The Cyber Chronicles V - Overlord (13 page)

"Thank
you."

"This is why
Ravian wants to keep you. She is attracted to you because of it.
She couldn't read you as deeply as I can, so she doesn't know that
your love for this girl is too profound to ever be overcome."

Sabre raised
his brows. "It is?"

"Yes. And you
would be a lot happier if you just gave in to those feelings
instead of trying to hide them away under the inadequacy and
emotional conditioning you learnt as a cyber host."

"How do you
know what Ravian feels for me?"

"She touched
me." Fairen went over to a pale circle on the floor, one of a ring
of seven in front of his dais. Clasping his hands before him, he
said, "Request contact with Overlord Ramadaus."

Sabre glanced
around at the empty room, wondering who Fairen was giving the order
to. Evidently someone was listening, for a few moments later a
shaft of golden light engulfed him. A second appeared on the circle
nearest to him, forming a glowing pillar. Ramadaus appeared in the
light, and turned the face the boy.

"Greetings,
Ramadaus."

"Fairen. How
are you?"

"Well enough. I
have judged the free cyber, and I find him innocent."

Sabre watched
Ramadaus, surprised by Fairen's casual and abrupt announcement. The
older Overlord's face stiffened a little, as if it surprised him,
too. "So, you're against me in this."

"Yes. You
should have read him."

"I did not see
the need. He's not entirely human. He's just a clone created to
serve a machine, and has no rights."

Fairen tilted
his head. "I judge him to be human, and entitled to all the rights
of a free man."

"Do you intend
to protect him?"

"If you execute
him, you'll be going against my judgement as well as Ravian's. That
wouldn't be wise."

"We all judge
as we see fit."

"You didn't
read him, and that's required."

Ramadaus
frowned. "I'm not required to read a thing that's nothing more than
a biological tool created to -"

"Serve a
machine," Fairen finished for him. "So you've already said."

"You can't
prevent me from carrying out my judgement."

"That's true,
up to a point. But, should I receive a plea from a planetary leader
to save an innocent from unjust execution by an Overlord, I may
choose to answer her."

"So you intend
to protect him."

Fairen spread
his hands. "Perhaps."

"What is it
about this abomination that has stripped two Overlords of their
good sense?"

"Read him and
find out."

Ramadaus
nodded. "We shall see."

Fairen stepped
out of the pillar of light, and a moment later the two faded away,
taking Ramadaus with them. Walking back to his huge throne, Fairen
flung himself into it and regarded Sabre pensively.

"He doesn't
wish to read you because then he'll never be able to think of his
cybers as mere machines again. This doesn't sit well with him. He
draws almost all his entertainment from them in one form or
another. Ramadaus has a penchant for violence."

"A strange
trait for an empath."

"He's the
weakest of us in that regard, something that irks him greatly. It
makes him a moderate Overlord, ever erring on the side of caution,
while I am the most extreme, and inclined to make sweeping
judgements that result in many deaths. Odd, isn't it?"

Sabre shrugged.
"I suppose so, but since I have trouble understanding my feelings,
I'm a poor judge of those who do."

"Your
conditioning and training have given you profound logic, the most
powerful of all mental tools, and as yet you are barely sullied
with the turmoil that comes when emotions play a part in our
decisions. I like that about you, though it stems from a painful
past."

"So what
happens now?"

"Your planetary
leader awaits. Take your chances. It's your life."

Sabre bowed.
"Thank you, My Lord."

"I assume,
since Ravian revealed herself to you, that you have agreed not to
divulge our true identities."

"Yes."

Fairen nodded,
and Sabre headed for the door, where a crewman waited to escort him
off the ship. In the doorway, he paused to glance back at the boy
on his massive throne, lonely and aloof. Clearly Fairen's power
weighed heavily upon his frail shoulders, and he would never know a
normal life. They had that much in common, Sabre thought as he left
the room.

When he stepped
out of Blue Sun's airlock, Tassin gave a glad cry and hurried over
to embrace him. Embarrassed and uncomfortable at her effusive show
of affection, he extricated himself as soon as he could, noticing
her crestfallen expression.

Tarl grinned
and thumped him on the back. "I thought your goose was cooked,
Sabre."

"It may be yet.
Ramadaus still wants me dead."

"Even with
Fairen on your side?"

"Fairen isn't
on my side. What makes you think he is?"

Tarl shrugged.
"Well, he saved you from Ravian."

"Only because
Ravian was holding me prisoner after he had judged me innocent.
That, apparently, isn't allowed. But Ramadaus has condemned
me."

"Did Fairen
judge you?"

Sabre nodded
and sighed. "Yeah."

Tarl frowned,
studying him. "What else happened to you?"

"Nothing much.
I could use something to drink, though."

A clunk came
from the docking port as the Scorpion Ship released Blue Sun, and
Tarl went to the bridge to move the ship to a safe distance. When
the Overlord ship filled the bridge screens, he led the way into
the kitchen, where he made coffee and they sat around the table
while Sabre explained the situation.

Tassin gazed
into her cup. "So nothing much has changed."

"No. Is Fairen
still here?"

Tarl rose and
headed for the door. "Let's have a look."

The blood-red
ship still filled the bridge's screens, and Tassin shivered,
rubbing her arms. "That thing turns my blood cold."

Kole nodded,
sipping his coffee. "It should. That ship's slaughtered more people
than the rest of the Overlords put together. Well, almost. Fairen's
reputation is blood curdling, to say the least."

Sabre glanced
at him. "What's he done?"

"The details
are sketchy, but he's known as the Red Death. Most of his
judgements, it seems, result in billions of deaths. In the last
four years he's destroyed seven planets."

Sabre gazed at
the ship, remembering the lonely boy dwarfed by his massive
throne.

"We should go
home," Tassin said, "before Ramadaus finds us."

Tarl said,
"We'll have to sell Blue Sun and take a transport ship to an outlaw
planet where we can buy a ship he doesn't know."

"He'll probably
be waiting for you at Omega Five," Kole pointed out. "I'm glad I’m
leaving."

"We've got to
try."

"I wish you
luck."

Tassin shivered
again and turned away. "I'm going to get some rest. It's been a
long day."

Sabre watched
her leave, then glanced at Kole, who raised a mocking brow. Tarl
sat in his command seat and tapped buttons on the console in
preparation for their departure, and Sabre left the bridge. Outside
Tassin's door, he hesitated before pushing the entry-call buzzer,
receiving a gruff invitation to enter. She sat on her bunk, her
expression downcast, and hid her surprise with a brittle smile.
Sabre went over to her, his heart pounding and his doubts
multiplying. Thrusting them aside, he sat on the bed beside her and
took her hand.

"I want to
thank you, for what you did. You saved me... again."

"You'd have
done the same for me."

"Not quite,
since I'm not a planetary leader, but yes, I would have saved you
if I could." He paused, frowning at her hand. "Or I would have died
trying."

"Sabre... What
are you trying to say?"

"I'm not sure.
Nothing you don't already know. I'm not sure what it means, but...
I would die for you. I want you to know that."

She slipped her
arms around his neck and hugged him. "You have no idea how much
I've longed for you to say something like that, although that
wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Still, I think… I hope I know what
you mean. But don't you dare do it. I can't live without you. I
don't want to."

He held her
awkwardly. "I don't know what to do in this situation. I'm
sorry."

"I know, it's
okay. This must be hard for you, so you take as long as you need,
until you're comfortable with your feelings."

He drew back to
regard her. "Yes, it's hard. I'm still trying to sort through all
the memories I got back, and some are... confusing. I have many
strange feelings, but they feel so wrong. There's a part of me that
still feels like a machine, and machines don't have feelings."

"You're not a
machine."

"Part of me
is."

She shook her
head. "That doesn't matter."

"It matters to
me, but I'm working on it. I'll get better. I know I've hurt you,
but it wasn't intentional, so if I do it again, please remember
that."

"I've known it
all along." She hugged him again. "As long as you stay with me,
I'll be all right."

"I mean that
much to you?"

Her arms
tightened. "Words cannot describe how much you mean to me. I would
die for you too."

"I won't let
you."

“
And I won’t let you, either, so I guess we’re both going to
live forever.”

Sabre wished
his heart would stop thudding and cursed the flashing proximity
alert light in his skull. He returned her embrace and tried to
force himself to relax, fighting years of conditioning and
training. After a minute she released him, and he sat back,
avoiding her eyes.

"Tell me what
you feel,” she said. “Maybe I can help you to understand it."

He hesitated,
loath to admit to even some of his many oddities, of which he was
so ashamed. She deserved to know the reason for his
standoffishness, even if it made him sound like a complete idiot
and doubled his freak factor. "Close contact makes me
uncomfortable. I get tense, and my heart speeds up. It's the way
I've been conditioned, and… I have a warning light flashing in my
mind."

She cocked her
head, studying him. “Did you have that on Omega Five?”

“
The tension, yeah, a bit, not as bad as this, but not the
warning light. It’s a proximity alert, but it shouldn’t happen with
you, because you own the cyber. It started after I went back to
Myon Two. They must have done something to the cyber.”

"So you need
lots and lots of hugs."

He smiled. "I
suppose so."

"I'm happy to
oblige. Just let me know if you get the urge to break my neck."

Sadness invaded
his heart, and he drew her into his arms again and held her close.
He would learn to deal with the discomfort, he decided, so he could
hold her as she clearly wanted him to, and as he did, too. She
deserved his affection, and he wanted hers more than anything. She
was the most precious thing in his life; he wanted to learn how to
make her happy, because right now, he was failing. His memories of
Omega Five were gradually settling into a coherent order and
joining together into a story instead of flashes, and some parts
disturbed him. He now knew he had felt far more for her than mere
friendship then, but he had known, as he did now, that such
feelings were forbidden to him. The memories did not really seem to
belong to him, either, as if the years of forgetfulness had made
them alien, along with the feelings he had experienced then.

Sabre remembered that fateful dusk in the snow when he had
said goodbye to her, and the pain that had filled his chest. The
memories were no longer part of who he was, but of who he had been,
as if he had been reborn and they belonged to a previous life. He
was not the same man he had been then. Parts of him were missing,
washed away by pain or cyber control or overwritten with data. He
had been a whole person then, now he was only a shadow. He wanted
his old self back, but he was out of reach, and the tug-of-war in
his mind only abated when he had to deal with a dangerous
situation. Then his pure logic took over and swept away the
turmoil, giving him clarity of thought. In a way, he resented the
ghostly memories of the life he had left behind, which haunted him.
The girl who had been so much a part of his life then was back,
however, and his forbidden longing to be close to her had returned,
along with the malicious voice in the back of his mind that
reminded him of what he really was.
Cyborg
!

Sabre rested
his cheek on her hair, hating himself for ever having told her
about the cyber’s intrusive programming. It was not the part of him
he wanted her to know about. It was part of his hated half, which
was nothing more than a killing machine.

“
You never have to worry about that, okay?” he
whispered.

She giggled. “I
was kidding, Sabre.”

Chapter Nine

Tassin glanced
around as a distant alarm sounded, her attention torn from the
entertainment vidimage on the screen in front of her. The suite
aboard the passenger liner Triumphant was quite luxurious,
decorated in shades of blue with cream pseudo-leather settees and a
chrome and glass kitchenette in one corner. It had no portals,
being deep in the liner’s interior, and a door in the far wall led
into a similarly decorated bedroom and en suite bathroom. Tarl had
paid for a cabin down the corridor with the proceeds of Blue Sun's
sale. Kole had left them on Travon Nine and taken a transport to
Espen Four, where Striker had run out of fuel. The parting had been
sorrowful, and his last words had left her in no doubt that if she
should one day find herself alone, he would welcome her company.
Tarl had been sad to sell Blue Sun, which he had owned for six
years and grown attached to. Triumphant was bound for Gorran Six,
the closest inhabited world to Omega Five, and sufficiently
disreputable that Tassin would be able to purchase a ship with no
questions asked. She turned to Sabre, who sat beside her, looking
vaguely unsettled.