When Fighting Monsters, page 3
part #5 of The Maauro Chronicles Series
“Please, Wrik, no such formality between a grandmother and the man who saved her grandchild.”
Wrik blushes and manages, “Yes, Ma’am.” as he takes her hand. It is terribly cute.
Shasti turns to me, and placing a hand on my shoulders, bends to kiss me on both cheeks, to Wrik’s evident astonishment. “And greetings to you, Maauro, without whom all would have been lost so many times.”
“I was glad to render aid in such a good cause,” I reply, warmed by her welcome. “If it does not cause distress, how is Maximillian?”
She nods. “He is largely recovered, remaining somewhat delicate emotionally. It is hard for him to shake off all the death that being a prisoner of the Destroyer made him an unwilling accomplice to.
“He paints and studies and is content with this.” Her face hardens. “I have forbidden anyone to try and involve him in politics, or other thoughts of a career, and in this I have been obeyed.”
“I understand,” I say. “I too have been a prisoner of programming others inflicted on me.”
Wrik places a hand on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” Shasti says. “I knew that you, of all people, would understand.”
“Please send him my regards, though I am doubtful he remembers me.”
“He says he remembers a gentle voice singing to him. It was a great comfort.”
“I am glad,” I say, unexpectedly moved by this.
Shasti gestures at a veranda, behind what I detect is weapon resistant plas-steel. It reveals a nice view of a garden. The table is set for three. One nice thing about Olympian furniture is that I need not be concerned about my weight. I am not much heavier than the adult men here.
“I’ve had a selection of Olympian delicacies brought in for an early dinner.” She gives me a mischievous look. “Maauro’s consists mostly of deserts. Perhaps it is the indulgent grandmother in me.”
“Well,” I say, “if I end up sitting in your lap, you’ll have no one but yourself to blame.”
A chuckle comes from the tall woman as we seat ourselves around the table.
“My husband will join us later,” Shasti said. “It was too much to hope that both of us would be free at the same time.”
Shasti and Wrik chat amiably about ships and spacing as the food and promised deserts materialize on robo-servers. Wrik gradually relaxes as she tells him of her battles in the desperate days of the Olympian rebellion. His eyes shine as he looks at her in a way that could make me jealous, if I let it.
Dinner and especially the desserts are all that could be desired. Shasti asks questions about the Retiefan rebellion and I give her the carefully edited version that is safe with Wrik present.
“I fear that we will see more such incidents,” Shasti says. “Power is shifting within the Confederacy. The lessons of the Conchirri War are lost on the later generations. The central government continues to weaken and the new species that have been added have diluted the old, human-led, coalition. Nothing has arisen to replace it.
“Have such elements resurrected themselves here?” I ask.
“Not as such,” Shasti said. “With the fall of the Eugenicist cabal, that movement was utterly discredited here. We closed the labs and forbad further engineering of humans. I have seen to it that the Engineered have been woven back into society. Had we become a persecuted minority, there would have been a rich field for the planting of dissidents. There are a few revanchist societies of course, but you have to remember, the Engineered were themselves to be replaced by people like me, a totally mixed human. For the Engineered, who so prized their bloodlines, losing the meaning of those bloodlines was upsetting. It knocked out the underpinnings of their lives.”
At the end of dinner, the door chimes.
“Ah,” Shasti says, “that will be my husband.” She taps a key on a console and the doors swing in to reveal Mikhail Vaughn, President of Olympia. Wrik and I stand as he strides into the room. Even I must admit he is a daunting presence. He is seven feet two inches tall, massively muscled, but on the body of a triathlete. His skin is swarthy under steel gray hair over eyes that almost blaze blue. Vaughn was designed, I feel, to look the part of a king and does.
“Hello, Darling,” he rumbles. “So these are our guests.”
Wrik looks up at Vaughn, his posture suddenly tense. I suspect that Vaughn has that effect on most beings. But not me, and I have placed myself between Wrik and the giant.
Vaughn grins at me, as if aware of what I have done, and Wrik, perhaps realizing it as well, steps around me and reaches out his hand. Vaughn’s grin broadens in appreciation at his refusal to be intimidated.
“Mr. President, an honor to meet you,” Wrik says.
“And you, Captain Trigardt. May I call you, Wrik? I owe you thanks for the safe return of my grandson, though I must also share those thanks with you.” He turns to me with a gleam in his eye. I recognize the combination: interest, intelligence and avarice. I am on my guard.
“So you are the fabled Maauro?” he says.
“I am,” I reply, “and the very embodiment of the concept that good things come in small packages.”
He gives a delighted laugh. “From only a few seconds exposure, it is obvious that you are no mechanism. Only a fool would entertain the thought a moment longer.”
“My boyfriend thinks the same.” I reach and shake Vaughn’s hand. Mine simply disappears into his, but his handshake, while firm, is careful, as if I was the delicate female I appear to be.
“More each day,” Wrik says.
“Ah,” Vaughn said. “A spacer with a glib tongue; perhaps I should guard my interests by taking you on a tour of the palace?”
Shasti laughs. “I don’t think he is interested in trading for an older model.”
“Well,” I say, “technically, I’m the older model.”
“I am simply honored to be in the presence of Captain Rainhell,” Wrik says gallantly.
“I can see why you like him,” Shasti says to me. “He is reflexively kind.”
“There is a list of reasons I like him,” I reply. “It is not short.”
We chat amiably as Vaughn repeats his thanks and we tell him directly of the grim adventure on Seddon and the retrieval of his grandson. The huge hands knot at the discussion of Maximillian’s suffering.
“Ah,” he says. “It is so hard to hear of the pains of one’s grandchildren. Would that I had Bexlaw’s throat in my hands.” This last comes out as a growl.
“You would have to fight me for the chance of ending him,” Shasti said.
“Still, enough of that,” Vaughn says, visibly bottling his anger. “This is a glad day when we can greet people to whom we owe so much. My son-in-law and daughter are off world, but they send greetings and thanks. If they can get back before whatever duties take you back to the stars, we will all gather.”
He hesitates and casts a look at Shasti. “One hopes you will forgive it if Maximillian does not come. Reminders of his imprisonment—
Both Wrik and I shake our heads.
“Think nothing of it,” Wrik says. “The boy’s health is all that is important. We have received thanks enough and are glad for a chance to be of service to Captain Rain… to you both.
Again the grin. “My dear, I do believe this boy is in love with you.”
Wrik blushes furiously, “Always an admirer.”
“No teasing, you great Ogre,” Shasti adds. “He is a fine handsome boy, but quite spoken for.”
“And it would never do to incur the enmity of this one, from what I have heard.” Vaughn adds.
“No one has ever profited by it,” I agree.
He did a double-take on me, but his face is thoughtful. “Of that, I have no doubt.”
Vaughn rose from his chair. “Well Wrik, shall I show you around? There is an excellent range in the basement with quite a selection of vintage and rare weapons. Are you a good shot?”
“Yes, with pistols,” he replies.
“Well then, shall we try our luck.”
Wrik touches my hand, probably aware that this has been arranged by me so I can be alone with Shasti. He follows the giant Vaughn out.
I sit opposite Shasti on the sofa, which handles my weight easily. Shasti sighs as she settles back and lifts a glass of wine. “When I was young, I was something of a night owl. Now, I find the day long enough and look forward to a nice warm bed before midnight. Today began especially early, for reasons we will discuss later.”
The admission of the effect of age causes a pang of sadness for me. Shasti is new to my network, but is the oldest being in it. An Olympian might live 175 or 200 years, but she is through more than half of that. This bears on my own journey and the commission I am about to hand her.
“Shasti, I have come to ask a favor of you.”
“For you or Wrik? Anything within my power.”
I smile. “It is indeed for both of us, but I must ask you not to discuss this with him yet. He does not know my intentions.”
Her smile dims slightly. “What is it that you want?”
“We are lovers now in deed and word.”
“Then you took the advice I gave you by our little waterfall.”
“Yes, I did. Though it took me a long, somewhat bewildering time to do so – yet now I have that which I could once only barely imagine.
“Yet, I find that I want more. Wrik is wonderful to me, but I think he may love me more then desire me. As for me – well, I feel something inexpressible and wonderful when we make love. But I know it is only the dimmest echo of what he feels with his biological body. What you feel with yours. I want to feel that. I want to be joined with him as the same form of life.”
“You want to become a human?” Shasti asked. Expressions flitted across her beautiful face: wonder, fear, doubt, amazement above all.
“Not forever,” I say. “I have learned something unprecedented in my journeys, a knowledge I purchased with great pain. I believe I can download my consciousness into a human body and back it up to my android body daily. I will live as a woman for the lifetime of the human body and then I will continue in this body.”
“Such a thing can be done?” Shasti murmured in astonishment.
“I believe so. I have seen the process. But there’s something I lack, a human body. So I have come to the world of greatest genetic biological engineers. Shasti, can you make a body for me – not as a child either? Wrik cannot wait decades for me to grow to adulthood. I wish to start as an adult woman, and as close to my present appearance as can be managed.”
Silence follows as Shasti mulls over what I’d asked. “This is a daunting prospect,” she says finally. “The technology to do much of this was destroyed in the fall of the Eugenicists. I myself was made in a somewhat similar fashion. No actual parents – I was assembled from the distilled genes of many thousands, perhaps millions.
“But I was made as an infant and grew as a child. This would be growing a human body to full-size with a functioning brain, yet having no personality, no soul of its own.”
“Yes. In that last we are in agreement,” I quickly add. “I will not take the life or place of another.”
“Of course,” Shasti said with a raised hand. “The thought did not even occur.”
“Oh,” I say, “to the owner of a leather-bound volume of Frankenstein?” I cut my eyes in the direction of the bookshelf where it sits.
She grimaces. “For those of us who are made, not born, the book does resonate.”
“I know, “I reply. “I’ve read it, though I confess only as data, not text.”
“What manner of experience is that?” Shasti muses. “You must contain many libraries in you, but you still read?”
“The best I could render it for you is that I contain these works – I am aware of them and their content – yet I can only focus on so many things at one moment. Think of it as being a very good librarian who knows and has read many of her shelves – yet must draw down a book to enjoy it.”
Shasti nods and I know her questions are but to give her time to think of the practical, moral and ethical issues raised in my request. “Interesting, Little One, I don’t know if this is possible. Of certainty, much research would be needed. The expense does not concern me. My husband is a largely benevolent dictator. Oh, I mean ‘president.’” She smiles. “I have access to black accounts and will bring it in under some pretext.
“But,” she leans forward, “we of Olympia have walked this road before, playing God, but without god-like judgment. If we create this miracle – it will be for you alone-for what I owe you.”
“Do not fear,” I reply. “This would work for no other being than me.” This is half true. The psychotic hacker, Lilith, who I fought on Retief, had downloaded a human consciousness into a sextet of HCR bodies, though she remained chained to the life of her original human body. In that much, we are totally different. My original body has no time limit on it.
“This is true?” Shasti asked. The question was asked and answered, but she seems to wish assurances.
“I do swear it. None other than I can use this technique. A human downloaded into a machine body does not escape Death’s dominion. When the biological body dies, the person dies.” I remember my final conversation with Lilith when I let her escape. Months after my encounter with Lilith, I still did not know if I wished her peace in the time she had left, or merely an early exit from space-time.
“You are sure the same fate does not await you?” Shasti asks, shaking her mane of black and silver hair out of her face.
“There is no complete certainty in this, as in much of our existence. Reality is only a construct of probabilities. Yet, I have very high confidence in this. I would not risk my future, or Wrik’s grief, on something where the odds were not markedly favorable.
“Do you not tell him because you fear that he will not want this, or that he will want it too much?” she asks. “The question is woman-to-woman, I will not object if you choose not to answer.”
“I see no reason not to. I withhold the information only until and unless there’s a choice. We may never come to this bridge, or if it appears before me, I may choose not to cross it. I cannot say for certain what I will do in the future. I am so changed in just these few years – it’s impossible to guarantee my future behaviors, but if it is possible then I believe I will do it.”
“As for Wrik, I do not doubt him – but he is young and male. I will no longer consider, or allow, that place in what is between us, to be occupied by another, as I did before. But no matter how I work to extend Wrik’s life – it will end, and too soon for me. Already this is a terror I must cope with. You are all so appallingly fragile. I can only be amazed at the courage you show in your exploring, your striving, your loving.”
“So in what time I have with Wrik, I want everything I can possibly have – it may have to last me for all of my existence.”
Shasti rises from the sofa, crosses to me and bends down to fold me in an embrace. I realize that I am on the edge of my seat. My voice, demeanor and posture have revealed my fears. I relax in her embrace, savoring the warmth and the scent of her, wondering if this is how a child feels in the arms of its mother.
“I am glad you love Wrik, which has always been clear to me. Still more, I am glad that he loves you, which is equally obvious from when I see him with you. Still,” she says with a half smile, “it’s as well that you recognize that he’s young and male. Men are like…”
“Onions,” I add, “many layers and each makes you cry.”
She gives a delighted laugh and sits on the couch beside me. “Exactly!”
“Has it been so between you and Vaughn?” I ask, greatly daring.
“Ah,” she says. “You waited for the right moment and got me back.”
I raise an eyebrow in her own gesture and say, “The question is woman-to-woman, and I will not object if you choose not to answer.”
Again she laughs. “You’re a true female, as if there was ever any doubt.” Her expression turns serious, even wistful. “We have had our times, Vaughn and I. Our love was very passionate, wild at first, as if we were literally made for each other. He is Engineered, but not to the degree I am. No one else is.
“But we are in some ways too alike. We have competed for power, and our vision for Olympia is not always the same. We sometimes clash – most notably over our children and grandchildren. He and his son-in-law have that dangerous streak of a will to power.”
“And you?”
“Of course I have it too, but it is linked with my protective instincts. I will suffer no danger to what is mine.”
“In this way we are much alike,” I say. “I seek no dominion over biological life. I’ve always wondered why your fantasists always have my kind either enslaving or destroying yours. Why should I want to rule humans or other biologicals? The handful I’m involved with take up too much of my time. Honestly!”
“Oh, Maauro,” Shasti said, “stay up and drink with me. I cannot say when I’ve enjoyed company more.”
“Well, I will happily drink, but I if some more sweets could be found as well…”
CHAPTER THREE
I walked alongside Vaughn, barely coming up to his shoulder. He spoke easily of the history of Olympia, the founding of the colony and the construction of the Palace. Soldiers saluted as we passed. Many of the civilian staff nodded at Vaughn, or greeted him with, “Good afternoon, Mr. President.”
“You’ve been president for four terms,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied. “But not consecutively, it’s against the constitution. Fortunately, given how long-lived people are, we have been able to hold off term limits. Still, I can only run twice more. I keep talking to Shasti about running, but my wife isn’t very political, and while she has mellowed with age, she is still likely to answer an insult with a straight shot to the throat.”
