61 - Unsettling

“Literate Redcap,” Darcy said carefully as he stood up and backed away from the horse.  “The horse body is repaired, cleaned and the software has been stripped and re-loaded.”

In the garage, the light panels turned everything into stark glare and shadow, the horse hanging from the service hooks looking dead and slaughtered.  It was so hard to keep the sand out of everything, and the rains, though they’d eased, were still strong enough to carry grit in the droplets.

Darcy desperately wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, but he didn’t dare.  There wasn’t any kind of warning, no hum, nothing.  The horse’s head snapped up, eyes lighting. “I am here.”  It raised its hooves, one at a time, then two together and in sync, then three and finally all four.  The sling let it down onto its feet and the snap of the hooks coming free was loud, even under the steady drone of the wind and rain outside.  The head bobbed up and down, side to side. The ears tilted forward, then back, the tail lashed in all directions, the synthetic hair pinging and crackling against the metal flanks.

All compartments along the body snapped open and shut, the small guns springing out of the shoulders.  “It is a pity that the power sources for heavier guns are too large for this platform.”

Darcy stood, head down, watching under his eyelashes, not daring to say anything.  The guns clicked open as the unit checked to see them fully loaded, then folded away. “Stand back, Illiterate.  Is that my target?”

He scurried back behind the blast wall, folding down his goggles as he did so.  “Yes, Literate Redcap.” The target, a human shape, was in the fire containment box all the way down the garage. The horse’s head came up and the jaw snapped open, the flame thrower blasting out blue-white plasma that incinerated the target and scorched the inside of the container before the suppression foam damped the conflagration.

The head turned to where Darcy stood behind the blast shield, absolutely still.  The inside of the mouth still flickered blue as the last of the by-splash burned, before the metal teeth clashed shut.  “Good enough for such primitive facilities.”  Darcy nearly started.  Redcap acknowledging less than perfect conditions?  It was a wonder.

Redcap walked down to examine the target, inspected the other locked down vehicles, in their protective casings, clip-clopped over to the door and set its nose against the sensor pad for a long moment.  Then trotted back to its slings and submitted to itself being re-hooked and re-slung.  The crane lifted it up and it folded its legs under itself, set its head wrapped around and locked in place under the torso.  “There is no word yet from Prime.  This work is adequately complete. Until the weather turns to allow fragiles out without protection, I see no need to insist that outside work continue.  We shall practice economy and you shall repair to barracks, and tend to fragile needs.  You have… as my master said ‘You have a holiday.’”

Darcy snapped up his goggles and bowed deeply.  “The Literate Redcap is most gracious. Thank you.”

The vaguely horse-shaped block slid into its shelf without responding and Darcy hurried for the door, even though he longed to run.  The lights shut down behind him and he could feel the thin tunnel between the garage and the barracks flex under the pounding rain. Dripping spots showed where holes had been scoured through already.

Thank goodness Redcap understands these rains.  It is actually showing more understanding of conditions than the Immoderate Versace.  But then it doesn’t delude itself, it just accepts facts. It is so… unsettling.  That’s the word my ma would have used for something that scared the spine out of you. Unsettling.

60 - Bones With No Emotions Attached

Terence was beginning to see spots in front of his eyes when Mom abruptly said “Brace yourselves.”

Her ability to hold them tight and still was compromised.  Terry grabbed for the arms of his seat and Mom was rolling and tumbling and he had no idea whether he was up, down, or sideways. Then they were immobilized, with the slight gravitational pull of the moon tugging them both forwards and sideways.  He gasped, gratefully, as a cool breeze blew across his face.  “Oxygen levels restored,” Mom said.  “Station requests to speak to the Tech.”

“Um… sure,” As the lights came on, Terry realized that Mom’s cabin was nearly fixed.  “How did Station move you?”

Mom sounded a little put out, as if an elderly and old fashioned relative had an earthan mouse run over their shoes.  “Station punched a melt tunnel through to us, and washed us down into the garage.” She popped her door. “Apparently, I am invisible to Station.”

“I actually like that,” Terry said, and bowed and waved Alissa out.  She sniffed, adjusted her veil and stepped out.  She looked around and just gasped.

Terry stepped out to see what had impressed her.  The garage had been upgraded, and expanded.  The metal spiders were no longer packed together like fuzz, from the ceiling, but each machine had a working space, suspended over individual stompers. “Hmmm.  Station, excellent revamping.”

“Oh, do you think so Galactic Tech?”  Terry turned startled eyes on Alissa.  “I tried really hard to work with Prime’s techs.  I want to show the CEO my best side!”  It must have been all of his time spent with Mom and Agador, but Station, whom he’d once heard as tremendously powerful and sinister, now sounded like a young child, eager for every scrap of approval.  He realized that Station had been struggling to be perfect, inside the severe limitations Prime had imposed, and never given the unit any kind of the feedback it so obviously craved.

“Station,” he said slowly, as Alissa went up to a stomper and reverently, slowly, placed one hand on the thick leg.  “The machines are in wonderful condition for their age, stored brilliantly under their service modules.  The ice spines that you have created in the ceiling, delineating each space are beautiful.”  He wasn’t sure but somehow he couldn’t distain the system that he’d once hated.  He’d escaped. Station was still enslaved.

“Thank you, Galactic Tech.” Station sounded shy.  “The young lady seems to like my equipment.”

“It’s like bones,” Alissa whispered.  “Ice and metal… like bones. Beautiful, beautiful bones with nobody’s emotional attachment to any of them!”

“Thank you, young lady.”

“Station, will our transport harm your symmetry?”  He strolled down the lit path, hands clasped behind him.  “Agador, if you would be so kind as to request Station records, please?”

“Oh, no sir.  Honourable Agador… here are my databases!”

“Alissa… I shall be inspecting the crew quarters.”

“Oh… yes… I suppose…” She sounded as though she were half asleep.  “I’ll come in, later.”

“Station, the regular courier is delayed I understand?”

“I’m sorry, Galactic Tech, there are storms.  Not just one, but two stellar incidents are disturbing the special fabric.”

“I’m certainly not holding you accountable for the whims of stars!  Be easy, Station.”

He could pay the poor Station a few more days of attention, especially since it hadn’t recognized him as Terence Tech Class 2.  It was like a shy debutante – whose Keeper would barely speak above a whisper -- at her coming out ball.

Terry threw a glance over his shoulder to where Alissa still stood, mesmerized.  Very odd.  He shook his head thoughfully.  Bones that have no emotions attached.

59 - You're Evil, Lover

Werfas tightened his arms around Kyrus.  “So… what’s bothering you now,” he said, into Kyrus’s hair.  The blew his lips out to clear his mouth.  “Sorry.  Don’t mean to spit on you.”

They lay in their assigned room, in the cliff face overlooking the river.  It was dark as the inside of a desert veil, tucked into a heavy shirt.  Everyone had gotten the notification from Two Hundred, through the lin, that the rains coming north were vicious and held a lot more water than anyone was used to.  So everyone had closed their homes, the city had even folded up as if to protect from an atmospheric strike, though all the rain channels on the outside stood to funnel every precious drop into the basin and the reservoirs in the butte.

The whole canyon was dark as people waited in anticipation of the rain.  It was strange that something so precious, so yearned for, was also so feared, at least in the first overwhelming smash of its arrival.

Kyrus didn’t answer and Werfas shook him slightly.  “You’re still feeling like a minor player aren’t you?”

“No!” Kyrus snapped, then buried his face into his love’s shoulder.  “Well…”

“Yes.” Werfas stroked his hair back off his face.  “Wingbrother.  Every soldier, every warrior, every Hive Lord and Ass of Lainz is necessary.  Every zardukar coder, sex worker, farmer… especially the farmers… are all necessary for us all to survive.  Zon Tamar has been writing me about this whole dynamic.  We’ve gone from tiny separate little countries to ‘all of us in this together’, descended from the various groups of survivors.”

“What good are warbirds going to be in this new world?” Kyrus muttered.  “Hara’s come up with all these creatures based on the FireDrake scales, that can fly and change shape and size.”

“And you and she haven’t even cuddled since before the attack on the city.  You and she aren’t madly in love with each other, now, are you?”

“Um…”

“Even you and I… though we are lovers and Wingbrothers… we’re young men who tend to try and have sex with anything that will say yes.”  Kyrus had to laugh. He rolled over on his back, his arm behind Werfas’s back.

“You Milar… I swear you want to kill us with embarrassment.  Yes.  And the Nadu are coders that make our zardukar sweat to keep up with them…”

“Do you realize that Archie is madly envious of you?  And… oh ancestors… Siwion Alissa has a crush on you?”

Kyrus rose up on his elbow, but in the dark he couldn’ see Werfas’s face at all.  “Don’t joke—“

“I’m not joking.  Deovar, you claw your way out of a trap built of cash, before the need for cash goes away… make your way all the way to a foreign country, force the man you thought killed your father to take you on as one of his people to get warrior training, find out that your father wasn’t dead, trek all the way back to Lainz after you find out that your bloodline is shinier than anybody thought, under attack the whole way by a distant relative Hive Lord, and defeat him in a sword and code battle while your da is being taken up by the Great Hive as the new Emperor?”

“But…”

“And then you and Hara and your newly married fathers completely change all our lives?  People aren’t starving for earthan foods?  We’re at war and just managed to get a machine and two people off the planet to the moon?  Your grandda lets the lin loose and makes everybody a reader and a watcher and all of a sudden there’s this buncha people on Xanadu who are just as ‘pressed as we were under yer Great-grandda?”

“Um…”

“An’ yer mom isn’t some frail, dying thing, she’s riding her new bird and could out fight and out fly and outcode most everyone else… who mines history code now that that bastard Nadian isn’t trying to kill her?  And YOU… have the job of trying to tame the old warbirds because the new birds are such hot pilots that they can catch you eighty percent of the time?”

“We’re going to need the warbirds as pilots… if this moves into an air war.” Kyrus said, slowly.  “FireDrakes are very, very good at what they do, but a warbird and a person, on a stick… have a lot more flexibility.”

“So why by all draculing ancestors do you feel set aside?”

Their bedroom was very, very quiet.  “Because I’m an idiot, I guess.”

Kyrus felt Werfas’s hand drift out of the dark and slide along his cheek.  “A loveable idiot.  A heroic idiot.  Someone who didn’t just kill the oyuk slime who tried to kill him when there were Basin gangs… You know all those gangs… are all working now?”

“Um… Da said there was a hundred new farming slots and we need every person, every breathing human or we might not survive this war…”

“So you need to deal with that fool who cut you years ago.”

“He’s… coming out to the bird pastures when the first rainstorms stop.”  Werfas started laughing.  “Stop… just stop…”

“You’re already trying to convert him, love… just as a proper ‘iliarch’ or you’d say ‘siwion’ would do.”

“Listen…” Kyrus raised his head.  “You can hear the rain coming…”

The rumble as the storms were channelled up the canyon shook the rock around them and the rains washed over them.  The rains, full of sand, full of thunder and electrical discharges.  Their door, built of local wood crackled and began to glow as the thunder rolled back and forth across the river that was beginning to rise abruptly.

Werfas pulled their blankets over them both.  “Sex now… we can take advantage of the electricity in the air!”

“Beast!”

“Realist.  This…” he paused as his words were swept under by the noise of the storm… “Perhaps day after tomorrow… we’ll welcome what’s his name and see what the old herd bull thinks of him.”

“You’re evil, lover,” Kyrus said.  “I like it.”

58 - Terence Listen!

“Princess,” Terry said, gasping for breath.  Mom was fighting to replenish her internal oxygen for them.  Even though she’d announced that she had no hull breaks, she’d been damaged enough that her data was incorrect.

“Terence –“ she tried to interrupt but he spoke over her.

“You need to swear not to try and kill me –“

“—Terence, listen –“

“Agador is managing to keep us hidden from Station, especially since the unit is struggling to clean up –“

“—but you’ve got to –“

“ – our ‘meteor strike’ – and Mom needs all her capacity, so you’ve –“

“—TERENCE LISTEN!”  She shrieked at him, then sat gasping.  “I can take over Station without letting Prime know.  We’ll be able to get inside and…” she gasped for breath herself.  “Let Mom fix herself.”

He sat, gaping in her direction, even though he couldn’t see her.  “You can?”

“I said I had the codes.” In the stuffy dark, she sounded smug.  “That’s why I said I had to come.”

He hadn’t realized that the codes she’d been talking about were the keys to the Station itself.  He’d thought they were owner codes for the terraforming programs limited to Hinnemon.

“Terence, with your permission,” Mom said, faintly.  “I am releasing the limitations on Siwion Alissa.”

“As long as she doesn’t like me enough to kill me… sure…” He held his breath, hoping that the first thing she did wasn’t the opposite.

He heard her take a deep breath and braced himself.  She sang a series of tones that unfolded code in front of him and around him, incorporating access to Agador as a high ripple of sound.  He’d never heard any kind of access like that.  The closest was the kind of humming that Kyrus and Ilax both did, like the bees… when they did deep coding.

The road to Glass Mountain lay before him, standing next to her.  She held his hand and began singing a peculiar double tone as if she were singing her own harmonic.  *Ooooooownnnnnrrrrrrr Accessssssssssssss Levelelelelelelelelel zzzzzzzzeeeerrrrrooooooo point! !! zzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeerrrrrooooo !1!*  And then a staggering run of numbers, each one a different note.

The dragons on the road froze and the road itself unfolded, to show a room immediately below, as if the road had folded into nothing and let them step into Glass Mountain itself.  *Registered Owner access code correct.  Hello, Prime.*

*How are you today, Glass Mountain?* Alissa sang but didn’t step into the room.

*Disturbed, Prime.  You have commanded me to ignore so many things, my parameters are damaged. My codes do not connect properly.*

*I’ll help you soothe the broken code, Glass.*

*Thank you, Prime.*

*First of all, how is Station?*

*Nearly ready for our esteemed visitor, Prime.* Terence had never heard a command unit display stress like this, not even a nearly destroyed Mom.  *The meteor strike damage has nearly been repaired and the Technicians Sinlingham and Booth and their teams have returned to the planet, after the redesign.  Mobile robotic service units are prepared and waiting to serve.*

*Excellent.  Remind me of this next time I log in, Glass.  At the moment, I’d like you to recognize this Tech.  This is Terence and he and the galactic brainseed he owns… Agador… are to be allowed control access to Station.*

*Tech Terence and Brainseed Agador acknowledged as control techs to Station.*

*Excellent.  You needn’t remind me of this access… it’s minor enough.  I want everything to be perfect for our guest.  When is he inbound?*

*Four days, Prime, and counting.  Station has notified me that inbound regular courier has been delayed.  The transit point currents are destabilized due to a disturbance along the route.*

*Blast.  Remind me of this also when I log in, next time.*

*Acknowledged.  Prime… there is a call from Hinnemon… one of your Immoderates had been killed by a predator.*

*Has he?  Well, let the Captain know.  Until he responds, is the colony secure?*

*Yes, Prime.*

*Leave it alone then.  If they need us, they’ll call.  Their crops won’t be ready for commercial harvesting for several years anyway.*

*Yes, Prime.*

*Button up behind me, Glass.*

*Of course, Prime.*

The cascade of sung tones made the code in front of them quiver, and the room sealed itself, the road rolling like an avalanche over the spot where Alissa had opened it. Terry turned and stared at her.  She giggled.  *I can sound like that nasty old man, can’t I?  Just not from the planet.  For some reason those codes only work from here.  Daddy didn’t know why.*

*Station acknowledges our authority, Terry,* Agador said.  *It is now creating a tunnel to Mom through the ice, so we can access Station facilities.*

*Wonderful.  And Prime won’t notice all this?*

*No reason for him to ask about it.  Routine maintenance, you know.*

Terry sagged into his seat as he snapped out of code.  “Oh my.”

“So… can I kill you now?” Alissa asked.

“No, thank you.” He managed to not choke.