74 - I Will Be Here

Tizrav stood up from where she’d been napping around Hara’s collar, the sign that they had to leave code.  Shashi waved her hand between the screen and her face.  “We need to wrap this up.”

“Oh, do come back,” Terence program said.  “Once you have debated whether or not to give up any kind of information about yourselves.  You’ll have to admit I have nothing to hide from you.”

“But we have our secrets and yes you are correct,” Hara said, blinking.  It was so fascinating, finding out about a whole culture, parts of which could still fly and go to the moon and further away than that.  It made learning to ride a war bird look like children at play.  “We have to talk about it before we let you know anything.  So I can come back anytime?”

“Yes, anytime.  I’m a machine.  I’m always here as long as no one cuts my power and since my power core is actually dug into the moon… as well as a number of pizo-electrical sources of energy should the one fail… you may say I will always be here.” The image checked and blinked as though reading something they could not see.

“Oh dear,” it said faintly.  The look of concern grew.  “The planet has experienced a number of small cometary impacts.”

“What do you mean ‘small’,” Shashi snapped.

“Oh, only sixty to seventy kilometres across.”

Her voice was deadly.  “How many?”

The image on the screen paused, repeating the last motion it had made a number of times.  “Er… a dozen?”

“You are a machine.  Precision, please.”

“Eleven.  The twelfth strike aborted into the sand plateau that will, one day be ocean basin.”

“Surely you can see why we are careful to be reticent about our wherebouts.”

“I… suppose.” The image drew itself up.  “Gentle beings.  I am at your command.” The background darkened behind him as if storm clouds drew in.  “Stay secret, stay safe until we can speak in safety… I am under assault by the owner. I will continue to fight and I will be here when you return.”

Hara glanced at Shashi and she reached up to pet Tizrav.  “We may or may not be back –“ he interrupted her.

“The report says ‘mutated tissue cultures eradicated’ and ‘standard planetary transformative programs installed.’

“It means someone got bombed out of existence and that the security programs are taking that whole area back to basic biomat.”

“Oh endarkened.  Where?  Where where where?”

Terence paused then a map snapped up onto the screen.  “North and West of this intermittent lake.”

Hara could hear Shashi gulp.  “My father is there.”

Hara snapped “Mine too.  And my father by marriage and my brother by marriage and a thousand of his people.  I don’t know how many of Ilax’s people came with.”

The mouth fell open on Terence’s image “A… thousand people?”

“Going to a city of four thousand.  Neither of which have to do with us, except that they’ve been stealing our water.”

“Oh my. Oh my. Oh my.  ‘mutated tissue—‘ oh dear.  The image of Terence set his teeth.  “They mean people, don’t they.  Perrin has killed more people.”

“Yes and a good number of them might be our family.”

Shashi grabbed Hara’s hand and they turned their backs on the screen and as they ran from the ‘room’ they fell out of code into their own bodies and lay gasping.

 “Did he yell wait, before we left?” Hara asked quietly.

“Yes.  But he can wait on us,” Shashi answered grimly and hauled herself up off the couch.  She had work to do.