Edge of Dark (33 page)

She took a step and they chittered more loudly. Chk-chk-chk-chk, like ball bearings running into each other at high speed, over and over. Chk-chk-chk.

Another step and one of them hit her, the pain a sharp pop in her jaw. Ten hitting her would make her scream. She stopped, staring at the swarm in dismay.

She felt the loss of each minute as she waited in the corridor, certain her idea was crazy. She couldn't kidnap Chrystal and her family. How would she convince them, and how was that being a diplomat?

What would Satyana do?

What would her mother have done?

Or Ruby?

One of the silver robots flowed up just behind the annoying little bots, appearing so fast Nona stepped back in surprise. It had thinned itself into a wall and leaned toward her so that she wanted to step back. “You are not authorized to be here now,” it said flatly, neither curious nor threatening.

She took a deep breath and held her ground. “I want to bring Chrystal and her family over and have them meet some other people. My friends. It would help us talk this through. As soon as I stepped back into the station and started answering questions, I realized Chrystal should speak for herself.”

“She may not want to leave.”

“She doesn't have to. But isn't that what you made her for?” The robot in front of her had chosen such a bully shape that she started to stammer. “I . . . I . . . I think she should come all the way back to the Diamond Deep with me. She knows the station. She grew up there. People remember her. It will put a friendlier face on the Next . . . on you.” She sounded like a seven-year-old trying to argue with one of her friends to come out and play. Dammit. She was bigger than this. She didn't come out here to be turned into a child by a robot. She stood straighter. “Please call the guards off?”

The swarm of small drones flew off behind the larger robot.

She breathed an almost silent sigh of relief. “Thank you. Let's start over. You gave us options. You asked for me to come to talk to Chrystal so I would understand those options better. That's part of why you came here. Am I right?”

“Yes. Partly. Also, we were invited by Gunnar Ellensson to see you.”

“To see me specifically? By name?

“Yes.”

Wow. She filed that away for later. “But I cannot speak for all humans, or even all humans on the Diamond Deep. After I met Chrystal and her family, I became certain that if more of us talk to her, we might understand you better.”

“The Deeping Rules don't allow for our kind on the station. That will include Chrystal and her family.”

“You know the Deeping Rules?”

“Of course. You must own yourselves. You must harm no one. You must add to the collective.”

Nona took a deep breath, straightened her spine again, and said, “Turning people into robots against their will is generally looked at as harming them.”

“I know the Deeping Rules,” it said. “That is not the same as following them. Besides, I was once human, and I hardly view being transformed into a Next as harm.”

Chrystal had been harmed, and Jason. Arguing about that point wasn't going to help her. But she had her family history. “The problem isn't the rules themselves. It's interpretation. There was a time when a trial happened, when one of your people helped Ruby Martin, who was my mother's best friend. The Next was once a human girl named Aleesi.”

“She died for the help she provided.”

“By her own hand, but she said it would not be death because there were more of her.”

“That is one interpretation,” the robot said.

Nona took a deep breath. “I know this story. My mother was there, in the courtroom. Aleesi defended us.”

“We have no copy of that instance of Aleesi to check what she did or why. We can merge after we bifurcate, but not over distances as vast as the one between the Edge and the Deep.”

She imagined Charlie looking at his watch, watching the door. “It's part of my family history. History, not legend. Besides, we only had her because you attacked our ship on the way in.”

“Not me.”

“It's history, it's all history. The exile of your kind came from every one of the stations, not just my home.”

“Exile nearly killed us. That was what you hoped would happen.”

The robot's words held no emotion at all, although she sensed that it felt deeply. She had no idea why she thought that. Maybe instinct. “I wasn't alive then. It wasn't me. I can work with the High Council. Chrystal is one of us. If they'll let any of you on board the Deep, it's Chrystal. That's what you made her for.”

“You might be putting your friend in mortal danger.” Still, the unemotional voice. She couldn't tell if she were convincing it at all.

“I won't. I'll know before we get there, make sure I have permission. If she's in any danger, we won't land.”

“It will be her choice.”

Something brittle and frightened released inside of Nona and she let out a long breath. “Can I go to her?”

“I'll take you.”

She blinked. This was too easy. But there wasn't time to think about it, not if she wanted to see Charlie again.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHRYSTAL

Jhailing Jim whispered a warning in all of their heads.
Nona is coming and she wants you to go with her.

Do we have to go?
Yi asked before Chrystal could even start to think through the implications.

No
.

Chrystal took the conversation verbal to slow it down. “I want to go with her. If not now, what other opportunity might we have?”

Yi answered back quickly. “If we leave we won't have the Next with us. Not directly. We won't learn as fast and we won't be protected.”

“This is what they created us for,” Chrystal said.

Jhailing had been listening.
It is. We did not anticipate this would come so quickly. You may choose.

That startled Chrystal. “You mean it's up to us. We can just decide to go?”

You are not our slaves.

In that moment, she realized she had been thinking that way. Robots, after all, had owners.

Yi didn't miss a beat. “Will we be able to talk between each other without words? Will we have enough bandwidth to think fast?? Will we be able to access the ship's computing the way we can yours?

Chrystal hadn't even known he could do that. She certainly hadn't.

He kept going. “Who will teach us how much we can do with these bodies? What if we need to be repaired? What if someone does us harm?”

You will have your own internal resources, which are significant. You will be able to provide each other computing resources, to share with yourselves. We will send a bot, which can fix you, and which may be able to teach you some things. If you die, you will die. But we have backup copies.

They did?

You must choose quickly. Help is coming to bring you better clothes, and a pack has been created for you with things that you need.

“Backups? Are you backing us up before we go? Is it constant? How much risk is there?”

“Stop it, Yi,” Chrystal said. “We can't know everything before we choose. I want to hear from Jason.”

Jason spoke slowly and very deliberately, using his command voice. “We have to go. We might be able to help.”

She sensed how careful his words were, and that he had more to say that he would not say around Jhailing. In a way, they were being offered freedom. “We will go, then. Yi?” She had only expected to fight Jhailing to keep her family together. The question was hard to get out. “Yi, do you want to stay?”

He looked at her in surprise. “I won't leave you.”

She felt immense, slow, deep relief.

A small bot charged through the door, piled high with new clothes. They dropped the blue dress and formal outfits for the casual daywear of spacers—comfortable pants that tightened around the ankles, and short-sleeved tops, all of it tight enough that if they were still flesh they could slide a psuit over the clothes if necessary. The bot left, so clearly it wasn't the one that would accompany them.

The comfortable clothes signaled this had been expected by the powerful Next, no matter what Jhailing had just said. She felt . . . anticipation. Excited about the future. It settled over her that this was a good choice, and that they were going on an adventure.

She and her family were doing what they had been created for, and their robotic overlords had kept the right tools at hand to make it easy. She recognized the thought as sarcasm, and it made her smile. She would need sarcasm to be around humans—it was something she had been good at before.

Nona hurried through the door. She looked worried, the fine lines around her eyes tight and the line of her jaw rigid.

“Are you okay?” Chrystal asked.

“Just. Um, yeah. I'm fine. I . . . I have a question.”

“We'll go with you.”

Nona stopped, looking from one to another. “How did you know?”

“I told them,” Jhailing Jim said from behind her. He had been sending them information nonstop since he told them about Nona. A lot of information: ways to repair each other, ways to talk to the humans about becoming Next, ways to access and magnify data backup, ways to build security into conversations. It had flooded in so fast that Chrystal had to shut down her awareness of the thread and just let the information accumulate.

Nona still hadn't said anything, as if she were shocked.

“We're ready,” Chrystal told her.

Nona nodded. “Thank you. I hope this is a good idea.” Her voice was edged with stress. Nona glanced at the silvery form behind her, and then back at Chrystal. She looked frightened and earnest. “I'll do my best to keep you safe.”

Jhailing Jim led off and they all followed, Nona first and then the others. A smaller robot pushing a wheeled case waited by the lock between the
Bleeding Edge
and the Satwa and followed them into the station even though Jhailing Jim did not. Jhailing didn't say goodbye or wish them luck, and it felt like he had missed a beat.

Yi interrupted her daydreaming.
Stay aware. People will be afraid of us
.

Thank you
.

Jason went in front, behind Nona, with Chrystal next, and Yi last.

Nona walked fast, although she turned around to check on them from time to time. “Hurry. We've only got a few minutes.”

Chrystal hadn't been near so much stimulation, so many people, since the last normal days on the High Sweet Home. The hubbub and movement pleased her and disconcerted her.

Most of the people they passed seemed like strangers to Nona, and certainly they were strangers to Chrystal and her family. There was no acknowledgement given, except maybe the barest of nods.

Chrystal had expected fear, especially after Yi's warning.

After five encounters, she realized that the people they passed didn't recognize them as robots. The clothes they wore were very different from the televised encounter, and common. They hadn't been the most interesting thing in the room either, or the most threatening. Maybe no one had paid them much attention at all. The robot that followed them with the case looked exactly like some of the other bots they passed. It appeared to be a common model in use on the station, although she couldn't quite puzzle out how it had gotten aboard the
Bleeding Edge
.

They rode in an elevator. Chrystal found the scent of Nona's fear and worry so disconcerting that she turned her ability to smell way down. She was afraid to let go of her other senses. The turn of gears. Nona's every breath. The shuffle of Jason's feet. The small judders of the elevator. The release of air, the tiny change in pressure as the elevator doors opened.

A square-faced man with grey-green eyes and almost as many muscles as Jason leaned against a wall, clearly waiting for them. He broke out onto a huge smile.

This had to be Charlie, from the relief on his face. “You got them out.” He sounded surprised, and only maybe pleased.

“They chose to come,” Nona turned to them. “This is Chrystal, Jason, and Yi.”

“I'm Charlie. I'm sorry there's no time to talk. We've got five minutes.” He started walking.

“Who are we meeting?” Nona asked, almost jogging to keep up with him.

“Friends.” Chrystal heard the slightest uncertainty in his voice, and tested the air. He smelled of fear and sweat.

They ducked though a doorway marked as a repair bay, the sensors showing full atmosphere. Inside, repair slots lined up in a long row, straight for a while and then curving gently away with the arc of the station. Most were empty, but here and there a ship or part of a ship hung in slings and racks. Others sat out on the main floor, looking like they could be flown.

Instinctively, she queried Jhailing Jim.
What ships can we use?

No answer.

A big man and a small blond woman with a ponytail and sharp jaws under a flat nose appeared to have been waiting for them “Larkos!” Charlie greeted the man ebulliently. “Am I glad to see you here.”

Larkos smiled broadly at first, and then narrowed his eyes. “I thought you were bringing one person.”

Charlie shrugged. “Everyone needs to leave.”

Silence hung between them all for the space of three human breaths. The scent of fear rose, sweat and adrenaline.

“They're Next,” the woman screamed. “Damn you!”

Larkos leaned back, pulled his hand back, and stepped forward, throwing a hard punch at Charlie.

Charlie took the fist on his jaw, flinching away, avoiding half the energy.

He recovered fast, leaned down, stepped toward Larkos.

Larkos landed another punch, then tried for one to the gut.

Charlie lifted an arm just so, twisted, blocked.

Jason took a step toward the fight, but Chrystal put her hand on his arm. “We can't.”

The look on Jason's face told her he knew that and hated it. He snarled.