Edge of Dark (44 page)

Yi looked at Charlie, his eyes almost unreadable. “Do we have your permission to take the
Star Ghost
to the Deep?”

“Now?” Surely Yi knew better.

“The Deep is not in Lym's orbit,” Jean Paul explained. “It's not really near us at all right now, and it will be getting even further away for the next few months.”

Yi surely didn't need an explanation of orbital mechanics. In spite of that, he said, “We need to go back for Chrystal.”

Jean Paul shook his head. “We can't turn around. This ship doesn't work that way—it's got full thrust now for Lym. We'd probably just burn out across the top of the atmosphere if we tried. You couldn't re-dock. We don't have papers. I also don't have another bribe big enough to get you past security.”

Yi clenched the fist of his free hand around a railing and it bent.

“Take it easy,” Kyle said, his eyes wide.

“Sorry.”

“I wasn't entirely sure you were robots.” Kyle's eyes had rounded and his voice shook. “Not until I saw that.”

Yi let go of Jason's hand and bent the railing back. “We should never have left Chrystal.”

“There's nothing we can do about the Deep,” Charlie said, “Not right now.” He looked at Jean Paul. “What's happening at home?”

“Nothing good.”

“Is Cricket okay?”

“She'll be a lot better when she sees you. She keeps prowling around the house, looking in corners.”

Yi said, “There was a Shining Revolution chapter on the High Sweet Home, before. . . . They came and gave lectures, did some stuff to help the poor. I never paid much attention.”

Jason said, “I met one once. A woman. She wanted me to come to dinner, and I might have gone except that she felt too intense, maybe even a little bit crazy.”

“Anybody that attacks the Deep
is
crazy,” Charlie said. “It's huge. How's Manny?”

Kyle said, “He's holding on, but barely. Amara is with him. Pi and Bonnie took the kids to their cabin away from town.”

That startled Charlie. “So people really are threatening him?”

Jean Paul said, “Yes.”

“What about the gleaners? Did any more die?”

“Yes to that, too.” Jean Paul looked sideways at Charlie, as if testing him. “There's one staying at the ranger station. She wants to talk to you.”

“Who?”

“Amfi. That's all she'll give me for a name. I think you should meet with her.”

“Okay. What else do we need to know?”

Kyle said, “Jason and Yi won't be safe in town. Maybe not even here. Three household robots have been dragged out into streets and shot up in the last week.”

“Really?”

“Look. People are stupid when they're scared. It's all fear.” Kyle glanced at the readouts. “It's time to strap back in. Ten minutes until we enter the atmosphere.”

This time Jason and Yi just sat without being strapped in, which irritated Charlie. He glanced over at Kyle, who mouthed, “Creepy,” at him.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

CHRYSTAL

After they left the train, armed guards pushed Chrystal behind Vadim and Nayli for so long she memorized the tattoos on the back of Vadim's bare arms: a sun, a spaceship, stars, and two women—one that had to be dark-haired and silver-eyed Nayli and one with blonde hair and pale blue eyes. The letters “y Free a,” arced across his neck. She presumed they represented the middle of the slogan of the Shining Revolution:
Humanity Free and Clear
. She'd found it in a dark corner of the socwebs, as well as growing support for the revolutionaries.

They passed through a lock and down a corridor and through another lock. Immediately after the second lock door closed, Chrystal's captors relaxed in every way except for their attention to her. Whoops and hand-claps spilled the tension from the group: a river of elation. Other people met them, screaming congratulations and relief.

With no obvious cue from Vadim, engines thrummed to life.

They were on a ship.

A few people came up to stare at her. “She looks real.”

A snarly voice suggested, “Could be a sex-bot, right? Not a Next at all, just a toy.”

She turned toward the voice to find a large red-haired man with a broken nose behind her. “She doesn't look like she has sex-parts.” His touched her between her legs and she stiffened in spite of herself. “She reacts. Maybe she likes it.”

Chrystal wanted to kick him. She settled for stepping back. She recorded the size of the dingy room, the banged-up walls, the position of the lockers, the slogans and safety signs stuck to the wall.

Definitely Shining Revolution.

She tried to count her enemies. There were too many, twenty or thirty just here in this room. She looked for doors and found three, including the one they'd come in through.

“I thought they'd be scarier.”

Someone touched her neck. “Her skin's warm!”

She couldn't see either speaker. She schooled her face into a calm expression, refusing to show fear. These people were afraid of her—fear sparked in their eyes and showed in the ways they moved: staying close to each other, touching weapons, keeping a meter or so away from her.

A woman's voice asked, “Is her hair real?”

She felt a growing anger, as well as a touch of shame. The shame made her angry with herself. She wished yet again for the calming feeling of a deep breath and vowed to find some equivalent habit.

A man came up to her and held both of her hands, pulling her in toward him, and demanding, “Give me a kiss.” He stank of stale beer.

Nayli noticed the altercation and snapped, “Back off. She's valuable. Don't degrade her.”

“She's a machine!” This statement came from a short man who looked too normal to be so cruel.

Nayli didn't reply to him.

Vadim glanced from Chrystal to Nayli. “Let them look. We control a lot of what we came for, and more than I thought we'd be able to win. They deserve to understand why they're risking their lives.”

Two guards were still pointing guns at Chrystal. Although people stopped touching her, they didn't stop talking about her as if she were a thing and staring. They smelled of sweat and fear and arousal all at once.

She stood as still as possible and pasted the dumb robot look onto her face. She considered attempting to talk her way from derision to sympathy, but decided that would work better in a smaller group. Maybe Nayli could be reached.

If they were here, Yi would be talking. Jason would be fighting, and someone would have shot him by now.

Katherine might have charmed them all.

After ten minutes and twenty-seven seconds of cruel scrutiny, Vadim gestured and his men led her away. She felt relieved to leave the small mob behind her.

Luckily, the anger and shame they brought up in her had been her new-normal dulled version of feelings. The Next had been good designers. She had never before considered that there could be excellent reasons for her emotions to feel like they had been stuffed with gauze. She was faster and stronger than humans. She could do real damage quickly if her decisions were driven by the heat of her old angers.

She returned to counting doors and looking for hatches and memorizing the layout of the ship.

They stopped in an office with Vadim, Nayli, and another couple. All four of the humans were so well muscled that they had to be addicted to high-g workouts. The two new people were blond and brown-skinned. Both had short hair and silver-blue eyes that reminded Chrystal of the color of water.

The woman looked her up and down, appearing disappointed. “From a distance I wouldn't even know you're a machine. You're supposed to be the new super-race?”

Any answer felt fraught with danger. Chrystal spoke softly. “I was just like you until the Next put me into this body after the High Sweet Home. I feel like I have always felt.”

The woman's lips thinned, which gave her a mean look. “How strong are you?”

Not a question she wanted to answer. “I've always been strong.”

The woman frowned. “Will you show us how strong you are now?”

They were already frightened. She smelled it in their sweat and heard it in the edges of their voices. If they knew what she could do they'd be so much more so. “No.”

Vadim came in closer to her than he had, as if the presence of the other two emboldened him. He practically spit in her face. “There are laws about your kind. You're an abomination.”

“I did not choose to have this happen to me,” she said. “It was done to me.”

Vadim raised an eyebrow. “So you disapprove?”

“Of course.”

The woman with eyes the color of water suddenly looked more interested. “Would you fight the Next? Do you know how to help us do that?”

Nayli watched the exchange, looking thoughtful.

“I wouldn't advise fighting the Next. They are far more powerful than I am. Or than you are.”

The interest faded from the woman's eyes. Apparently she didn't want to hear the truth. Chrystal tried again. “If you choose to fight them, you'll die.”

The woman who had asked her spit on the ground. “I didn't think you were a real girl.”

The echo of her mother's words stung. All she had done was spoken the truth. She should never have left Jason and Yi. Never. If she ever saw them again, she'd never leave their sides. She asked, “What do you intend to do with me?”

Vadim shook his head at her. “We're going to treat you far better than you deserve. In honor of being right here near the Deep and all. We're going to put you on trial.”

“For what?” Chrystal asked, suddenly, completely certain they wanted to kill her. This man wanted it so badly she could see it in his eyes. “I haven't done anything to you.”

The water-eyed woman spoke. “We'll demonstrate that you aren't human, and that you are more than a robot, and that you are a gross violation of the rules we hold dear.”

“And then what?” Chrystal asked.

No one answered.

“Put her away,” the new man said for the first time.

Nayli's brows furrowed. “Wait.”

The man asked her, “For what?”

Vadim remained silent, his weapon still trained on Chrystal. Always the professional.

Nayli glanced nervously between the man and Vadim. “She feels. I know she does. And she has supporters. Maybe family. I saw how Nona looked at her, and the Historian.” She turned toward Vadim. Her voice softened, and she looked into his eyes the way a partner or a lover does, with knowledge and authority. “You might not have had time to notice. People care about her. This could be a mistake.”

The water-eyed woman said, “Don't get soft. Put her away.”

Vadim stared at Nayli for a long time, and then shook his head. “You cannot be weak.”

She licked her lips. “I know.”

Vadim gestured with his weapon.

Chrystal almost reached out to grab it in the split second when it pointed away from her, but hesitated too long.

One man walked backward in front of her. Vadim and Nayli gave her voice commands for each turn, staying far enough behind her that she couldn't spin and kick them.

Her footsteps and theirs echoed in the corridor.

They led her to the ship's brig, a two-celled jail with three heavily armed guards. There, they herded her into one of the cells with no processing. The metallic click of the lock sounded like a slap.

A metal chair and a metal table were both bolted to the floor. A metal bed frame with no mattress fully occupied one wall. An open toilet took one corner, barely more than a hole into which she could pour bodily fluids if she had any. She felt the absence of tears, the ghost of a thing she should be able to do naturally but would never be able to do again.

“We'll be back in the morning,” Vadim said to her. “Be ready for us.”

Nayli addressed the guards in a loud, commanding voice. “No touching. No roughhousing. She hasn't got a vagina anyway. Consider this a sacred duty, a night that will make history for you.” She raised her voice so far it sounded strident. “Don't screw it up.”

“We won't,” the biggest one muttered.

Nayli looked at Chrystal for a long time, measuring. “Don't antagonize them. We'll bring you a fresh outfit for court tomorrow.”

Her captors left. She sat in the chair, since someone with a human body would probably sit. Three men with guns stared at her.

She entertained herself by imagining ways she might take down three armed guards and escape if she could get the door open. She might be strong enough to tear the door open. It would be fun to try.

But first the guards needed to leave, and that wasn't looking very likely.

Chrystal sat at the table with light pooling all around her and tried to think of some way to at least message Jason and Yi. Then she imagined taking down all of the guards. Or just running and running and running. She tried to think of something to say to change Vadim's mind, or to finish convincing Nayli.