband and children. It must have been taken about twenty years after the colony was founded.” Her brow furrowed. “Eliza had twelve kids … the original settlers favored big families.”

James stared at the globe. Sometimes a cold or flu swept across Earth. He’d even caught one that had kept him flat on his back for a week while the nanos cleaned him up, but he’d never known anyone who’d died in an epidemic. “There are eight in this holo … ”

“Yes,” Noa said. “Four more died in another epidemic. Her husband died, too. I think it must have been shortly after this holo was made—he was maybe forty-seven?”

“Forty-seven … but they look so much older than that in this holo.”

Noa shrugged. “Life was hard then.” She shook her head. “It was some sort of virus. Caused a disease like meningitis. He wouldn’t take a nano-treatment. Eliza and the children that survived did.” Noa’s brow furrowed. “I think that is when she started to reject the Luddeccean philosophy. She bought a lot of land after the virus wiped out half of the first, second, and third wave settlers. Sold it and used it to send her kids to Sol System for school. Three didn’t come back. The other—her last daughter—died a few years back.”

James drew closer to Noa. “Why didn’t Eliza leave?”

Noa sighed. “Probably because her descendants wouldn’t approve of 6T9.”

“You don’t seem to approve, either.” As he said the words, he thought he felt a gust of cold air sweep the room.

Gazing at the holo, Noa sighed, the light of the globe shining in her eyes. “I don’t normally approve of sex ‘bots, or animatronics, no. People become addicted to them, forget that they’re not human, give love and affection to machines that don’t care one way or another, and that are expensive and energy hogs to boot.”

“6T9 seems to care about Eliza … ” His voice trailed off. He wasn’t sure why he was playing devil’s advocate. And where was the cold air coming from? He looked over his shoulder at an air vent—but it wasn’t on.

Noa frowned. “It’s his programming to mimic emotions. It’s his programming to care about her feelings and her well being. But it isn’t real … ‘bots don’t care about anything, not really, not their owners or even themselves. He’d wipe his memory and shut himself down if he realized he was endangering her.”

James thought of contemplating leaving Noa to her fate in the forest. “You make ‘bots sound better than humans.”

Noa raised her eyes to his. “No, they’re not—they’re just programmed that way. To be afraid, to want to live, to want to avoid pain, and to do the right thing anyway, that is far more than any ‘bot can do or be.”

James felt as though gravity had lessened and the chill in the room had dissipated.

Noa looked down. “People who think they love ‘bots … well, real love is compromise and sacrifice and not always easy, but it makes you better because you have to be a better person. And having a person who loves you back … they’re doing more than following a script.” She looked away quickly. His eyes slipped down her body. She wore a pair of light coral silk pajamas. Designed for life near the equator, the top had no sleeves. The color contrasted sharply with her dark skin and it might have looked enticing on the Noa in his memory, but it made the hard angles of her emaciated body stand out even more. She wrapped her arms around herself again. James wanted to put an arm around her, but didn’t.

Noa sighed, walked over to the couch, and flopped down. “But in Eliza’s case … I don’t know.” Leaning her head against the back of the sofa, she put a hand on her forehead.

James sat down beside her. Leaning back as she was, he retrieved some data on sex ‘bots from his data archives. In the twenty-first century, there were some people who thought that sex ‘bots would replace fellow humans as the sexual partners of choice. The thinking went that their appearance could be perfect and their personalities could be “perfect” as well. But with nano technology and improvements in surgery, almost anyone could have the appearance they desired, at least until they reached an advanced age like Eliza’s, when systems broke down too fast for technology to keep up. The “perfect” personality varied with the individual, and ‘bots were limited in that regard, as Noa put it, to “scripts” that got old.

“Everyone deserves the chance to be loved,” Noa said, snapping him from his reverie. “Here on Luddeccea, it’s hard for older women. Love and sex are for marriage and children. It’s not uncommon for men past one hundred to marry girls in their twenties, or women with frozen eggs in their sixties who can still carry a baby to term.” Her brow furrowed. “When Eliza’s first husband died, she was too old, and didn’t have frozen eggs. She worked so hard to put her remaining kids through school away from this system, and her business was here and she was alone … I think … ” She shrugged. “There are extenuating circumstances, I suppose.”

Leaning back, James rolled his head toward her. Noa had curled into a ball at the corner of the couch. She closed her eyes. “I’m so hungry,” she said softly. “Do you have any of those soybeans you filched from the bar on you?”

“I gave those to Carl Sagan,” James said.

“Damn,” Noa said.

James tripped over a memory of himself as a young man staying at his grandparent’s condo in London. As his grandparents had retired, his grandfather had said, “Help yourself to anything if you’re hungry.”

He looked down at the pajamas Eliza had provided for him. “Noa,” he said. “Do you think Eliza would really mind if you helped yourself to some food?”

Noa was silent. James looked up and found her eyes wide, her lips parted. With his augmented vision he just barely made out the black H on her wrist. “No,” she said. “No, she wouldn’t mind.” She didn’t move from her seat. She looked distressed—and she was silent, which proved it. His mind was a maze of unanswered questions and locked doors, but his unknown couldn’t be worse than her known.

“Let me go make you something,” James said. He had fuzzy memories of cooking elaborate meals—he didn’t think he could recreate them. But following instructions on the back of a soup packet seemed possible. And he wouldn’t mind a snack himself.

Noa’s mouth dropped open again. Shaking her head, she looked away. “Sure, yes, thanks, that would be great.”

James left her there and padded into the kitchen. He found the small remainder of the admittedly excellent soup tucked in the refrigeration unit, still in a pot. Putting the pot on the gas stove, he struggled to turn it on—the electric spark would not light. And then he noticed a box of old-fashioned matches sitting off to the side. His eyebrows lifted. He looked at the stove and shook his head. The electronic spark must have been disabled with the ethernet shut down. He struck a match, turned on the gas, and watched the flame leap to life. Shaking out the match, he almost sighed. Welcome to 1984 … and then, at memory of that particular year, and the novel by Orwell of the same name, he almost smiled wryly. But of course the smile didn’t come.

Self-consciously touching the corner of his lips, he found a large spoon and begin to stir the pot as the soup slowly heated. Some of the soup splattered on his arm and he rolled up his sleeves. As the soup warmed, he began to notice the markings on the arm exposed to the steam becoming more prominent. Dropping the spoon, he pulled his hand away. He heard a shuffling noise, and turned to see Carl Sagan standing on his hind legs sniffing at the air, staring at James. He hastily rolled down his sleeves again.

Noa caressed the tiny hologlobe she’d found on the end table next to the couch. It fit easily in her palm and her fingers left streaks in the dusty surface. Light flickered from within the globe. James re-entered the room, bowls of soup in hand, and Carl Sagan followed in his wake. Perhaps enchanted by the fragrance of the soup, the werfle’s bewhiskered nose twitched as he sniffed.

“That looks to be old,” James said as the picture in the hologlobe emerged like a scene rising out of fog. It was one of the old globes that only had one holo in them, too. You could tell by the way the colors were muted. “What is it?” James asked.

Noa shook her head and put it on the coffee table in front of the couch, her mouth watering at the smell of soup.

As she took her first slurp, the sound in the globe crackled. “I met Jun at a transport station in Nigeria.” The ‘smoke’ in the globe solidified and a man and woman appeared. The man looked East Asian; the woman was African in appearance with skin as dark as Noa’s. She wore a Japanese yukata, but the bright yellow, blue, and geometric-patterned garment appeared to be cut from traditional Nigerian cloth. They both had sparkling augments in their temples smaller than modern ones, without all the external drives for app insertion.

Noa smiled. “That’s my great-great-great grandmother and grandfather! Eliza never knew them.” Her head tilted. “I wonder why Eliza has this?”

Noa traced the phantom figure of the man in the holo with a finger. He was visibly ethnically Japanese, with a slightly hooked nose, almond-shaped eyes, slender chin and slight frame. “Both our families were purist groups,” her great, great, something grandfather said.

The image of Noa’s grandmother within the globe shook her head. “Purist groups, they’re like religious sects, they always urge women to have a lot of babies. Controlling women’s fertility is how they maintain their existence. But ever since I was a little girl, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to be in any of the careers that were slightly acceptable to girls—I wanted to build rocket ships!”

Noa’s smile faded. She could see why Eliza might have this. Purist groups, religious sects … her own home planet. It was true, she supposed. If Noa’s own parents hadn’t been outsiders here, that would have been her life. As it was, she’d still felt the pressure to conform to that lifestyle. Nice girls didn’t “borrow” antigrav bikes, hop onto freight cars, or spend years mastering martial arts. Nice girls were demure, modest and let the men in their lives take the risks while they tended the home fires. Maybe her risk-taking personality as a kid was just a counterbalance to that pressure? To prove to herself that she could be brave and fierce? And maybe the reason why she’d wanted to be a pilot, and then later, part of command, was because it was the furthest from the status in Luddeccean society she could imagine being? She put her spoon down. Maybe, if she hadn’t been from Luddeccea, she would have been happy with some other career; maybe she could have been perfectly content as an engineer, or one of the Fleet’s analysts. But the risk-taking had altered her brain chemistry, wired her for risks … she had hated being First Officer.

The voices in the holo changed to static. Picking it up and surveying the bottom, James said, “A penny for your thoughts?”

Noa blinked up at him.

Catching her gaze, he added, “It’s a very old expression. It means … ”

“I know what it means,” Noa said with a wave of her hand. Her brow furrowed. “Not that I know what a penny is … ” Her eyes slid to the side.

“It was a unit of currency that … ” James’s voice drifted off. “Actually, I’m not interested in reciting the history of the penny. I’m wondering what you’re thinking and if it will somehow get me into trouble.”

Noa laughed and swallowed another spoonful of soup. “I was actually just thinking about every damn report I’ve had to do on blue-green algae.”

James said in a cautious voice, “Sounds harmless enough.” His eyes slid to hers. “It is harmless, isn’t it?”

“I can’t begin to tell you how harmless it is, except for the kind that excreted hydrochloric acid.”

James’s eyebrows shot up. Noa waved a hand. “No, it was great, actually. The discovery of that algae was the only time anything interesting happened. The Republic’s Committee on the Search for Sentient Space-going Races is so obsessed that even blue-green algae has to go through fourteen different tests for sentience on the off chance that it could be a hive-mind organism.”

James’s brows constricted. “It could be … ”

Swallowing a spoonful of soup, Noa groaned. “But it’s not! It hasn’t been. I’ve cataloged over 100 species since I became First Officer aboard the Sugihara .”

“I thought you were a pilot, not a scientist?”

Noa dropped her spoon. “I’m not a scientist, but I’m good at whipping up reports—” She raised her fingers to make air quotes. “—in plain Basic.” Dropping her hands, she said, “I hate it. And then getting the sign-offs from the Fleet and the inter-Republic agencies … it’s such a pain in the ass, and it has to go to someone who is meticulous, organized, and charming.” She harrumphed.

As she finished her soup, she spouted off about all the stupid, redundant things she had to do to obtain authorization for a Fleet ship even to enter the atmosphere of a planet with blue-green algae. Talking was better than nightmares and thinking about contingency plans if Eliza didn’t come through. But by the time she was almost, but not-quite-done with her rant, she leaned back and realized aloud, “I’m boring even myself!” She looked over at James. “You’re cursing the fact that this is all going down in your holographic memory, aren’t you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Not out loud.”

She laughed softly and closed her eyes, and leaned her head back, just for a moment.

When she opened her eyes, it was still dark, but she heard the pterys outside announcing the imminent rise of the sun within the hour. There was a light streaming from the hallway, beyond the living room, backlighting 6T9’s half-clothed form and Eliza’s bent frame. Eliza had one hand on the ‘bot; the other was wrapped around a cane.

“I’ve made up my mind,” Eliza said. “I won’t lend you the money.”

Noa sat up with a start. During the night her feet had somehow managed to find their way onto James’s lap. She might have flushed with embarrassment, but Eliza’s words had chilled her to the bone. James was sitting up in his seat, leaning forward, wide-eyed.

“But I will pay you to book two flights of passage.”

“What?” said Noa, wondering if she had wandered into another bad dream.

“One for me,” Eliza said nervously. “One for 6T9.”

“Oh, where are we going?” said 6T9, looking back and forth between the humans, a slight smile on his lips.

“That’s impossible,” Noa protested, swinging her legs off the couch and standing up.

James stood up beside her. “Eliza,” James said, “Noa hasn’t told me her plans for procuring the ship we need—but I know they will be very dangerous. You do not have the physical strength.”

Noa remembered nearly falling down the stairs last night at Ghost’s place, and struggling to climb up the ladder from the safe room. Maybe she didn’t have the physical strength, either.

“6T9 will be my strength,” Eliza said, patting his arm. “He will carry me if necessary.”

“I am programmed to sweep her off her feet, literally and figuratively,” 6T9 said with a proud smile.

“6T9 will be an energy hog,” Noa said. That was the other reason AIs and ‘bots never took hold. They consumed massive amounts of power.

“I’ll keep him in sleep mode when he’s not needed!” Eliza said.

Noa took a deep breath. “Eliza, if you get hurt, you’ll endanger the whole mission, everyone on it, and everyone on Luddeccea.”

Eliza looked down, and her knuckles went white.

“If we pull this off, we’ll get help here in a few months,” Noa whispered. If they could get past the gauntlet of the Local Guard above Luddeccea Prime, if they could coax the Ark to light speed, and if they could reach the Kanakah Cloud and activate the Fleet’s time gate …

Eliza looked up suddenly. “I’m going,” she whispered. “I gave my life for this colony, and my children’s and husband’s lives for their philosophy.” Her wrinkled face crumpled further. “I’m being selfish now … ” She took a deep breath and stood taller. She nodded. “If I’m badly hurt while trying to take the ship, you can leave me behind.”

“And me, too,” said 6T9. He pulled Eliza’s hand to his stomach and gazed down at her. “I won’t leave you.”

Eliza beamed up at him. “I know. That’s why I won’t leave you behind, either.”

Noa resisted the urge to growl. Eliza was anthropomorphizing him and it was going to cost them a whole lot of trouble. 6T9 would be useless aboard the ship, he wasn’t the brightest ‘bot on the assembly line.

Eliza’s eyes flashed toward her. “I can offer you more than just my money. You can use my hover, and my time, and I’ll do anything you ask … but I’m leaving this place, and 6T9 is coming with me.” She drew herself up to her full height— diminished though it was. “Take it or leave it.”