Torian

How could I have been so stupid? Eliminating Edric wasn’t enough because he wasn’t alone. The Infomancers’ professional reputations, their freedom, their very lives depended on keeping their interference here, their failures, hidden from their supervisors on the home world. If Edric didn’t succeed, they’d send somebody else until the mission was accomplished.

So they needed to believe the mission was accomplished.

It wasn’t hard to retrace Edric’s path through the woods—he hadn’t been concerned with concealing his movements. Why would he? He believed the entire planet would be nothing but interstellar dust and debris before long.

I ran, ignoring the sting when brambles striped my still-bare chest and back. Edric would have needed a relatively clear spot to land the shuttle, and it would be nearby. He was a firm believer in minimum effort for maximum results. He’d never volunteer for a long hike just to retrieve an asset gone astray, not if he had the choice.

Choice. It was a heady thing, but also a burden, because every choice carried consequences. When I’d made my choice to kill Edric, I hadn’t expected to survive to face those consequences. And that, I was beginning to believe, had been both cowardly and short-sighted.

Because I hadn’t thought, hadn’t considered that Edric wasn’t the only threat, or that Zal might be left to face the fallout from my actions. He would have had two corpses to explain, specimens of two races not seen on this planet for years, maybe not in living memory. Would the tribunal have believed his explanation? What would they have done to him if they hadn’t?

I lurched into a clearing barely large enough to hold the one-passenger cargo shuttle. Of course he brought the cargo shuttle. To Edric, I was cargo, a construct, so why worry about my comfort in flight?

His landing had splintered several trees at the perimeter, not that he would have cared. He’d also left the pilot’s hatch open. The consequences of that could be— I shuddered, imagining what any of the planet’s inhabitants would do if they stumbled across this literally alien technology. The cognitive dissonance alone would be massive, setting aside the danger should any of them deduce how to operate the onboard weaponry.

I raced up the short ramp, through the open airlock, and onto the small bridge. I allowed myself a grim smile when I was able to pull the launch protocols from my data storage in an instant. Naturally the Infomancers would allow me easy access ship’s operations. It meant they could leave me on watch while they slept or occupied themselves elsewhere.

Edric hadn’t powered all the systems down, and the comm array flared to life with an incoming message. “Doctor al-Mohindes? Our departure window is closing. Your status?”

My knees buckled, and I flopped gracelessly into the pilot’s seat. Just in time. I cleared my throat and activated the mic. “Asset secured. Stand by.”

“Torian?” At Zal’s whisper from the airlock door, I quickly muted the mic and spun the chair to face him. He was gazing at me, his eye wide, clutching my clothing to his chest. “That… that was… You spoke in Edric’s voice.”

I nodded warily. “Yes. I’m able to mimic voices and sounds if I’m especially familiar with them.” I didn’t believe Zal would view this as another instance of rogue magery, but he was clearly uncomfortable. I rose and crossed the two steps to reach him, gently taking my clothes from his arms. “Could you do me a favor?”

He swallowed audibly, then nodded. “Aye. Anything you need.”

“Could you please bring Edric’s”—it was my turn to swallow—“Edric’s body here? There’s something else we must do to keep the planet safe.” To keep you safe.

“Very well.” With one last worried glance, the glow and blink of the instrument panel reflected in his beautiful dark eye, he turned and left.

I drew in a shaky breath and blew it out in a huff. I had no time to dither, no time to surrender to shock and guilt. I sent a quick command down my primary neural pathway to my emotion circuits. I couldn’t switch them off completely, but I could at least suppress them enough to allow me to focus. I’d done the same when I’d escaped the Lab, burying my fear of an unfamiliar environment. I needed it far more now, when the fate of the entire planet rested on my actions in the next—I checked the digital readout over the viewscreen—twenty-seven minutes.

I yanked my shirt over my head, not bothering with its laces, nor with the jerkin or jacket. Those could wait. Besides, despite the cold air drifting in from the open hatch, the shuttle’s environmental controls were set to the warmer temperatures the Infomancers maintained in their facilities. What did it say about me that after less than two weeks, I preferred the wilderness, with its bitter winds, frigid waters, and lack of shelter?

It also has Zal. And being with him had made me feel warm inside for the first time in my memory.

Think, Torian, think. What could I strip from the shuttle to make our journey easier? The bridge was intentionally spare, to minimize the possibility of injury to the pilot from unsecured detritus once the shuttle escaped the planet’s atmosphere. Unlike the mother ship, the shuttle was too small for an artificial gravity generator.

But surely there had to be something useful here, something easily portable. I accessed the ship’s schematics in a picosecond, astonished at the retrieval speed. Clearly, Zal’s reboot had charged my energy stores to the limit. It was… exhilarating, but also a bit disorienting. I wasn’t used to operating with this much power.

However, with a mission this critical, I’d take it thankfully and run with it.

Ah. There. I knelt next to the bulkhead by the airlock and pressed on an almost seamless panel. It detached, revealing the emergency medkit. I freed it from its clamps and set it aside. An adjacent panel revealed a toolkit and a neat package of electronic components, and I laughed softly. Conveniently located for all your cyborg’s maintenance needs.

What else could I scavenge that was small enough for us to carry? Fully charged, I was nearly as strong as Zal, perhaps stronger. But I couldn’t depend on maintaining that charge in weak sunlight, and we needed to be able to move swiftly.

I scrambled to my feet and keyed open the cargo bay door. “Shit.”

The bay was so jammed with plasformed storage crates that they almost didn’t need the straps dogging them to the deck. I checked the ID on the nearest one. I didn’t have to unlock it, although the key code was instantly accessible, because the cargo manifest also popped up, floating a foot in front of me in a way that used to be second nature, but now felt oddly foreign.

I scrolled through the list with a swipe of my finger. While Edric was transporting a few customized pieces of lab equipment, most of the cargo consisted of the staff’s personal effects. I scanned it quickly. One name was notably missing: mine. Not that I had many possessions, but despite the emotional dampener, I felt a pinch in my chest. I hadn’t been important enough to them as a person for them to consider that my effects might have value to me. That I’d like to keep them with me.

I pushed the pain aside. It didn’t matter anymore, especially since everything here would be destroyed in—I checked again—nineteen minutes.

According to the manifest, the crate at the top of the nearest stack held the belongings of Drina, P., a Lab assistant whose job had been studying the inhabitants’ maker skills. She’d also been fascinated enough to replicate them in the Lab, so… Yes!

I undogged the straps and pulled the crate off onto the deck to key in the unlocking code. I didn’t bother to unpack neatly, just dug through the crate, tossing the contents aside until I found what I sought: a leather pack, worked in the planetary style. Perfect.

As I shoved the medkit and tools into the pack, I reviewed the rest of the cargo. The equipment could be rebuilt off-planet, and while the staff might have a sentimental attachment to their belongings, there was nothing that wasn’t replaceable elsewhere, nothing that was worth a costly retrieval mission.

I froze, one hand on the pack’s buckle.

Nothing except me.

I was not only their most complex project and their data backup, I was witness to their crimes. They’d keep coming for me. Unless…

Unless they didn’t believe I was here.

Zal ducked through the airlock door, Edric over his shoulder. “Where should I put him?”

“The pilot’s chair, please.” My knuckles whitened as I clutched the leather straps. Could I do this? I had no choice, not really. The alternative was the destruction of an entire world. “The needs of the many,” I murmured, quoting an ancient film.

There ought to be a lancet in the medkit, but I didn’t bother to retrieve it. I had no time for finesse. “Zal, could I borrow your belt knife, please?”

His eyebrows quirked, conveying his confusion at my request, but he was Zal, so of course he said, “Aye,” and slipped it from its sheath. He passed it to me, hilt first.

I hefted it in my hand. The blade was sharp, thicker than a lancet, but not clumsy. It would do. It would have to do. I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them, my own schematics visible in the virtual panel.

And shoved the knife into the base of my neck.