The Cyber Chronicles IX - Precipice (7 page)

"Right now I
think he wants to curl up in a dark hole to escape his emotional
turmoil. His logic has been destroyed by overpowering feelings of
anguish and sorrow."

"Then he needs
hope."

"Yes."

Fairen swung
away and went to the dais, stepping onto it. "Shrain."

"Translocation
in thirty seconds, My Lord."

"The beacons
around Omega Five record all traffic. Download the data from three
days ago."

"Yes, My Lord.
Connecting."

Fairen sat
down, gazing at Sabre, who stared out at Myon Two, his hands
clasped behind his back.

Shrain tapped
his com-link. "Translocation in ten seconds, My Lord."

The suffocating
stasis field gripped them in a momentary flash of white light, and
the two techs reeled as it released them. Sabre gazed at the blue
and white globe of Omega Five as if nothing had changed. Fairen
turned to Shrain, who tapped his com-link again.

"Downloading
data, My Lord. Three days ago, a ship was in orbit for seven hours.
It was a Gigantor, E-class luxury explorer, two years old. Its
tracking beacon was deactivated, so no other data is available, but
the satellite recorded some local voice traffic. I'll play it for
you."

A gruff voice
came from the com-link, speaking a strange dialect, then faded in a
hiss of static. Fairen glanced at Sabre, who turned to face him,
frowning.

"That's a
Frellan dialect, a sub-dialect of Nardrin, spoken on only two
planets, Farrelin Eight and Pragan Prime. He was issuing
instructions to a shuttle, guiding it somewhere."

"Does that
help?"

"A Frellan
dialect, spoken on a Gigantor ship, which was built on Endron Two,
can only mean they're smugglers or slavers, and it's a stolen
ship."

Fairen nodded.
"There's nothing worth smuggling on Omega, so it must be
slavers."

"It's worthless
information."

"Let's assume
they have all the slaves they can carry. What's the closest slaver
planet?"

"Darvel
Three."

"Then perhaps
that's where you should start your search?"

Sabre turned to
gaze out of the screens again. "Then there's the Dellan Station,
half a light year further away in the opposite direction, and
Mintar Four, two light years further away in a completely different
direction. And let's not forget Forge Prime, a mere five light
years further in yet another direction. Who wants to pick one?
Perhaps we should draw straws?"

"Which would be
the preferred haunt of Frellan slavers?"

"Probably the
Dellan Station, but who's to say they're all Frellans? Maybe only
the coms-op is."

Fairen sighed,
the voice distorter turning it into a hiss. "You have to start
somewhere."

"It's
hopeless."

"Only if you
give up. Tassin didn't give up, did she? She found you on Ferrinon
Four, against all odds."

Sabre nodded.
"Tassin is a... mule."

"And what are
you?"

"Right now I'm
not sure. I can't find a workable solution. There are too many
variables, too many unknowns, not enough facts. She's gone. In
three days, those slavers could have taken her to any of those
planets, or about seven others, and sold her, so she could be
anywhere."

Fairen leant
back, tapping the arms of his chair. "You are correct, of course,
but I want you to take the enforcer ship and search for her." Sabre
stared at Omega Five, and Fairen turned to Martis. "What is his
problem?"

The young tech
cleared his throat. "Well, basically, he's not entirely human, My
Lord. If you ordered a cyber to search for this person, with these
few facts, he would tell you pretty much what Sabre just did, that
there was insufficient data to formulate a workable strategy, and
no possibility of success. Sabre's been swamped by a whole host of
new, irrational emotions, but he's unable to deal with them yet, so
he lacks the ability to use them to base hope on faith, or luck. So
he has no hope. You're asking him to do the illogical. If he was a
cyber, the only way to order him to do this would be to give him
exact instructions, which planets to search, and in what
order."

"All right."
Fairen turned to Sabre once more. "Sabre, take the enforcer ship
and start your search on the closest slaver planet, then work your
way outward from there."

Sabre turned to
face him, a wry smile tugging at his lips. "I'm not a cyber,
Fairen. You shouldn't listen to that little twit."

"You have a
better plan?"

"She's just a
girl, lost amongst a dozen planets with over a hundred and
twenty-four billion people on them."

"So what will
you do?"

Sabre lowered
his gaze to the floor, his brow furrowing. "If I go to any of those
slaver planets in an enforcer ship, they'll attack it. There's no
way to find her. It's impossible. She's been swallowed up like a
drop of water in the sea. So I'm not going to look for her, it
would be a pointless exercise. I'm going to look for Tarl."

"Why Tarl?"

"Because he'll
be easy to find. He's a cyber tech, the only one who doesn't work
for Myon Two. That makes him a rarity, an oddity, and, while Tassin
is just a pretty girl who will vanish without a trace, he'll cause
ripples wherever he goes. He'll use his skills to keep himself
alive, otherwise he's a worthless middle-aged man, but his skills
make him extremely valuable to anyone who has cybers.

"Whoever has
him is going to use him. They'll want to buy cyber repair equipment
and drugs. They might even offer his services to others. Tarl will
either know where Tassin is, or he'll put me on her trail. I just
need to find where she was taken, and I can find who bought her,
then the trail's easy to follow."

Fairen inclined
his head. "Of course, a good plan."

"It's still a
long shot. I'll need the battle cruiser's emblems changed to
something suitable for an outlaw, and made to look like some other
kind of ship."

Fairen turned
his head. "Shrain, see to it."

Sabre clasped
his hands behind his back and paced in a circle, frowning at the
floor. "I'll need Kole to do the Net searches, and Martis and
Estrelle to do any repair work that comes our way."

"Err..." Martis
said. "Battle cruisers don't carry analysers or repair equipment,
only regeneration drugs. They don't have a repair tech on board.
Badly damaged - injured cybers are put into cold sleep and taken to
the nearest repair centre and swapped for functional units. Omega
Five is a Rim world; there are no repair centres out here."

Sabre shook his
head. "We'll deal with that if we have to, not now."

"Where do you
want to start your search?" Fairen asked.

"The Dellan
Station."

The young
Overlord addressed Shrain again. "Bring Kole Arvan aboard, then
translocate to the Dellan Station."

Sabre looked
up. "No, you can't go there. The presence of an Overlord will cause
a lot of suspicion. It's bad enough that we'll be newcomers. I'll
leave you here."

Fairen nodded,
glancing at Shrain. "Belay my last order, and have all the cyber
repair equipment in my hospital put aboard the enforcer ship at
once."

Sabre stopped
pacing and faced him. "Thank you. Kole can ship-clamp Striker to
the enforcer, it'll add to our disguise."

"Pass on the
order to Kole Arvan,” Fairen instructed Shrain. “Is the battle
cruiser ready yet?"

"No, My Lord,
you only issued the order five minutes ago."

"Tell them to
hurry up."

Sabre looked at
Martis and Estrelle. "Go and get aboard the battle cruiser... does
that damned thing have a name, Shrain?"

"She's Pathos,
sir."

“A fitting
name.”

As soon as the
door slid shut behind the two techs, Fairen pulled off his hood and
stepped down to join Sabre, looking concerned.

"Are you all
right now?"

"I'll be
fine."

"What
happened?"

The cyber
shrugged, rubbing his brow. "I don't really know. I couldn't think
straight. It was like my head was full of... I don't know what.
Ready to burst. I can't describe it."

"How did you
overcome it?"

"I haven't,
it's still there, I'm just... working around it, I guess."

"It's
understandable that you should find your first experience of
despair overwhelming; just don't give in to it again. You mustn't
give up hope. You'll find her if you try hard enough."

Sabre nodded,
lowering his eyes to the floor to hide the expression in them. "I
didn't give in to it, exactly. I tried to deal with it, but I
can't, not yet."

"I must
go."

"I know. So
must I." Sabre hugged the boy and ruffled his hair. "Don't go
blowing up too many planets."

Fairen smiled.
"Good luck."

The cyber
paused in the doorway to glance back, and Fairen raised a hand in
farewell. Once more he was struck by the sadness that surrounded
the lonely boy; a small, forlorn figure in the massive control
centre of the mightiest ship in the galaxy. The fate of worlds
rested on his thin shoulders, yet friendship and happiness were
denied him, leaving his life a joyless existence. Somehow, thinking
about Fairen's misfortune pushed aside his overwhelming concern for
Tassin. He could not think about her right now, the stress was too
intense and the accompanying emotions too strong.

As Sabre loped
along the corridor towards berth five, he resolved to return, when
he found Tassin, and spend more time with the young Overlord. Being
Fairen's only friend was a responsibility he would take seriously
now he knew the full extent of the rare privilege and all it
entailed. Fairen could have anything he wished with a flick of his
fingers, except the friendship he needed so much. First Sabre had
to find Tassin, which was impossible. He pushed the thought aside.
He would find Tarl, which was more feasible. The mocking voice
awoke deep in his mind to scorn his intent. How was he going to
even find Tarl, when he was just a broken killing machine? The task
was just too great. He tried to ignore the sneering voice's
insistent ridicule.
Cyborg
! It had not said that for some
time, and somehow that made it worse.

In berth five,
he found a group of enforcer officers watching the transformation
of their ship with bemused eyes. Red-uniformed workmen swarmed over
it, spraying on layers of ultra-hard brown and grey paint. Already
the battle cruiser had a dull, moth-eaten appearance. A snarling
wolf's head replaced the Myon Two emblems, and engineers were
welding ramming spears to the bow and cutting shears to the sides.
The battle cruiser was a massive ship, more than a kilometre long,
and barely fitted into the docking berth. It only looked small when
compared to the Scorpion Ship, and the workers were like ants on
it.

Sabre headed
for the open door, and the distinguished-looking commander trotted
after him, falling into step beside him.

"Sabre, isn't
it?"

The cyber
glanced at him. "It's 'sir', to you."

"Right. Can you
tell me what we're going to be doing?"

"We're going to
pretend to be outlaws, so have your men wear plain clothes, make
some if you have to. We're looking for the outlaw cyber tech Tarl
Averly, so we're going to offer to sell cyber repair services,
equipment and drugs. Have Fairen's men finished setting up the
repair equipment in your hospital?"

"Yes,
almost."

"Either they
have, or they haven't, which is it?" Sabre asked.

"Host
Researcher Martis is inspecting it."

"He's not a
host researcher anymore, so quit calling him one. No more Myon Two
jargon, got it? When we come into contact with outlaws, your men
had better keep their mouths shut. I'll do the talking. Get your
men on board; we're going to be leaving soon."

"Right,
okay."

Sabre bounded
up the steps, leaving Thestan at the bottom, and made his way to
the hospital, where Martis and Estrelle were checking the
equipment. They looked up with hesitant smiles, and Martis came
over to him.

"How are you
doing?"

"You mean apart
from the fact that my head's full of ridiculous, illogical rubbish
and I feel like an elephant's sitting on my chest? Just great."

"Is that how
you're dealing with it, by dismissing it as ridiculous
rubbish?"

"That's what it
is."

Martis shook
his head. "I suppose for now we should be glad you're still able to
function, but at some point you're going to have to deal with
it."

"Or what?"

"Or become
psychotic. Those emotions seem ridiculous to a machine, but humans
need them, so you're going to have to face them."

The cyber
tilted his head. "What do you need them for?"

"To be
human."

"I'm not a
machine, and I don't have time to deal with it now."

Martis said,
"That's debatable. You're at least forty per cent programmed, and
until now the rest was memories and a small amount of experience.
Now you've just had a shitload of humanity dumped on you. Sort
through it, don't just push it aside."

"I don't want
to sort through it right now, so piss off, okay?"

The tech raised
his hands. "Okay, don't blow a gasket."

"And no dumb
machine metaphors either."

"Okay, you're
pissed off, I get it."

"Good."

The husky tones
of Scorpio's voice came from outside, announcing a translocation in
thirty seconds. Sabre cursed, heading for the door. The
translocation stasis field gripped him before he made it back onto
the dock, and when he staggered free of its stifling embrace one of
Fairen's aides came into the dock and hurried over.

"Overlord
Fairen has translocated to within two hours of the Dellan Station,
saving you a nine-hour flight, sir. He must leave immediately on
urgent business."