Брендон Сандерсон - Cytonic

“You’re only now noticing?” I growled. “What did you think I was doing with these ropes?”

“I thought you were trying to scratch an itch! That’s why I pointed out the rough part of the root. You biological beings are always scratching things. Skin must be awful.” He hesitated. “To be honest, I should have figured out you were captive. It’s actually rather obvious. I was distracted by all these emotions my processors are inexplicably simulating. Hmm… Yup. Those are ropes.”

“Help get me out of them?”

“Uh…right. I will…search for knot-untying solutions in my database…”

“Or you could untie them!” I hissed.

“I’m not sure how.”

“It’s not that hard.”

“For you, maybe. I’m not exactly used to being able to do things, Spensa. I’m an information-support AI. I…don’t know how to act. In fact, I’ve needed to send my self-shutdown protocols into an infinite loop. They don’t like me being able to fly myself around.”

The people who had made his old ship had implanted deep controls on his personality. It said a lot that he had progressed enough to circumvent some of those.

An outburst from the pirates pulled my attention back to the sick burl. She was struggling and thrashing, and had thrown one of the heklo away with incredible strength.

“Quickly,” I hissed. “Do you have anything that could help me escape?”

“I have a light-line,” M-Bot said. “I found one in the shop on a worker drone and moved it to myself. I was planning to use it in my escape. Maybe I could drag you away?”

A light-line was a plus. Though his acclivity rings were small, and the drone was only about the size of a lunch tray, if quite a bit thicker. It wouldn’t have a lot of power.

“Attach the light-line to the ropes on my hands,” I said. “Maybe with your added strength we can rip this root out of the ground and I can pull myself free. Get ready. We have to do this before the pirates notice what we’re doing.”

“Yeah,” M-Bot said. “About that…”

The pirates were running for their ships, having apparently decided to abandon the one with the melting face. The male burl didn’t like this. “Give me the icon, Vlep!” the burl shouted. “We have to try! Maybe it will work!”

But Vlep wasn’t listening. As the others were running for their ships, he’d turned to look at me. He’d seen M-Bot. He immediately raised the rifle toward us, apparently deciding I was too dangerous to let live.

Get ready, a voice said in my mind.

Ready? I thought, staring down that rifle. For what?

The ground started shaking. Trees trembled. Vlep swung the gun away from me and pointed it toward the approaching sounds.

Then a scudding dinosaur came rampaging into camp—with a mustachioed human man riding on its back.

Yes, a dinosaur. I mean, I’d never seen one before, but this thing was reptilian, walked on two legs, and had a long tail trailing behind it. Yeah, the eyes appeared to be on its shoulders, and its “neck” was long like a trunk and ended in a toothy mouth. So maybe “enormous demonic anteater” would have been a better description. But I’m going with dinosaur.

The human was almost as baffling to me. He wore a flight jacket and combat trousers, and looked to be in his fifties. He was square jawed, muscular for his age, and his mustache stuck out a good fifteen centimeters to either side. As the dinosaur stormed forward, the man slipped expertly down the animal’s flank, then hit the ground and rolled.

It was just about the most incredible entrance I’d ever seen. Why hadn’t I ever been able to ride a dinosaur into combat, then dismount with a flourish?

Oh, wait. Escaping. Right. The stranger’s arrival had taken all attention off me.

“Now!” I shouted at M-Bot.

I heaved up to a squatting position, then tried to stand, pulling with all my strength to snap the root I’d been tied to. M-Bot hovered up beside me, towing the root with his light-line as I’d asked. With his added strength, the root gave and I stumbled free.

I found my balance and pushed my hands down my back and squatted, then pulled my bound wrists under my feet to get my hands in front of me. There are advantages to being my shape and size.

“Excellent to meet you in person, my cytonic friend!” the stranger said, bounding up to me and yanking out a hunting knife. I proffered my hands, and he sliced the ropes with a single cut. Then he offered his own hand in a gentlemanly sort of way. “Chet Starfinder! Interdimensional galactic explorer!” He had to shout over the sound of the monster rampaging through the camp. The ground shook with its thundering gait.

“That’s an awesome name!” I shouted at him.

“Thanks! I made it up myself! What now?”

“Fancy stealing a starfighter?” I said, pointing.

“Music to my ears, young lady!” he shouted back. “It’s been far too long since I’ve had the chance!”

Unfortunately, the sleek ship was already taking off. The pirates had scattered. Only three remained: the male burl, the glowing-eyed female burl he was trying to pull to safety, and Vlep. He was shooting at the dinosaur—which remarkably didn’t seem to be hurt by the energy blasts.

We still had a chance to grab one of the civilian ships, a shuttlecraft. I hesitated though, eyeing Vlep. The feathered alien had the pouch with my father’s pin.

For some reason, in that moment the pin felt more important. “Change of plans,” I said, running for Vlep.

Chet joined me in my charge. Vlep continued firing at the dinosaur, which was ignoring him in favor of snapping toward one of the ships as it took off. I hit Vlep from behind, right at the knees, sending him sprawling. Chet scooped up the gun while I pulled at the struggling heklo’s uniform coat, eventually yanking the pouch out of his pocket.

“Freeze!” a voice said from behind.

I spun and found the sleek ship hovering nearby, destructors pointed at me. Vlep took the chance to scramble away, leaving me without a captive. Chet dropped the gun and threw his hands up. Ship-mounted weapons would be powerful enough to vaporize us completely.

Fortunately, the pilot had forgotten the dinosaur. It seized the wing with a furious bite. I dove for the underbrush, and Chet was only a moment behind me. M-Bot belatedly swooped over to us.

I glanced at the last ship, but Vlep was climbing aboard—and the others were firing on the dinosaur. Crossing that clearing would be risking death from a stray shot.

“I believe,” Chet said, “Operation Ship-Steal will have to be canceled. My regrets.”

“It’s all right,” I said.

“Shall we?” he said, gesturing into the jungle. “I’d rather not remain in the line of sight of those vessels.”

In the clearing, the female burl had come out of her daze and slammed the male against a tree. He slumped to the ground, his eyes closed, and she turned immediately toward me—as if she could sense where I was. Her eyes looked like they’d grown over with skin, smoothing the sockets. But deep within her skull, two white dots—glowing with what I could feel distinctly was an intense hatred—shone through.

My breath caught in my chest. Then the burl pointed and screamed at me.

Scud.

I gave up any last hope of getting one of those ships. I joined Chet and dashed into the jungle, chased by the sounds of destructor fire and monster roars.

Chet ran in front of me, and he seemed to have a sixth sense for where to step—I was able to follow him fairly quickly, avoiding any pitfalls or hidden tree branches. I supposed jungle survival was part of an interdimensional space explorer’s standard repertoire.