When We Were Real (Author's Preferred Edition) (28 page)

I’m here, he said, hands clasped behind his back, thrusting his big belly forward, jackbooted feet planted wide, to show you the ropes, get you used to your ships, move you on to Squadron 33 and the Nulliterrae Swarm.

Patience. No time for this. No will to listen. Behind the fat man, a dozen sleek, spindle-shaped Harbinger mk. VI high-energy turretfighters were lined up in one long row, mechanics of various sorts still poking at them through open service-bay doors.

I could feel Violet’s tension beside me, her desire to be aboard, to begin... while Palafox droned on, telling us there was no time to waste, that the... work was waiting for us.

I reached in my pocket and surreptitiously fingered my orders tab, tiny consciousness in that bit of crystal directing my eyes to... yes,
that
one. Harbinger mk. VI serial no. R1080.331, ventral service door open, two men who looked like yellow-limbed automatons poking away at something inside, pilot’s canopy cranked open, sticking up like the beak of a bird, partially hiding the dorsal power turret behind it.

Count ‘em. Dorsal and ventral turrets. Side sponson missile launchers. After-firing long-range particle beam device mounted between twin modulus exhausts. Imagine that.
Two
exhausts... little voice in my head, some not-quite-internalized bit of hypnopaedic update murmuring,
in case one should be damaged
...

In front of us, fat Palafox had fallen silent, was merely grinning at us. “OK, boys and girls. I give up. You can go play with your toys now.” Hell. Maybe they pick beings his size for the job just so they won’t be trampled by the rush of eager trainees.

I ran between the legs of 331’s landing tripod and slid through the belly hatch while Violet swarmed over the side, got the hatch secured, bringing up the interior lighting system as I listened to the whine of electromechanicals bringing down the canopy, high, then dropping, ending on a soft growl, filling my ears with just a second of overpressure.

Just a momentary pang of terror, looking around at a capsule barely large enough to accommodate me, feet in stirrups, butt in bucket, head resting on its little pad... the hypnopaedics kicked in, making me look, here and there, at control systems mostly based on freeze-frame technology, patches of mist that’d became whatever they needed to be, when I needed them, overhead and down by my sides, emergency panels of brute-force solid state switching, circuit breaker resets, a rotational controller that I could switch from gun to gun, helping out A-semi-Eyes that...

Pale, soft shock, difficult to fathom. Still a flight engineer, yes, just like in the old days, those dimly remembered sweet days so long ago, but only during cruise mode, and only if... something goes wrong.

Combat Systems Officer.

CSO is the real reason this ship exists, Violet merely the taxi driver who carries you to your...

Pressure in my ears changed again as Violet opened the little connecting hatch between us, stuck her head through, grinning, and said, “This is better than
anything
we had at Mezzandrée!”

Better than anything. Behind her, through the mesh of the pilot’s nest, I could see she already had her external panels lit up, showing a vista of the landing stage, the bright yellow dome of Saad al’Zuhr’s ridiculously artificial-looking sky.

Dimly through the hull I could feel little jolts, like the slamming of tiny doors, then, through Violet’s imaginary windows, I could see flight-line mechanics scurry away, going down little rabbit holes in the planetary integument, getting out of the way.

Over the command circuit, Palafox’s voice: “OK, boys and girls. Listen up.”

I lay back on my couch while Violet sealed the connecting hatch. Yes. Crashfield fittings here and here. If and when. When and if. I remembered the Glow-Ice Worlds. Remembered Wernickë. And thought:
When
. That’s all. Just when.

Put my hands into side-saddle freeze-frames and brought my new world to life.

o0o

The little ships were everything we dreamed of, now, everything we lived for, Violet twisting and turning, keeping 331 in formation, living her role with the squadron, dodging imaginary debris, imaginary attackers’ weapons, while I dry fired my guns and launched imaginary missiles at imaginary foes.

Once, we accompanied a vic of mobile ASM launch platforms, headed out weeks to attack an imaginary habitat cluster, were suddenly, days from our goal, set upon by a flotilla of software-generated defenders whose only aim was to destroy the things coming to wreck their world, coming in from all angles, at speeds so high the interstellar dust was visibly eroding their hulls, leaving long contrails of sparkling plasma dissipating behind them.

And outgunning us ten to one.

People shouting over the intercom. Generated fear becoming real. Shouts of dismay, turning into rage at controls locked up and front-line, cutting edge Harbinger mk. VI turretfighters began drifting helplessly.

They lost every one of their ships in seventy-nine seconds of combat. But then they took out all three of the launchers and killed half the fighters as well, people pissing and moaning as their controls came back up and the simulated battle came to an end.

Where the
hell
, demanded Santry, aboard 976, are we going to run into an enemy who outguns us ten to fucking one? Hm? Tell me that?

Palafox’s face floating disembodied in my little room: “And you, you fucking idiot. You put that last shot of yours right
through
one of the goddam launch platforms!”

 Oops.

And then, on we went, pretending to be a
new
squadron, unattacked, undestroyed, simulating our bombing run against a simulated group of helpless little worlds, ASM launchers sweeping in from the dead black sky, laying down fire against targets visible only in our freeze-frames... well. Just the way they’d be if this ever turned real.

If it ever did.

In my monitors, I watched simulated habitats explode, gouting nuclear fire. All of them were very old-fashioned habitats, inside-out worlds pretty much like Audumla had been.

Had been.

Is.

Not thinking much about Audumla and Ygg any more. My mother and her robot silvergirls. Rannvi and Lenahr. Ludmilla Nellisdottir... Orb letting me know her kids must be grown and gone, maybe even gone on to new Mothersbairn colonies, with children and grandchildren of their own. I had a brief memory of my father, resting quietly in his urn all these years.

Then the long trip back, all the way back to Saad al’Zuhr, Violet and I talking through the open hatch, whiling away the empty hours, me crawling through to be with her, the two of us packed together in the pilot’s nest, quiet together, looking out at the motionless stars, she crawling down to be with me, down in the gunner’s hole, where we had a little room to squirm.

We were down there one evening, evening as the clock flies, not saying anything, not doing anything, quiet together in our private womb, when Violet, with uncharacteristic shyness in her manner, reached up through the hatch and retrieved a stiff little brush, something from her kit bag, hesitantly handed it to me, then, with almost an air of embarrassment, turned her back.

Something here I don’t quite understand. Something... with meaning only to another optimod.

She waited a long time for this.

Not saying a word.

Just waiting.

I started brushing her long, lustrous fur, finding tangles, making them smooth, and heard her sigh, an oddly contented sound, not a human sound at all, felt her relax under the brush, under the gentle touch of my hands.

o0o

Graduation day was only a week off, marking the end of a period I knew we’d remember almost like a honeymoon. Whirlwind of training, punctuated by nights of... just us, that’s all. Nights and days of us, spaces in between filled with people we were beginning to think of as friends.

Curious friendships forming. People and optimods, robots and whatnot. Life here in this confined little world so different from what it’s like elsewhere. I could think back. Think back all those years and remember fucking an allomorph whore, allomorph really just one more sort of robot, helpless before human will.

Remembering, I tried to imagine myself wanting to marry one.

Sure as hell would’ve made marital gatesie a breeze, hm?

My pecker’s up, honey. Lie down over there. This’ll only take a minute.

Tried to superimpose that fantasy over some other life I never had, life with Ludmilla, plenty of gatesie, sure. Plenty of worshiping at the Goddess’s Altar.

Sitting in the messhall, Violet grabbed my chin with her soft velvet hand and turned my face so she could look into my eyes. Violet smiling a doggy smile as she said, “Where the fuck are you? You look like you’re a million AUs away.”

I shrugged, put my arm around her, and said, “I dunno. I get... a little lost sometimes. You know?”

Brief, somber look, that familiar headcock she used for a nod. “Sure.”

The flightcrew messhall was brimming with trainees just now, people so much like us they’d never think to question closeness between a human man and an optimod woman, people milling around, eating, drinking, making noise, whole front wall of the room taken up by a multilayer freeze-frame that could serve a hundred minds at once. Not quite that many people in here now.

People.

Orb knows they’re people.

I remember Violet and I, during our brief time on Telemachus Major, knew to avoid certain kinds of establishments. Remembered back further, back to Glow-Ice, to unpleasant looks we’d gotten one night in an optimod bar.

Remembered Violet putting her hand on my arm, restraining me, just weeks ago, when, when, in a tavern on TM, I’d turned to see just who might’ve whispered, “...takin’ his bitch for a walk. Hope she doesn’t squat on the carpet...”

Not worth it. Forget it. Let’s get out of here.

Glad to.

Forgotten. All forgotten now.

Santry, looking overdressed in Standard blue, plopped down opposite us, followed by Regis, waddling up with fists sprouting bouquets of bottled beer, brown bottles held by their long, thin necks.

I looked at the label as I popped the lid. “Where the hell is Mexico?” Thousands of AUs away, at least, if I didn’t know its name. Nowhere near the Centauri Jet, anyway.

Santry said, “Earth.”

I looked at the bottle again, then stuck the neck in my mouth and took a long pull, bittersweet stuff foaming in my throat as it went on down. “Hmh. Earth.” Beer’s free here, a perk of employment, but I couldn’t imagine...

Regis finished his own bottle in one long swallow, thumped it down on the table and burped. “Well. Not bad. I’ve had better.”

Santry said, “You know Standard owns Mexico?”

“No.” I tried to picture the map of Earth and discovered it was long gone. “Still don’t know where it is, either.”

Violet said, “Just south of California.”

“Oh.” I sat back and put my arm around Violet’s shoulders again, looking up at the free-frame, and remembered Porphyry’s diorama deck. Remembered those two servants; remembered the girl who could make her cunt drip on command. Couldn’t remember her name. Or if I’d even known it.

The freeze-frame suddenly clicked into hard focus, a hundred fuzzy layers falling together, all at once, people all over the room suddenly seeming to sit forward, look up, beer forgotten, each other forgotten. Santry craned around in her seat, murmuring, “What th’ fuck...” and I felt Violet stiffen under my arm.

Political news, that’s all, but...

Scene from the Jet Althing, Finn mac Eye sitting on the daïs, Meyer Sonn-Atem standing just behind him, as the delegates voted, one by one, transmitting instructions from their home habitats. We surrender our sovereignty. We abrogate our treaties and contracts. We join together in forming a new nation, nation of the Centauri Jet. One people, who will deal with outsiders as a group, and...

Again and again and again, Mr. mac Eye, Mr. Sonn-Atem.

Heroes.

Of the people. For the people. By the people.

Freedom and dignity.

Bratska i swoboda
.

All that rot that kills us dead.

Rot from the... popular will.

Violet said, “Oh, hell. I guess the shit and the fan are in sight of each other now.”

Eleven. The Nulliterrae Swarm

The Nulliterrae Swarm floats within the physical confines, if you can call them that, of the diffuse distal end of the Centauri Jet, just over two hundred AUs from Saad al’Zuhr, not quite so far from Telemachus Major in the deep black sky.

“Actually,” Violet said, as we watched the Swarm form up, from tiny freckles all but hidden among the dense background of Milky Way stars to a fistful of pale beads that drew apart as they grew larger, as the Swarm took on depth, “this area’s inside the Jet’s no-fly zone.”

As if they could enforce that.

Santry’s voice, chipper over the comlink, her face blinking on briefly in one of my freeze-frames: “And so appropriately named.”

Nulliterrae. Italian? No, Latin. Not so different from various Hispanic dialects I’d known. No man’s worlds? Something like that. I said, “Think the Jetties’ll come for ‘em?”

Regis Gosseyn’s voice said, “Hope so,” while his face came and went between me and my imaginary controls.

Violet muttered. “Idiot...” Just to me, to herself, comlink suppressed. Regis doesn’t mind being called names, but it’d make Santry mad.

I had a brief memory of glimpsing the two of them together in a little park somewhere near the training ground on Saad al’Zuhr, during the darktime, when Grounds Maintenance turned off the skyshine so the garden plants could have the nighttime they needed. Slim, classic human girl dwarfed by the raw, hairy bulk of Regis the Pseudo-Neanderthaler, the two of them with their faces pushed together, he with one paw groping between her legs.

Violet had giggled softly, nudged me in the ribs, then dragged me off to a private corner of the garden where we could bill and coo for ourselves alone.

All around us in the sky the planetesimal worlds of the Nulliterrae Swarm grew, first seeming huge, then smaller as they receded from one another, our little fleet, Squadron 33 Replacement Unit 5, bunched together, singling out one little white world, an angular bit that looked like it might be freshly broken quartz, maybe even ice.