Sarah Zettel - Reclamation

“Thank you, Dorias.”

Eric called for a car with a preprogrammed destination. He dropped most of the credit Schippend had sent Tasa Ad into his May 16 account.

The car arrived and Eric climbed inside. He spent the ride trying not to fidget.

It was all so ridiculous. The Realm was a dead world and a dying people and all of a sudden empires were ready to go to war over it. If they wanted the power-gifted, they could just hire a few contraband runners and take them. They weren’t exactly hard to spot. And if they just wanted the genes, Eric forced the thought through, the Vitae had had plenty of opportunities to get them from him. And if the Vitae wanted the planet? That was the most ridiculous part. There were plenty of dead rocks in the Quarter Galaxy that they could have laid claim to without anyone kicking up a ruckus. Almost as ridiculous as kidnapping a Notouch.

What would the Seablades say if they knew? he wondered. What would Mother say ? Nameless Powers preserve me, what would that old goat First Teacher Signed to Still Water say?

That’s if they’re still alive. He bit his lip.

The auto pulled up to the port and Eric transferred into one of the port cars. It was a good thing there was little traffic at this hour. He drove with only half an eye on where he was going.

The U-Kenai waited undisturbed for him. Eric boarded his ship and sealed the airlock. He let out a long breath. Home, he thought. And as safe as I can be anywhere.

“Cam,” said Eric as he walked onto the bridge. “Sit down. Open interface.”

The android sat in the pilot’s chair and stretched one arm toward Eric. With the other hand, it lifted back a socket cover on its wrist.

Eric pulled a single cable out of a storage compartment under the main boards. He plugged one end of it into the comm board socket and the other into Cam’s wrist. The android did not move.

Eric opened the line to Dorias.

“All ready, Dorias.” Eric stood back.

“Eric,” said Dorias’s voice. “I am not happy about this. I have not had time to fine-tune the copy. There may be flaws…”

“Dorias, I can’t wait. Please,” he added softly.

There was a measurable pause. “Sending,” said Dorias.

Eric waited. The only sound on the bridge was the vague hum of machinery. Then Cam turned its head toward Eric and blinked twice.

“Hello. I have been sent by Dorias to help you retrieve the data from the Vitae system.” For the first time, Eric heard intonation in Cam’s voice. The android held out one smooth hand.

Eric stared at it for a minute, before he reached out and shook its hand. “I am honored to meet you…” he stopped. “Dorias, what’s its name?”

“I hadn’t thought of one,” said Dorias. “That is part of your ceremonial role, isn’t it? I thought you’d give it one.”

Eric considered the android for a moment and then took the hand he had shaken between both of his and spoke in the language of the Realm. “I speak for the Nameless Powers. I see for the Servant Garismit. In so doing I name you. Your name is Adudorias.”

“Adudorias.” The android nodded. “Does it mean something?”

“Just ‘Son of Dorias.’” Eric tilted his head. “Is it all right with you?”

“I find it quite appropriate,” said the android. “My parent informs me that Abassyd Station would be an optimal site for our endeavors. You will be able to open a direct line to a communications terminal that has a hardware connection to a Vitae junction box.” Adudorias reached across to the comm board. “Excuse me,” it said as it unfastened the cable.

“Nice manners,” Eric remarked toward the comm board, feeling a bit strange. Dorias he was used to, but polite phrases coming from Cam were unsettling. “Thank you, Dorias. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He reached for the shutoff key.

“Eric?”

“Yes?” Eric pulled his hand back from the board.

Dorias hesitated. “I think it would be better if you did not trust anyone else more than necessary. You are right. A war is brewing.”

Eric felt his eyes narrow. “I’ll remember that. Good-bye, Dorias.” Eric closed the channel down and eyed the android sitting in the pilot’s chair. Cam had been the one fixture in Eric’s life since Perivar had left. Cam didn’t move unless it was ordered to. Cam didn’t quest or question. Cam did exactly as it was ordered to and no more.

Adudorias ran Cam’s hands across the pilot boards, checking their layout and display sequences. It scanned the bridge, taking it all in with something that appeared to be interest.

“Adu,” said Eric. “We need to get going. Can you head us out for Abassyd Station?”

“As soon as we’re clear,” it answered.

Eric went into the common room and laid himself down in the landfall alcove. He felt a twinge of obscure remorse inside.

How was I to know I’d miss a nonsentient machine? He set his jaw and stared at the wall. Garismit’s Eyes. He rubbed his hands together. I will be glad when this is over. Shaking the thoughts away, he fastened the webbing over his torso. He’d left the view wall on and through it he could see the nighttime stealing in its strange, slow way over the City of Alliances. A few stars were visible over the tops of the distant cliffs.

He couldn’t stop part of his mind from wondering if one of them belonged to the Realm.

Contractor Kelat looked down at his hand and flexed the newly grown finger. He smiled and felt his chest swell. He had never really believed he would be able to have it regrown. He had never believed he would really walk on the Home Ground.

He looked about him. And he had certainly never dreamed it would be like this.

They had had to seal the building, if four walls of patched cement with a polymer sheet for a roof could be called a building, and install an atmosphere-processing plant. The Beholden and the Engineers worked with zeal and the whole process took only a few hours. The inside was a wreck. Everything was preserved, certainly, but it was also vacuum welded and corroded by dust and radiation. There had been liquid in a lot of the mechanisms that had evaporated centuries ago, allowing the circuitry to collapse into incomprehensible jumbles.

So much gone. So much stolen.

But so much left, he reminded himself. So much that can be done. Outside, the thin atmosphere just barely carried the rumble of the excavation machinery. The Engineers were carefully digging down around the base of the pillar Baiel had found. The Engineers’ scans indicated it was a part of a network that extended…everywhere. Kelat allowed himself a smile at the bewildered look the Engineer gave him.

Kelat glanced toward where he knew the mountain range lay and wished, fervently and irrationally, that Jahidh would signal with more news of the artifact he had found. If the theories were correct, they were holding two halves of the Ancestors’ system, the human-derived and the mechanically derived, and until they could bring them together, they would never understand how the Ancestors’ world worked.

What bothered Kelat was that there did not seem to be any obvious interface between the two. There were control boards and readouts and other input-output sources that were perfectly comprehensible to the Historians and Engineers, but there was nothing that seemed to justify the enormous effort it would have taken to breed human-derived artifacts. Kelat could not bring himself to believe the Ancestors had created them to no definite purpose, not with the cost their creation had entailed.