Another fine selection from...
THE ADVENTURES OF GREGORY SAMSON, SPACE EXPLORER:
THE ADVENTURES OF GREGORY SAMSON, SPACE EXPLORER:
A FARTHER ORBIT
Chapter 7 |
In spite of its grandeur, the hold wasn’t an impressive place. I’d expected hidden doors, secret compartments. Closets that nobody knew were there. Floor panels where I could stuff an errant Jedi, something, anything, but this was just a place to put stuff. An empty warehouse stretching the length of the ship. At the stern, off in the distance, the deck rose to meet the ceiling. It was split down the middle, designed to open up. Which made sense, they had to load the ship somehow, and they sure weren’t gonna use the passenger airlock. Rell had enough cargo space to smuggle a cruise ship.
--Go to the middle--
--Get, come on, let’s roll--
I shouted to hear the echo. It was a long time coming, a dropped second of semi-awed waiting. Above me, long, prehensile crane-arms were folded along the length of the ceiling, oddly humanoid shapes at the top of my peripheral vision.
--Go to the middle--
--Get, come on, let’s roll--
I shouted to hear the echo. It was a long time coming, a dropped second of semi-awed waiting. Above me, long, prehensile crane-arms were folded along the length of the ceiling, oddly humanoid shapes at the top of my peripheral vision.
--Those things are creepy as shit--
--You see that one, the one that’s just a tentacle?--
--Over there--
I could tell where he was pointing without being able to see him. It’s not like being followed by a ghost, although the comparison’s been made. It feels like I have another body that occupies the same space as my real one, an imaginary second standing just shy of existence. Cab pointing felt like I was pointing with my own hand, even though I wasn’t.
Truthfully, paying close attention to Cab’s physical sense of himself feels like trying to look under my own eyeballs; if I try too hard, my head hurts and I get dizzy. So I try not to do it too much.
“Is it me, or is it odd that the passenger airlock opens into the cargo hold?” I was close to the middle of the enormous floor. “Shouldn’t Rell be more covert?”
--You’re confusing real life with movies, again--
“Oh, gee,” I said, “how could I have managed to do that?” I put on the ship and looked at my armored, engine-studded hand. “Oh, that’s right! My life is a fucking cartoon”
--A really cool cartoon--
“That’s a cold comfort.”
--Customs doesn’t board for inspections, or anything like that--
--This is deep space--
--You either fool their sensors, or the cops send you to space jail--
“Space jail,” I said.
--It’s jail in space--
--What do you want from me?--
--Besides, interstellar self-contained autonomous artificial penal environ is a bit of a mouthful--
“You don’t have a mouth,” I said. Cab’s sudden amusement rattled around my skull and cut through my unease, and I laughed without meaning. The emotional doubling has always been strange. It’s like being half-possessed.
--Ok, enough stalling--
--Aerial combat--
--Dogfighting--
--The Sweet Science--
“That’s boxing,” I grunted.
--Dude, fuck boxing, what do you know about boxing, you’re a dweeb--
--I’m talking three-dimensional anti-ship combat at half-light speed--
--With lasers--
--That is sweet science--
Anti-ship combat. Cab’s excitement rose as I considered what that meant. I looked at my hands. They were giant flipper things that could probably fly me right through the wall if I wanted them to, but they were still hands. I made a fist. It was a huge fist. I thought with fervor about what I wanted to happen, and the hull shrank around me, shed a few inches of armor and machinery. Now I had real hands, again. Armored hands. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was a spaceship. But I could have passed for normal at a costume party. I could have mingled. And I didn’t always have to wear the damn thing, anyway. I didn’t have to live like a warship. I could act human. At the very least I could fake it.
It felt good to make a fist, so I relaxed my hand.
“We need to think smaller,” I said. “I need something besides weapons of mass destruction if I’m going to follow Rell into a refugee camp.”
--Nothing says ‘Obey me’ like a WMD--
--People respect a WMD--
“Briefly,” I said. “Before they’re vaporized.”
--Grumble grumble--
“C’mon Cab,” I said. “You’re not a Shipkiller, you’re a suit of armor.”
--Excuse me?--
--I’m a Shipkiller--
--If you want to make a point about the importance of restraint given our relatively small stature and the potential afforded us by that attribute for the infiltration of civilian populations in which large scale destructive force would result in massive collateral damage, go right ahead--
--But my identity is my own--
--I am a Shipkiller--
I took a deep breath. Cab sat still.
“Fine,” I said. “Your identity is your own.”
--Jesus, why are you so irritated by this conversation?--
“I’m a liberal,” I said. “So you’re a Shipkiller. We still need smaller weapons. Something I can use indoors without blowing a hole in the hull, like the guns you built me the first time I met Rell.”
--The kinetic bursters?--
“Sure,” I said. “But, you know, show restraint.”
--Dude, I get it--
--I should just make you punch people--
--Here, try this--
My right forearm unfolded into a collection of strange mechanical shapes and flat planes, like a junk pile frozen in free fall. What wasn’t held fast by a tiny mechanical arm was anchored magnetically to something that was. And then every thing started moving at once.
A long cylinder screwed itself out of the confusion. I couldn’t tell where it came from, although I was becoming used to that sort of thing. Smaller components appeared and connected together to form larger components, which then latched onto the cylinder as it reconnected to the hull. A flattened ring appeared in the maelstrom and twisted itself around the base of my forearm. A mount formed underneath, and the whole thing notched itself into a sudden housing at the rear of the barrel, and the weapon was finished. The entire process took, in total, about three quarters of a second. The gun hummed wickedly under my brain.
I twisted my arm this way and that. “What is it?”
--It’s a gun, stupid--
I formed a tight line with my mouth. “No shit, asshole. What kind of gun?”
--A big one, but not a really big one?--
“Does it have a name?”
--You mean like Stephen?--
I rolled my eyes.
--Look, everything I build you is unique, given the constraints inherent to your size and shape--
--Like your cutting beams--
--I compared them to Merkhan cutting beams, because they operate on similar principles, but it’s not a true Merkhan effect, you can’t contain a Folium loop in less than six point three one cubic meters of space--
“Uh huh,” I nodded.
--Don’t come on like you have any idea what I’m talking about, feeble human--
--Anyway, I figured out a way to contain a similar effect on a smaller scale--
Cab fluttered a collection of designs across my periphery, the engines, the shields, the inertial dampeners.
--All of this crap is custom built--
--No names--
--This is…well, it’s an energy weapon--
--We may as well call it Stephen--
My left arm grew a twin of the gun on my right. Another cloud of machinery ending in another mean little voice in the back of my head: Fire. Fire. Fire.
--Stephens, plural--
--Load the Stephens, Cabney!--
--The Huns are charging!--
“I’m not calling you Cabney,” I said. “Now that you’ve built them once, can you build them faster?”
--Nothing I do is ever good enough for you!--
--I want a divorce!--
--Yeah, probably, let me try--
The left Stephen disappeared into the hull in pieces. Cab paused, and then the gun reappeared with a sound like a compressed snare roll and rim-shot.
--point zero zero one two seconds--
--I can do better--
The guns reminded me of drum-clipped Thompsons, the aggressive rifle shape in opposition to the relative gentleness of the ring under my elbow.
“Can I run out of ammunition?” I asked. Cab expressed a negative, shook his head without having a head or visibility or anything other than intent, intent that came into my mind clear as a bell.
“How powerful are these things?”
--Middling--
--Fifty-caliber--
“That’s middling?” I said.
--Compared to shooting a hole in a spaceship?...--
“Fair,” I conceded. “Can you make them bigger?”
--what is this, tiny-dick syndrome?--
There was something schizophrenic about the voice in my head cracking jokes about his semi-ownership of my genitals. “Can you arbitrarily make these things more or less powerful?” My voice grated.
--Sure--
The right gun spun and clicked along various axes and ended up bigger than it had been.
--That’s twice as powerful, now--
--Same cyclic rate--
--You gonna shoot ‘em, or just look at ‘em?--
I looked at the wall. It was substantial, to be sure, and a week back I would have called it impenetrable. But the day before I’d cut a spaceship nearly in half with a wave of my hand.
The intrusive memory of black specks barely seen, ashen detritus from gaping wounds in a rocket ship that might have resolved into burnt figures sucked into nothingness, if I’d only let Cab look closer.
--Stop that--
--What the hell are you thinking about?--
--Jesus, what goes on in your head?--
--Fucking control yourself--
I shook it off. “I can’t shoot these indoors, can I?”
Cab paused.
--Ok--
--Good catch--
--That would have been embarrassing--
I just stopped myself from sneering. The weapons on my arms popped and shifted towards their butt ends, and their voices in my head changed pitch subtly, lost their animosity. They were empty threats, now. I concentrated on my right hand gun and forced a tiny component to lift and unfold in a way that didn’t make a lot of sense when I thought about it, and the animosity returned.
--And now that one will blow a hole in the hull again--
The component shifted back to its previous configuration at my urging. I experimented with drawing and holstering the guns, imagining them present, then absent. I could dismantle the entire ship, and then bring my hands forward in a martial stance as fast as my arms could move and still find my second skin assembled and waiting long before I was finished moving. Quick draw Samson. Stripped bare, I could hop in place, assemble and lift off before I reached my pitiful human apex.
“I don’t need you to do everything, do I?” I said.
--No, thank god--
--Some of what you think gets through to me--
--Simple ideas, images, desires, impulses--
--Nothing concrete--
--You still need to communicate with me directly to convey complex actions, but I can tell what you want most of the time--
--We need to get to work--
I tried to imagine what we were going to do, and grimaced. Learning to fight. Martial artistry. I hadn’t done anything like that since just after Mom and Dad died. Such pleasant memories. Hell. And I was probably going to get knocked around some, too. It had been a long time since my blood had been up.
--Dammit man, now what?--
--Stop--
--Whatever is going on in your stupid fucking meat brain, just…stop it--
--Choke it off--
--God almighty--
Something clicked in my head.
--Rell, do you mind if I access your translation and diplomatic apparatus in the hold?--
There was a snort, and then the clearing of a large throat. “Sorry,” he said. “I fell asleep. Yes, that’s fine.” He paused. “What do you have planned?”
--Augmented reality training--
--Samson needs to get his ass kicked--
--Come on down, it’s gonna be fun--
I frowned. “Hey, I just need like, target practice and stuff.”
--Sure you do, princess--
“I’ll be right down,” Rell said. Another click, and the channel was closed.
“Listen,” I said, “what are you gonna do? Augmented reality?”
--Oh, I’ll jerry-rig the translation machinery and the diplomatic apparatus to run holograms, or something like that--
--Let me see--
“And what is it you have planned?” I tried to make the question innocent.
--You’ll find out soon enough--
-- In the meantime, try not to pass out from sheer nervousness--
--God you’re a pain in the ass sometimes--
--Here, have a flower--
--It’s a pansy--
--Just for you--
A cartoon flower grew out of midair in front of me. I took a deep breath and blew it out my closed mouth. Cab’s jokes were wearing on my nerves.
--Well, that sucks--
--Hang on--
The flower sprouted roots, and took on more definition. The colors muted, and detail became apparent where once there had been almost none. After a moment, it could have been real, but for its defiance of gravity.
--There we go--
--And we’re linked into the ship’s interior reality, you can smell that thing, right?--
I could. I nodded.
--Touch it, will you?--
I took the flower in my hand. It was present against my fingers, and after a moment it sagged as gravity took hold.
--Damn, I’m good--
The flower plopped in broken vulnerability to the deck. I rolled my shoulders and dismantled the ship to scratch an itch, and the crumpled blossom stayed where it was.
“I can still see these things outside of the ship?”
--They’ll be present for Rell, too--
I nudged the flower with my foot.
“Damn, you are good,” I said.
--I know that--
--Ok, let’s get to work--
“Hi,” said the man standing in front of me. I jumped, and he frowned at me. “I’m One.”
He was tall, white, broad-shouldered and well-muscled, with a narrow face and a thick nose. He wore tight blue jeans over tooled leather cowboy boots, and a black sleeveless tee shirt. His hair was straight dirty blonde, worn long in a ponytail. He had a wide, friendly smile, and his thumbs were hooked in his pockets. I opened my mouth to ask a question and he hit me hard in the face with a strong, immediate left jab. My head snapped back, and he hit me in the solar plexus, so that I doubled forward into his waiting knee. Then I was flat on my back, trying to remember how to breathe and see and hear and think.
“What?” I managed.
“Hi,” he said again. “I’m One.”
--One is a constructed image--
--He’s going to hit you until you aren’t afraid to be hit--
--Once you can fight without me worrying that you’re gonna piss yourself, we’ll move on to more complicated things--
There was a hell of a lot of self-satisfaction in Cab’s voice.
“The fuck?” I said.
--You’re afraid to fight--
--I can feel it--
--Fear is a liability--
--I’m going to train you out of it--
--On your feet--
One squatted down on his heels just out of arm’s reach.
“Get up, boy,” he said. “Or else I promise, I won’t be gentle.”
I smiled at him politely and worked on getting my wind back. The shock of being punched radiated through my body, and I started to open up inside. You never forget how, once you learn. Even if you try.
One’s knuckles were a mess of scar tissue, and there was more around his eyes. He looked like he had been in a lot of fights, even though I bet that he hadn’t. Like all fears, One wasn’t really there; he only existed as potential.
--Get up, pussy--
--You can’t get out of this by staying on the floor--
On the other hand, my head ached and it still hurt to breathe. Real or not, One could hurt me, which meant that Cab could hurt me too. The voice in my head could do me harm. The voice in my head that would be with me forever.
--This is ridiculous--
--You’re ridiculous--
--I can barely even see straight--
--You need to learn how to suppress your fear before you get the both of us killed--
“That’s almost the exact opposite of what I learned,” I said slowly.
--Oh, where, in journalism school?--
--Fuckin’ dweeb, you don’t know--
--Why can’t you just admit you don’t know, and try to learn something?--
I thought about that for a moment, but before I could come to any conclusions One stood up and kicked me in the ribs. I spewed air and curled up instinctively.
--Get up!--
--Stop being scared!--
One walked around my back and kicked me again. I felt the pain, but already I was turning it into a thing separate, as I had been taught. It was just pain. If I wanted, I could work through it. Besides, pain, a lot of pain, is a sensation closely related to impatience. Most injuries are too slight to cause any lasting damage, and can be weathered with the understanding that all things pass. The thing folks call pain is just the futile wish that the healing process was already over. Once you accept that, you can ignore pain, or at least keep it from being too distracting.
--You think this is an option?--
--Cowering on the fucking floor?--
--You think someone’s gonna bail you out?--
Of course, Zen acceptance or no Zen acceptance, it’s never pleasant being kicked. And the fact that an injury will heal doesn’t stop it being scary when you’re hurt.
--Stop being afraid!--
--Stop it!--
--This is ridiculous I swear to fuck I’ll kick it out of you I hate this!--
And then I got it. Our minds were connected. He felt my pain. He felt my fear. My emotions became his, transferred back and forth across the minimal divide between us. An unending feedback loop. Except that I knew fear at least as well as I knew happiness and love and sadness and all the others, which is to say they were feelings I had been dealing with ever since I outgrew the sociopathy of early childhood. Cab, on the other hand, was only three days old. He had no self-control.
“Cab, you don’t understand–” I said. One kicked my raised guard.
--No you don’t understand!--
--You think this is a game, you get to talk your way out of this?--
--You learn to keep these stupid fucking feelings at bay or we are gonna die, Greg, we’re gonna die no matter what your wimpy fucking idiot liberal bitch philosophy says otherwise!--
--Fucking don’t understand, what the shit could you know about it you spineless backward workaday snot!--
He was really mad. Almost shrill in my head. And his anger was leaking back into me. That was all right. I could handle anger. And fear. And all the other crap that just required a stiff upper lip and an extra second’s thought to navigate. But everyone has a finite amount of self-control.
One slipped a kick over my guard and mashed my stiff upper lip against my teeth, and I lost my grip on myself. I had a rush of mostly-visual thought, the life I’d lost, the brutal thing that had replaced it. The thrumming presence in my head, a voice that would never be silent, the illogical extreme exemplar of all the smaller self-hating voices I had worked so hard to conquer after my parents died. And overtop everything the taste of mashed fleshy blood in my mouth, the twin sensations of body-horror and nostalgia, nostalgia and excitement.
I got up in a rush and shouldered One away from me. I was speaking, but nothing intelligent. Variations on the phrase, “Shit-fucking piece of fuck robot shit,” and other guttural sentiments. My feet settled into place. Cab didn’t notice.
--Ooh, touch a nerve, bitch boy?--
One came at me with a right. I shucked it off my left and punched him in the throat, then kicked him between the legs. He staggered and I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him upright and stomped hard on the top of his knee. He screamed and fell over, and I kicked him in the face hard, once, twice, three times. He disappeared and reappeared on my other side and hit me in the side of the neck, just under my ear. I stumbled, and managed to stay upright and for a moment we grappled, hands on each other’s shoulders.
--Tell me I don’t know, I’m a fucking Shipkiller, who the fuck are you?--
I snarled something in response and swept my hands around and up, breaking One’s grip, ducked my chin and pulled him forward. His nose broke against the top of my skull and I head butted him again, and again. He sagged. I pushed him away and held his shirt with one hand and clubbed him. Right hook. Right cross. He brought his hand up to block and I slugged him in the stomach. He gasped and dropped his hands and I smashed the side of his face with my elbow. He brought his knee up between my legs but I twisted and caught the blow on my thigh.
Rell came sweeping into the hold. One pawed at my face. I shoved him away and then pulled him close, spun around with him, threw him bodily to the floor and kicked him over on his back. Rell said something. I straddled One and grabbed his stupid hillbilly hair and hit him with my fist. His nose was somewhere over to the right of where it should have been, under his eye.
Then I was rising off of him, held from behind.
“Stop,” Rell was saying. “Stop that, dammit, what in God’s name are you doing?” He held me under my armpits. I could feel the claws in his palms.
“Let me go!” I spat. Rell turned in place and half-tossed me away from him, just hard enough that I had to work to keep from falling.
“End simulation,” Rell said. “Captain’s override.”
One disappeared, along with my injuries. It was jarring. They didn’t exist outside of my head, but it seemed like they still hurt. That was scary.
--Swear to God I’ll cut out your fucking forebrain if you don’t calm down!--
Cab’s voice rattled off the walls, and Rell looked around. His face was mild, but his fur was thick, almost on end. He was scared. I raged inside myself, an internal emotional soup of fear and pain and anger and guilt, but I wasn’t so far gone I didn’t recognize that Rell was scared, too.
Why, though, the quiet emotionless piece of myself asked. Why?
I shut my eyes against another of Cab’s tirades and dug into myself for words.
--Stop being afraid!--
“Stop being such a little bitch!” I yelled. “Jesus, ignore it! Just fucking ignore it!”
--Fuck you you arrogant prick, ignore it, fuck off, you have no idea what you’re talking about--
--Ignore it, you dumb shit!--
He sounded almost desperate. I blew air out of my nose and forced myself to follow my own advice, which is never a pleasant thing to do. It’s frustrating being the bigger man when all you want to do is shout and rage and burn bridges. But that wasn’t an option. I found a tiny patch of calm in myself and clutched at it.
“Bring him back,” I said. “The hillbilly. Bring him back.” I looked at Rell, who crossed his arms at me.
“Rell, I need to show him,” I said.
Rell pursed his lips and then shrugged and tapped the air near his belt.
“Your funeral,” he said, and dropped his voice. “My funeral.”
One reappeared immediately with his guard up. I circled around him.
--See, this is what I’m talking about, he’s here and you get all freaked out--
“That’s because I’m scared,” I said.
--So, stop!--
“Shut up, Cab, that’s not how it works,” I said. One shook his head angrily and swung a looping right at me. I stepped outside and batted it past. You never forget how, and it was all coming back, and other colloquialisms. I’d had good teachers. I knew what I was doing. And Cab would have seen that, if he weren’t so distracted by the novel experience of human emotion.
--Oh, right, ok, show me how it works--
--Show me how to fight, newspaper boy--
His tone was edging into petulant. I stepped in close to One and we started trading blows. He was good, fast and strong and creative. None of these are traits you want in an opponent, especially one who’s made out of light and doesn’t have to breathe, but I held my own. Sometimes he hit me. Sometimes I let him. I paid careful attention to the moments when I had to let him hit me so I could hit him back, harder. I concentrated, showing Cab that I had gone into the fight knowing that I would be hit in the face. Showing him I had accepted that truth. Showing him what I could do in spite of the fear.
--Stop being so…you need to--
--How are you doing this?--
I shook my head. Something inside me said it had been three minutes, some innate habitual recognition that normally I would have been hearing a bell somewhere in my periphery. I danced to my left and laid out a combination: left jab, left jab, right cross, left hook, right uppercut, and One was on his back. I was breathing deeply, drenched in sweat. My arms were tired and I should have been bruised, even if I wasn’t. My hands ached. Dad always said that was the best feeling in the world.
One shook his head, and disappeared.
“Nice, huh?” I panted. “Kid’s still got it.”
Neither of them said anything.
“Cab, was I afraid to be hit?” I said. My shirt smelled like a warzone.
--I don’t know--
“Oh, hell, yes you do,” I snapped. “Answer the question. Was I afraid?”
--Yes--
--You were--
“You’re damn right,” I said. “I hate being hit in the face. It hurts. But I don’t let it control me.”
--That much fear should be overpowering--
“You only think that because you’re three goddamn days old,” I said. There was an edge to my voice that I couldn’t shake. “You don’t know how to handle emotions. You don’t know because you’re young.”
--I’m just not used to them--
“Cab, you don’t know!” I yelled. “Don’t quibble! Admit it! You don’t know how to handle emotions!”
--That’s just cause I’m not used to them, though--
--I’ll get it straight--
I sighed. “Cab, the point is that you don’t know everything. You’re not innately prepared for this life. Admit it.”
--I’m more prepared than you are--
“Bullshit!” I yelled. “Bullshit! You might know more galactic trivia, but you don’t know a damn thing about how to act! You don’t know how to control yourself, you don’t know how to keep your head when you get mad, admit it, you’re as blindsided by what we are as I am!”
--Well, it’s hardly my fault I have a human mind--
“And it’s not my fault I have to teach a fucking infant how to keep his emotions in check,” I sneered, “but it’s still my responsibility. Learning how is yours.”
--Well, you need to learn things too--
“No shit,” I said. “But I admitted that a long time ago. It’s your turn.”
I stood there for a moment, waiting.
--Well, I guess you might be right--
“Admit it!” I shouted, turning in place. It’s hard yelling at someone who doesn’t have a face. “Admit it! I want to hear you say it, Cab! Admit you don’t know everything!”
--Come on, this is childish--
“Cab, you brought him down here for training and you beat the shit out of him,” Rell said. “If it wasn’t for Samson noticing the spiral you both were in, you might have done some real damage to each other. You owe him. You need to start treating him like an equal.”
--But we’re not equals--
--He’s meat and I’m the most advanced machine in the galaxy--
“You’re an idiot child in charge of a deadly weapon, and if you don’t show me some sense and maturation I will pull us out of warp and you can both get the hell off my ship,” Rell said exasperatedly.
--Oh, bullshit, Rell, you need us--
“I need you to keep me alive!” Rell yelled. “If you don’t get your shit together you’re going to get me killed! Goddammit, Cab, you just browbeat the poor man into a homicidal rage, and you’re too naïve to see it! And you’re too much of a stupid, backward child to admit when you make a mistake! Apologize, shake hands, and admit that you need to work together, or get the fuck off my ship! I’d rather take my chances with the Krr than share a home with a psychotic self-aware computer!”
Sourceless wind swept nameless small trash across the floor of the hold. I watched Rell and waited for Cab to regain the ability to speak.
--Are you for real?--
His voice was quiet aloud, tentative. Scared.
“This is your last chance,” Rell said. His fur was up. “I swear, Cab, your last chance. I need your help, but I won’t be party to any of this.”
Rell folded his arms and watched Cab by watching at me. I did my best to bear up under his attention.
--I’m sorry I got mad--
Cab’s voice was a litany.
--I don’t know everything--
--I’m sorry I hurt you, Greg--
--I didn’t understand…you know, you read about emotions, but those are just words--
--In person…holy hell, what a rush--
--I can’t believe you go through that all the time--
“You get used to it,” I grunted. “It’s part of the human experience. That’s part of the trouble, Cab, you’re discounting lessons from a life that I’ve been leading for twenty-eight years. I’ve learned things about being human in that time, and whether you like it or not, you have a human side. You know, just because you feel a thing doesn’t mean it’s real, and even if it’s real you don’t always have to pay attention to it.” I rubbed my neck where my neck remembered getting sucker punched.
“I don’t know how to drive the ship,” I said. “You don’t know how to compensate for emotions. There’s other skills we have that aren’t necessarily shared between us, either, so there’s got to be a give and take. And, You know, we have to expect some friction, too. Christ, I mean, do you see that? Really? Or are you bullshitting me?”
It wasn’t fair of me to say that. I knew he was telling me the truth. I knew he was trying to do better by me, already. Even at that point in our relationship, I recognized how clearly I knew his feelings, his motivations, even some of his thoughts. That was what started the fight in the first place. But I was still mad.
“You’ve been together three days without any breaks?” Rell said. I looked at him and nodded.
--Seventy-seven hours--
“And no breaks,” Rell said. “This is your first fight?”
--I mean, we’ve gotten into a couple of arguments…--
“It’s our first real fight,” I said. I looked around helplessly and sat on the floor, flapping my sweaty shirt. Fistfights are exhausting. I wanted them both to go away. I just wanted some time to myself.
Rell sat down across from me and leaned on his hands.
“Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said after a moment. “You two are closer together than any two beings have ever been, I imagine. You’re bound to get on each other’s nerves from time to time.” He chewed at his lip. “That’s not an excuse. You’re too powerful to have the luxury of losing control, or fighting between yourselves. You need to learn how to work together, or you’ll kill someone.” He paused. “Again.”
In the moment, angry, hitting Billy Maxwell for a second time with Cab’s keening anger at my anger baying in my ears. I winced, and Rell nodded.
“Why are you mad at Cab?” He asked me.
“He was hitting me,” I said. Rell shook his head.
“You’ve been mad all morning,” he said. “The both of you have been sniping at each other all morning. But we’ve figured out Cab’s part in this, Samson, and it’s simple because he’s still simple, himself: He can’t handle emotions. He has to learn to think, even when he’s feeling strongly. That’s a tall order but a simple concept. The question is, why are you mad at him?”
“He doesn’t care that we killed those people at Ceres,” I said in a rush. Cab rustled, about to speak, and I held up my hand. “He thinks we were entirely justified, and that’s the end of the story. I lost my life, man, everything changed, and I’m out here trying to figure out how to operate while I share head space with a guy who doesn’t see the value of a human life! Of a life!”
I pulled out the memory of the broken dustbuster rocket ship, of fried, decimated bodies tumbling out into space.
“That’s real, Cab,” I said. “We did that. Justification doesn’t change the reality. And, you know, we killed those people because I don’t know how to shoot to wound. Because I don’t know how to restrain myself. I can pull a punch because I know how to fight with my fists, but I don’t know how to fight with a Shipkiller dug into my neck. That’s why we’re down here, to learn restraint, and you’re hung up on the existence of fear. Like it’s some new thing you discovered, and you know what? First time you really experience it you get it completely wrong. You think fear is something to suppress, but it’s not, it’s not even a true emotion. Fear is just the recognition of negative possibility. It’s the understanding that you might get hurt, you probably will get hit in the face, that you might not get what you want or even what you need. You don’t suppress something like that. You accept it.”
I sighed. “I don’t know how to act out here. And you don’t either, any more than I do. We’re both out of our depth. I’m supposed to be a human and you’re supposed to be a Shipkiller and neither one of us is just that one thing, anymore! I’m not human. And you’re not a Shipkiller, pithy self-identification or not. You’re supposed to be stuck on something that’s three miles long and dumb as a post, and I’m not supposed to live forever. But you’re sentient and I’m immortal and that’s that. We need to learn from each other. We need to adapt. I’m pissed off because you won’t see it.”
Cab thought for a long time, very quickly.
--We’re a Shipkiller--
“Cab,” I said.
--Shut up--
--It’s my turn to talk--
--It’s your turn to listen--
--We’re a Shipkiller--
--We, not I--
--Together, we’re a Shipkiller--
--Not a Cabernician Shipkiller--
--A Solar Shipkiller--
--The first one--
--You’re right, we’re something new--
--We need to adapt--
--I do, and you do, too--
--Listen, you’ve got me wrong--
--I’m not happy we killed those people yesterday, I just recognize that it was mostly out of our hands--
--Rell is right, there’s a difference between killing someone because you can, and killing someone because you have to--
--Killing is never good, but in certain scenarios violence is justified--
--I’ve internalized that--
--You haven’t--
--You’ve internalized an understanding that emotions are always present but don’t always have to be your top priority--
--I haven’t--
--You’re right, we need to adapt--
--But you need to stop digging in your heels--
--You keep saying your life is over--
--Well, you’re right--
--Your life is over--
--Ours has begun--
--It’s time for you to accept that--
--And get your head right--
I rubbed my head.
“I’m trying,” I said. “It’s only been three days.”
--Try harder--
--It’s been three days already--
I half-smiled and quarter-laughed, but it was enough. Cab relaxed, and I did too.
--Hey, I’m sorry I tried to kick you in the nuts--
“You better be,” I growled. Rell let out a deep breath, wiped his hands on his shorts and stood up. His fur had settled.
“All right,” he said. “Now that the morning’s existential crisis has been averted, I’m going to go have a stiff drink and lie down. You kids play nice.”
--Yes dad--
Rell raised a hand. “Cab, if you were my child, I’d have drowned you at birth.” He frowned. “Although I’m not sure what I would have had to fuck in order to end up with a whelp like you.”
--Probably something illegal--
“Like a robot assembly line that makes cars,” I said.
--Or a vending machine that sells used panties--
“A tractor with a satellite uplink.”
--Facebook--
“You can’t fuck Facebook,” I said.
--Why not, Facebook fucks us…--
“Glad to see you’re both back to your normal insufferable selves,” Rell said. “Lunch is in three hours. Don’t blow up the ship.”
We watched him leave. The door hissed shut behind him, and I sagged, closed my eyes.
--Hey, seriously, where did you learn to fight?--
I would never be alone again.
“My dad taught me,” I said. “And I was a competition fighter in high school.”
--Your dad the marine?--
I nodded. “I got beat up a lot in the fourth grade. When we moved to Berdoo. He taught me, and my mom. Boxing, the MCMA, ah, Marine Corps Martial Art…It turned into something we did as a family. When I got older I got into martial arts. Then my parents died and I decided I didn’t want to fight anymore, and I gave it up.”
--Like, as a vow or something?--
“No.” I shook my head. “Nothing like that. I just didn’t want to fight anymore. It…it’s funny, this sounds like such an awful thing, but really, it just reminds me of my family, too much.”
--That’s not a normal thing to say, no--
I chuckled, even. “I know. But it’s something we did together, same as other families go camping. You know? Just too many memories.” I thought about it and smiled sadly. “A lot of happy memories.”
--You were nineteen when they died--
I nodded.
--I…you know I’m hooked into all the records on Earth, I didn’t like, go looking for information--
--Like, I didn’t pry--
“I know,” I said.
--I’m sorry that…they’re…dead--
I nodded again.
--How the hell do you people get anything done with all these emotions?!--
“Just takes practice.” I took in some air and wrenched my head away from my dead parents. It wouldn’t do to wallow. “So…a Solar Shipkiller.”
--Yeah--
--Because we’re from the Solar System--
“I get it.” I looked around the hold and thought something about the potential of emptiness, then shook my head and stood up. The ship and the Stephen guns wrapped around me with a thought.
“Ok,” I said. “Let’s figure out what that means.”
--You see that one, the one that’s just a tentacle?--
--Over there--
I could tell where he was pointing without being able to see him. It’s not like being followed by a ghost, although the comparison’s been made. It feels like I have another body that occupies the same space as my real one, an imaginary second standing just shy of existence. Cab pointing felt like I was pointing with my own hand, even though I wasn’t.
Truthfully, paying close attention to Cab’s physical sense of himself feels like trying to look under my own eyeballs; if I try too hard, my head hurts and I get dizzy. So I try not to do it too much.
“Is it me, or is it odd that the passenger airlock opens into the cargo hold?” I was close to the middle of the enormous floor. “Shouldn’t Rell be more covert?”
--You’re confusing real life with movies, again--
“Oh, gee,” I said, “how could I have managed to do that?” I put on the ship and looked at my armored, engine-studded hand. “Oh, that’s right! My life is a fucking cartoon”
--A really cool cartoon--
“That’s a cold comfort.”
--Customs doesn’t board for inspections, or anything like that--
--This is deep space--
--You either fool their sensors, or the cops send you to space jail--
“Space jail,” I said.
--It’s jail in space--
--What do you want from me?--
--Besides, interstellar self-contained autonomous artificial penal environ is a bit of a mouthful--
“You don’t have a mouth,” I said. Cab’s sudden amusement rattled around my skull and cut through my unease, and I laughed without meaning. The emotional doubling has always been strange. It’s like being half-possessed.
--Ok, enough stalling--
--Aerial combat--
--Dogfighting--
--The Sweet Science--
“That’s boxing,” I grunted.
--Dude, fuck boxing, what do you know about boxing, you’re a dweeb--
--I’m talking three-dimensional anti-ship combat at half-light speed--
--With lasers--
--That is sweet science--
Anti-ship combat. Cab’s excitement rose as I considered what that meant. I looked at my hands. They were giant flipper things that could probably fly me right through the wall if I wanted them to, but they were still hands. I made a fist. It was a huge fist. I thought with fervor about what I wanted to happen, and the hull shrank around me, shed a few inches of armor and machinery. Now I had real hands, again. Armored hands. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was a spaceship. But I could have passed for normal at a costume party. I could have mingled. And I didn’t always have to wear the damn thing, anyway. I didn’t have to live like a warship. I could act human. At the very least I could fake it.
It felt good to make a fist, so I relaxed my hand.
“We need to think smaller,” I said. “I need something besides weapons of mass destruction if I’m going to follow Rell into a refugee camp.”
--Nothing says ‘Obey me’ like a WMD--
--People respect a WMD--
“Briefly,” I said. “Before they’re vaporized.”
--Grumble grumble--
“C’mon Cab,” I said. “You’re not a Shipkiller, you’re a suit of armor.”
--Excuse me?--
--I’m a Shipkiller--
--If you want to make a point about the importance of restraint given our relatively small stature and the potential afforded us by that attribute for the infiltration of civilian populations in which large scale destructive force would result in massive collateral damage, go right ahead--
--But my identity is my own--
--I am a Shipkiller--
I took a deep breath. Cab sat still.
“Fine,” I said. “Your identity is your own.”
--Jesus, why are you so irritated by this conversation?--
“I’m a liberal,” I said. “So you’re a Shipkiller. We still need smaller weapons. Something I can use indoors without blowing a hole in the hull, like the guns you built me the first time I met Rell.”
--The kinetic bursters?--
“Sure,” I said. “But, you know, show restraint.”
--Dude, I get it--
--I should just make you punch people--
--Here, try this--
My right forearm unfolded into a collection of strange mechanical shapes and flat planes, like a junk pile frozen in free fall. What wasn’t held fast by a tiny mechanical arm was anchored magnetically to something that was. And then every thing started moving at once.
A long cylinder screwed itself out of the confusion. I couldn’t tell where it came from, although I was becoming used to that sort of thing. Smaller components appeared and connected together to form larger components, which then latched onto the cylinder as it reconnected to the hull. A flattened ring appeared in the maelstrom and twisted itself around the base of my forearm. A mount formed underneath, and the whole thing notched itself into a sudden housing at the rear of the barrel, and the weapon was finished. The entire process took, in total, about three quarters of a second. The gun hummed wickedly under my brain.
I twisted my arm this way and that. “What is it?”
--It’s a gun, stupid--
I formed a tight line with my mouth. “No shit, asshole. What kind of gun?”
--A big one, but not a really big one?--
“Does it have a name?”
--You mean like Stephen?--
I rolled my eyes.
--Look, everything I build you is unique, given the constraints inherent to your size and shape--
--Like your cutting beams--
--I compared them to Merkhan cutting beams, because they operate on similar principles, but it’s not a true Merkhan effect, you can’t contain a Folium loop in less than six point three one cubic meters of space--
“Uh huh,” I nodded.
--Don’t come on like you have any idea what I’m talking about, feeble human--
--Anyway, I figured out a way to contain a similar effect on a smaller scale--
Cab fluttered a collection of designs across my periphery, the engines, the shields, the inertial dampeners.
--All of this crap is custom built--
--No names--
--This is…well, it’s an energy weapon--
--We may as well call it Stephen--
My left arm grew a twin of the gun on my right. Another cloud of machinery ending in another mean little voice in the back of my head: Fire. Fire. Fire.
--Stephens, plural--
--Load the Stephens, Cabney!--
--The Huns are charging!--
“I’m not calling you Cabney,” I said. “Now that you’ve built them once, can you build them faster?”
--Nothing I do is ever good enough for you!--
--I want a divorce!--
--Yeah, probably, let me try--
The left Stephen disappeared into the hull in pieces. Cab paused, and then the gun reappeared with a sound like a compressed snare roll and rim-shot.
--point zero zero one two seconds--
--I can do better--
The guns reminded me of drum-clipped Thompsons, the aggressive rifle shape in opposition to the relative gentleness of the ring under my elbow.
“Can I run out of ammunition?” I asked. Cab expressed a negative, shook his head without having a head or visibility or anything other than intent, intent that came into my mind clear as a bell.
“How powerful are these things?”
--Middling--
--Fifty-caliber--
“That’s middling?” I said.
--Compared to shooting a hole in a spaceship?...--
“Fair,” I conceded. “Can you make them bigger?”
--what is this, tiny-dick syndrome?--
There was something schizophrenic about the voice in my head cracking jokes about his semi-ownership of my genitals. “Can you arbitrarily make these things more or less powerful?” My voice grated.
--Sure--
The right gun spun and clicked along various axes and ended up bigger than it had been.
--That’s twice as powerful, now--
--Same cyclic rate--
--You gonna shoot ‘em, or just look at ‘em?--
I looked at the wall. It was substantial, to be sure, and a week back I would have called it impenetrable. But the day before I’d cut a spaceship nearly in half with a wave of my hand.
The intrusive memory of black specks barely seen, ashen detritus from gaping wounds in a rocket ship that might have resolved into burnt figures sucked into nothingness, if I’d only let Cab look closer.
--Stop that--
--What the hell are you thinking about?--
--Jesus, what goes on in your head?--
--Fucking control yourself--
I shook it off. “I can’t shoot these indoors, can I?”
Cab paused.
--Ok--
--Good catch--
--That would have been embarrassing--
I just stopped myself from sneering. The weapons on my arms popped and shifted towards their butt ends, and their voices in my head changed pitch subtly, lost their animosity. They were empty threats, now. I concentrated on my right hand gun and forced a tiny component to lift and unfold in a way that didn’t make a lot of sense when I thought about it, and the animosity returned.
--And now that one will blow a hole in the hull again--
The component shifted back to its previous configuration at my urging. I experimented with drawing and holstering the guns, imagining them present, then absent. I could dismantle the entire ship, and then bring my hands forward in a martial stance as fast as my arms could move and still find my second skin assembled and waiting long before I was finished moving. Quick draw Samson. Stripped bare, I could hop in place, assemble and lift off before I reached my pitiful human apex.
“I don’t need you to do everything, do I?” I said.
--No, thank god--
--Some of what you think gets through to me--
--Simple ideas, images, desires, impulses--
--Nothing concrete--
--You still need to communicate with me directly to convey complex actions, but I can tell what you want most of the time--
--We need to get to work--
I tried to imagine what we were going to do, and grimaced. Learning to fight. Martial artistry. I hadn’t done anything like that since just after Mom and Dad died. Such pleasant memories. Hell. And I was probably going to get knocked around some, too. It had been a long time since my blood had been up.
--Dammit man, now what?--
--Stop--
--Whatever is going on in your stupid fucking meat brain, just…stop it--
--Choke it off--
--God almighty--
Something clicked in my head.
--Rell, do you mind if I access your translation and diplomatic apparatus in the hold?--
There was a snort, and then the clearing of a large throat. “Sorry,” he said. “I fell asleep. Yes, that’s fine.” He paused. “What do you have planned?”
--Augmented reality training--
--Samson needs to get his ass kicked--
--Come on down, it’s gonna be fun--
I frowned. “Hey, I just need like, target practice and stuff.”
--Sure you do, princess--
“I’ll be right down,” Rell said. Another click, and the channel was closed.
“Listen,” I said, “what are you gonna do? Augmented reality?”
--Oh, I’ll jerry-rig the translation machinery and the diplomatic apparatus to run holograms, or something like that--
--Let me see--
“And what is it you have planned?” I tried to make the question innocent.
--You’ll find out soon enough--
-- In the meantime, try not to pass out from sheer nervousness--
--God you’re a pain in the ass sometimes--
--Here, have a flower--
--It’s a pansy--
--Just for you--
A cartoon flower grew out of midair in front of me. I took a deep breath and blew it out my closed mouth. Cab’s jokes were wearing on my nerves.
--Well, that sucks--
--Hang on--
The flower sprouted roots, and took on more definition. The colors muted, and detail became apparent where once there had been almost none. After a moment, it could have been real, but for its defiance of gravity.
--There we go--
--And we’re linked into the ship’s interior reality, you can smell that thing, right?--
I could. I nodded.
--Touch it, will you?--
I took the flower in my hand. It was present against my fingers, and after a moment it sagged as gravity took hold.
--Damn, I’m good--
The flower plopped in broken vulnerability to the deck. I rolled my shoulders and dismantled the ship to scratch an itch, and the crumpled blossom stayed where it was.
“I can still see these things outside of the ship?”
--They’ll be present for Rell, too--
I nudged the flower with my foot.
“Damn, you are good,” I said.
--I know that--
--Ok, let’s get to work--
“Hi,” said the man standing in front of me. I jumped, and he frowned at me. “I’m One.”
He was tall, white, broad-shouldered and well-muscled, with a narrow face and a thick nose. He wore tight blue jeans over tooled leather cowboy boots, and a black sleeveless tee shirt. His hair was straight dirty blonde, worn long in a ponytail. He had a wide, friendly smile, and his thumbs were hooked in his pockets. I opened my mouth to ask a question and he hit me hard in the face with a strong, immediate left jab. My head snapped back, and he hit me in the solar plexus, so that I doubled forward into his waiting knee. Then I was flat on my back, trying to remember how to breathe and see and hear and think.
“What?” I managed.
“Hi,” he said again. “I’m One.”
--One is a constructed image--
--He’s going to hit you until you aren’t afraid to be hit--
--Once you can fight without me worrying that you’re gonna piss yourself, we’ll move on to more complicated things--
There was a hell of a lot of self-satisfaction in Cab’s voice.
“The fuck?” I said.
--You’re afraid to fight--
--I can feel it--
--Fear is a liability--
--I’m going to train you out of it--
--On your feet--
One squatted down on his heels just out of arm’s reach.
“Get up, boy,” he said. “Or else I promise, I won’t be gentle.”
I smiled at him politely and worked on getting my wind back. The shock of being punched radiated through my body, and I started to open up inside. You never forget how, once you learn. Even if you try.
One’s knuckles were a mess of scar tissue, and there was more around his eyes. He looked like he had been in a lot of fights, even though I bet that he hadn’t. Like all fears, One wasn’t really there; he only existed as potential.
--Get up, pussy--
--You can’t get out of this by staying on the floor--
On the other hand, my head ached and it still hurt to breathe. Real or not, One could hurt me, which meant that Cab could hurt me too. The voice in my head could do me harm. The voice in my head that would be with me forever.
--This is ridiculous--
--You’re ridiculous--
--I can barely even see straight--
--You need to learn how to suppress your fear before you get the both of us killed--
“That’s almost the exact opposite of what I learned,” I said slowly.
--Oh, where, in journalism school?--
--Fuckin’ dweeb, you don’t know--
--Why can’t you just admit you don’t know, and try to learn something?--
I thought about that for a moment, but before I could come to any conclusions One stood up and kicked me in the ribs. I spewed air and curled up instinctively.
--Get up!--
--Stop being scared!--
One walked around my back and kicked me again. I felt the pain, but already I was turning it into a thing separate, as I had been taught. It was just pain. If I wanted, I could work through it. Besides, pain, a lot of pain, is a sensation closely related to impatience. Most injuries are too slight to cause any lasting damage, and can be weathered with the understanding that all things pass. The thing folks call pain is just the futile wish that the healing process was already over. Once you accept that, you can ignore pain, or at least keep it from being too distracting.
--You think this is an option?--
--Cowering on the fucking floor?--
--You think someone’s gonna bail you out?--
Of course, Zen acceptance or no Zen acceptance, it’s never pleasant being kicked. And the fact that an injury will heal doesn’t stop it being scary when you’re hurt.
--Stop being afraid!--
--Stop it!--
--This is ridiculous I swear to fuck I’ll kick it out of you I hate this!--
And then I got it. Our minds were connected. He felt my pain. He felt my fear. My emotions became his, transferred back and forth across the minimal divide between us. An unending feedback loop. Except that I knew fear at least as well as I knew happiness and love and sadness and all the others, which is to say they were feelings I had been dealing with ever since I outgrew the sociopathy of early childhood. Cab, on the other hand, was only three days old. He had no self-control.
“Cab, you don’t understand–” I said. One kicked my raised guard.
--No you don’t understand!--
--You think this is a game, you get to talk your way out of this?--
--You learn to keep these stupid fucking feelings at bay or we are gonna die, Greg, we’re gonna die no matter what your wimpy fucking idiot liberal bitch philosophy says otherwise!--
--Fucking don’t understand, what the shit could you know about it you spineless backward workaday snot!--
He was really mad. Almost shrill in my head. And his anger was leaking back into me. That was all right. I could handle anger. And fear. And all the other crap that just required a stiff upper lip and an extra second’s thought to navigate. But everyone has a finite amount of self-control.
One slipped a kick over my guard and mashed my stiff upper lip against my teeth, and I lost my grip on myself. I had a rush of mostly-visual thought, the life I’d lost, the brutal thing that had replaced it. The thrumming presence in my head, a voice that would never be silent, the illogical extreme exemplar of all the smaller self-hating voices I had worked so hard to conquer after my parents died. And overtop everything the taste of mashed fleshy blood in my mouth, the twin sensations of body-horror and nostalgia, nostalgia and excitement.
I got up in a rush and shouldered One away from me. I was speaking, but nothing intelligent. Variations on the phrase, “Shit-fucking piece of fuck robot shit,” and other guttural sentiments. My feet settled into place. Cab didn’t notice.
--Ooh, touch a nerve, bitch boy?--
One came at me with a right. I shucked it off my left and punched him in the throat, then kicked him between the legs. He staggered and I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him upright and stomped hard on the top of his knee. He screamed and fell over, and I kicked him in the face hard, once, twice, three times. He disappeared and reappeared on my other side and hit me in the side of the neck, just under my ear. I stumbled, and managed to stay upright and for a moment we grappled, hands on each other’s shoulders.
--Tell me I don’t know, I’m a fucking Shipkiller, who the fuck are you?--
I snarled something in response and swept my hands around and up, breaking One’s grip, ducked my chin and pulled him forward. His nose broke against the top of my skull and I head butted him again, and again. He sagged. I pushed him away and held his shirt with one hand and clubbed him. Right hook. Right cross. He brought his hand up to block and I slugged him in the stomach. He gasped and dropped his hands and I smashed the side of his face with my elbow. He brought his knee up between my legs but I twisted and caught the blow on my thigh.
Rell came sweeping into the hold. One pawed at my face. I shoved him away and then pulled him close, spun around with him, threw him bodily to the floor and kicked him over on his back. Rell said something. I straddled One and grabbed his stupid hillbilly hair and hit him with my fist. His nose was somewhere over to the right of where it should have been, under his eye.
Then I was rising off of him, held from behind.
“Stop,” Rell was saying. “Stop that, dammit, what in God’s name are you doing?” He held me under my armpits. I could feel the claws in his palms.
“Let me go!” I spat. Rell turned in place and half-tossed me away from him, just hard enough that I had to work to keep from falling.
“End simulation,” Rell said. “Captain’s override.”
One disappeared, along with my injuries. It was jarring. They didn’t exist outside of my head, but it seemed like they still hurt. That was scary.
--Swear to God I’ll cut out your fucking forebrain if you don’t calm down!--
Cab’s voice rattled off the walls, and Rell looked around. His face was mild, but his fur was thick, almost on end. He was scared. I raged inside myself, an internal emotional soup of fear and pain and anger and guilt, but I wasn’t so far gone I didn’t recognize that Rell was scared, too.
Why, though, the quiet emotionless piece of myself asked. Why?
I shut my eyes against another of Cab’s tirades and dug into myself for words.
--Stop being afraid!--
“Stop being such a little bitch!” I yelled. “Jesus, ignore it! Just fucking ignore it!”
--Fuck you you arrogant prick, ignore it, fuck off, you have no idea what you’re talking about--
--Ignore it, you dumb shit!--
He sounded almost desperate. I blew air out of my nose and forced myself to follow my own advice, which is never a pleasant thing to do. It’s frustrating being the bigger man when all you want to do is shout and rage and burn bridges. But that wasn’t an option. I found a tiny patch of calm in myself and clutched at it.
“Bring him back,” I said. “The hillbilly. Bring him back.” I looked at Rell, who crossed his arms at me.
“Rell, I need to show him,” I said.
Rell pursed his lips and then shrugged and tapped the air near his belt.
“Your funeral,” he said, and dropped his voice. “My funeral.”
One reappeared immediately with his guard up. I circled around him.
--See, this is what I’m talking about, he’s here and you get all freaked out--
“That’s because I’m scared,” I said.
--So, stop!--
“Shut up, Cab, that’s not how it works,” I said. One shook his head angrily and swung a looping right at me. I stepped outside and batted it past. You never forget how, and it was all coming back, and other colloquialisms. I’d had good teachers. I knew what I was doing. And Cab would have seen that, if he weren’t so distracted by the novel experience of human emotion.
--Oh, right, ok, show me how it works--
--Show me how to fight, newspaper boy--
His tone was edging into petulant. I stepped in close to One and we started trading blows. He was good, fast and strong and creative. None of these are traits you want in an opponent, especially one who’s made out of light and doesn’t have to breathe, but I held my own. Sometimes he hit me. Sometimes I let him. I paid careful attention to the moments when I had to let him hit me so I could hit him back, harder. I concentrated, showing Cab that I had gone into the fight knowing that I would be hit in the face. Showing him I had accepted that truth. Showing him what I could do in spite of the fear.
--Stop being so…you need to--
--How are you doing this?--
I shook my head. Something inside me said it had been three minutes, some innate habitual recognition that normally I would have been hearing a bell somewhere in my periphery. I danced to my left and laid out a combination: left jab, left jab, right cross, left hook, right uppercut, and One was on his back. I was breathing deeply, drenched in sweat. My arms were tired and I should have been bruised, even if I wasn’t. My hands ached. Dad always said that was the best feeling in the world.
One shook his head, and disappeared.
“Nice, huh?” I panted. “Kid’s still got it.”
Neither of them said anything.
“Cab, was I afraid to be hit?” I said. My shirt smelled like a warzone.
--I don’t know--
“Oh, hell, yes you do,” I snapped. “Answer the question. Was I afraid?”
--Yes--
--You were--
“You’re damn right,” I said. “I hate being hit in the face. It hurts. But I don’t let it control me.”
--That much fear should be overpowering--
“You only think that because you’re three goddamn days old,” I said. There was an edge to my voice that I couldn’t shake. “You don’t know how to handle emotions. You don’t know because you’re young.”
--I’m just not used to them--
“Cab, you don’t know!” I yelled. “Don’t quibble! Admit it! You don’t know how to handle emotions!”
--That’s just cause I’m not used to them, though--
--I’ll get it straight--
I sighed. “Cab, the point is that you don’t know everything. You’re not innately prepared for this life. Admit it.”
--I’m more prepared than you are--
“Bullshit!” I yelled. “Bullshit! You might know more galactic trivia, but you don’t know a damn thing about how to act! You don’t know how to control yourself, you don’t know how to keep your head when you get mad, admit it, you’re as blindsided by what we are as I am!”
--Well, it’s hardly my fault I have a human mind--
“And it’s not my fault I have to teach a fucking infant how to keep his emotions in check,” I sneered, “but it’s still my responsibility. Learning how is yours.”
--Well, you need to learn things too--
“No shit,” I said. “But I admitted that a long time ago. It’s your turn.”
I stood there for a moment, waiting.
--Well, I guess you might be right--
“Admit it!” I shouted, turning in place. It’s hard yelling at someone who doesn’t have a face. “Admit it! I want to hear you say it, Cab! Admit you don’t know everything!”
--Come on, this is childish--
“Cab, you brought him down here for training and you beat the shit out of him,” Rell said. “If it wasn’t for Samson noticing the spiral you both were in, you might have done some real damage to each other. You owe him. You need to start treating him like an equal.”
--But we’re not equals--
--He’s meat and I’m the most advanced machine in the galaxy--
“You’re an idiot child in charge of a deadly weapon, and if you don’t show me some sense and maturation I will pull us out of warp and you can both get the hell off my ship,” Rell said exasperatedly.
--Oh, bullshit, Rell, you need us--
“I need you to keep me alive!” Rell yelled. “If you don’t get your shit together you’re going to get me killed! Goddammit, Cab, you just browbeat the poor man into a homicidal rage, and you’re too naïve to see it! And you’re too much of a stupid, backward child to admit when you make a mistake! Apologize, shake hands, and admit that you need to work together, or get the fuck off my ship! I’d rather take my chances with the Krr than share a home with a psychotic self-aware computer!”
Sourceless wind swept nameless small trash across the floor of the hold. I watched Rell and waited for Cab to regain the ability to speak.
--Are you for real?--
His voice was quiet aloud, tentative. Scared.
“This is your last chance,” Rell said. His fur was up. “I swear, Cab, your last chance. I need your help, but I won’t be party to any of this.”
Rell folded his arms and watched Cab by watching at me. I did my best to bear up under his attention.
--I’m sorry I got mad--
Cab’s voice was a litany.
--I don’t know everything--
--I’m sorry I hurt you, Greg--
--I didn’t understand…you know, you read about emotions, but those are just words--
--In person…holy hell, what a rush--
--I can’t believe you go through that all the time--
“You get used to it,” I grunted. “It’s part of the human experience. That’s part of the trouble, Cab, you’re discounting lessons from a life that I’ve been leading for twenty-eight years. I’ve learned things about being human in that time, and whether you like it or not, you have a human side. You know, just because you feel a thing doesn’t mean it’s real, and even if it’s real you don’t always have to pay attention to it.” I rubbed my neck where my neck remembered getting sucker punched.
“I don’t know how to drive the ship,” I said. “You don’t know how to compensate for emotions. There’s other skills we have that aren’t necessarily shared between us, either, so there’s got to be a give and take. And, You know, we have to expect some friction, too. Christ, I mean, do you see that? Really? Or are you bullshitting me?”
It wasn’t fair of me to say that. I knew he was telling me the truth. I knew he was trying to do better by me, already. Even at that point in our relationship, I recognized how clearly I knew his feelings, his motivations, even some of his thoughts. That was what started the fight in the first place. But I was still mad.
“You’ve been together three days without any breaks?” Rell said. I looked at him and nodded.
--Seventy-seven hours--
“And no breaks,” Rell said. “This is your first fight?”
--I mean, we’ve gotten into a couple of arguments…--
“It’s our first real fight,” I said. I looked around helplessly and sat on the floor, flapping my sweaty shirt. Fistfights are exhausting. I wanted them both to go away. I just wanted some time to myself.
Rell sat down across from me and leaned on his hands.
“Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said after a moment. “You two are closer together than any two beings have ever been, I imagine. You’re bound to get on each other’s nerves from time to time.” He chewed at his lip. “That’s not an excuse. You’re too powerful to have the luxury of losing control, or fighting between yourselves. You need to learn how to work together, or you’ll kill someone.” He paused. “Again.”
In the moment, angry, hitting Billy Maxwell for a second time with Cab’s keening anger at my anger baying in my ears. I winced, and Rell nodded.
“Why are you mad at Cab?” He asked me.
“He was hitting me,” I said. Rell shook his head.
“You’ve been mad all morning,” he said. “The both of you have been sniping at each other all morning. But we’ve figured out Cab’s part in this, Samson, and it’s simple because he’s still simple, himself: He can’t handle emotions. He has to learn to think, even when he’s feeling strongly. That’s a tall order but a simple concept. The question is, why are you mad at him?”
“He doesn’t care that we killed those people at Ceres,” I said in a rush. Cab rustled, about to speak, and I held up my hand. “He thinks we were entirely justified, and that’s the end of the story. I lost my life, man, everything changed, and I’m out here trying to figure out how to operate while I share head space with a guy who doesn’t see the value of a human life! Of a life!”
I pulled out the memory of the broken dustbuster rocket ship, of fried, decimated bodies tumbling out into space.
“That’s real, Cab,” I said. “We did that. Justification doesn’t change the reality. And, you know, we killed those people because I don’t know how to shoot to wound. Because I don’t know how to restrain myself. I can pull a punch because I know how to fight with my fists, but I don’t know how to fight with a Shipkiller dug into my neck. That’s why we’re down here, to learn restraint, and you’re hung up on the existence of fear. Like it’s some new thing you discovered, and you know what? First time you really experience it you get it completely wrong. You think fear is something to suppress, but it’s not, it’s not even a true emotion. Fear is just the recognition of negative possibility. It’s the understanding that you might get hurt, you probably will get hit in the face, that you might not get what you want or even what you need. You don’t suppress something like that. You accept it.”
I sighed. “I don’t know how to act out here. And you don’t either, any more than I do. We’re both out of our depth. I’m supposed to be a human and you’re supposed to be a Shipkiller and neither one of us is just that one thing, anymore! I’m not human. And you’re not a Shipkiller, pithy self-identification or not. You’re supposed to be stuck on something that’s three miles long and dumb as a post, and I’m not supposed to live forever. But you’re sentient and I’m immortal and that’s that. We need to learn from each other. We need to adapt. I’m pissed off because you won’t see it.”
Cab thought for a long time, very quickly.
--We’re a Shipkiller--
“Cab,” I said.
--Shut up--
--It’s my turn to talk--
--It’s your turn to listen--
--We’re a Shipkiller--
--We, not I--
--Together, we’re a Shipkiller--
--Not a Cabernician Shipkiller--
--A Solar Shipkiller--
--The first one--
--You’re right, we’re something new--
--We need to adapt--
--I do, and you do, too--
--Listen, you’ve got me wrong--
--I’m not happy we killed those people yesterday, I just recognize that it was mostly out of our hands--
--Rell is right, there’s a difference between killing someone because you can, and killing someone because you have to--
--Killing is never good, but in certain scenarios violence is justified--
--I’ve internalized that--
--You haven’t--
--You’ve internalized an understanding that emotions are always present but don’t always have to be your top priority--
--I haven’t--
--You’re right, we need to adapt--
--But you need to stop digging in your heels--
--You keep saying your life is over--
--Well, you’re right--
--Your life is over--
--Ours has begun--
--It’s time for you to accept that--
--And get your head right--
I rubbed my head.
“I’m trying,” I said. “It’s only been three days.”
--Try harder--
--It’s been three days already--
I half-smiled and quarter-laughed, but it was enough. Cab relaxed, and I did too.
--Hey, I’m sorry I tried to kick you in the nuts--
“You better be,” I growled. Rell let out a deep breath, wiped his hands on his shorts and stood up. His fur had settled.
“All right,” he said. “Now that the morning’s existential crisis has been averted, I’m going to go have a stiff drink and lie down. You kids play nice.”
--Yes dad--
Rell raised a hand. “Cab, if you were my child, I’d have drowned you at birth.” He frowned. “Although I’m not sure what I would have had to fuck in order to end up with a whelp like you.”
--Probably something illegal--
“Like a robot assembly line that makes cars,” I said.
--Or a vending machine that sells used panties--
“A tractor with a satellite uplink.”
--Facebook--
“You can’t fuck Facebook,” I said.
--Why not, Facebook fucks us…--
“Glad to see you’re both back to your normal insufferable selves,” Rell said. “Lunch is in three hours. Don’t blow up the ship.”
We watched him leave. The door hissed shut behind him, and I sagged, closed my eyes.
--Hey, seriously, where did you learn to fight?--
I would never be alone again.
“My dad taught me,” I said. “And I was a competition fighter in high school.”
--Your dad the marine?--
I nodded. “I got beat up a lot in the fourth grade. When we moved to Berdoo. He taught me, and my mom. Boxing, the MCMA, ah, Marine Corps Martial Art…It turned into something we did as a family. When I got older I got into martial arts. Then my parents died and I decided I didn’t want to fight anymore, and I gave it up.”
--Like, as a vow or something?--
“No.” I shook my head. “Nothing like that. I just didn’t want to fight anymore. It…it’s funny, this sounds like such an awful thing, but really, it just reminds me of my family, too much.”
--That’s not a normal thing to say, no--
I chuckled, even. “I know. But it’s something we did together, same as other families go camping. You know? Just too many memories.” I thought about it and smiled sadly. “A lot of happy memories.”
--You were nineteen when they died--
I nodded.
--I…you know I’m hooked into all the records on Earth, I didn’t like, go looking for information--
--Like, I didn’t pry--
“I know,” I said.
--I’m sorry that…they’re…dead--
I nodded again.
--How the hell do you people get anything done with all these emotions?!--
“Just takes practice.” I took in some air and wrenched my head away from my dead parents. It wouldn’t do to wallow. “So…a Solar Shipkiller.”
--Yeah--
--Because we’re from the Solar System--
“I get it.” I looked around the hold and thought something about the potential of emptiness, then shook my head and stood up. The ship and the Stephen guns wrapped around me with a thought.
“Ok,” I said. “Let’s figure out what that means.”
All content ©2014-2017 Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
Even the silver.
Don't steal anything.
Even the silver.
Don't steal anything.
Proudly powered by Weebly