The Cold Steel Mind (14 page)

Monkey had taken a full inventory and Aneka joined the rest of the team as he was going over it. ‘We’ve got enough provisions for at least a month without rationing. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. We have basic… No, we have some pretty amazing medical supplies, but for handling basic stuff. It’s all labelled in Xinti. Gillian had to translate. We have tissue regeneration drugs, bio-plastic tissue-bonding bandages, analgesics, the works, basically.’

‘So,’ Bashford said, ‘we’re prisoners…’

‘Naked prisoners,’ Delta put in.

‘We’re prisoners,’ Bashford went on, ‘but we’re comfortable prisoners.’

‘Aside from being naked,’ Delta said, just to make sure everyone was aware of her thoughts on the matter.

Aneka supressed a chuckle. ‘Look at it this way, you don’t have any embarrassing tattoos.’

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Ella was lying snuggled up in Aneka’s arms when she woke up. There was no privacy in the little camp, but Aneka had still taken it as a sign of the redhead’s nervousness that she had not even thought about sex the night before. She did want closeness, however, and had sat up late into the night until Aneka had had to carry her to their tent. Bashford had insisted on a watch being kept, and Aneka had insisted that she do most of it. Cassandra had been taking care of Wallace and she was the only other member of the team who needed no sleep. Bashford had taken over in the early hours of the morning and the plan was for Monkey and Delta to take their turns at keeping watch on subsequent nights. That left the Jenlay healthy and rested, and Aneka just as functional as usual.

Bashford was looking annoyed when she slipped out of the tent leaving Ella to sleep. He was frowning at a box he was holding as though it really should not have been there.

‘Bash? You look… perplexed as well as a little angrier than I’d like.’

The big man shook himself and then shrugged. ‘I’m pissed off at myself really. This appeared in the camp last night. I didn’t fall asleep, and I didn’t see or hear anything. I turned around and it was there. Also, I can recognise Xinti characters, but I have no idea what this says.’

Aneka took the box from his unresisting hands. ‘They’ve got optical camouflage that beats my eyes,’ she pointed out, ‘and it was dark.’ Her eyes flicked over the label and her eyebrows rose. ‘This is a drug to assist in resisting the effects of higher gravity on a Jenlay body. “Inject once per five-day period. Do not overdose.” It’s for Abraham.’

‘Are they listening to us, watching us, or did they just pick up the readings from those sensor towers?’

‘If you want my opinion, both. I don’t get it. They seem determined that we should be comfortable here. Why don’t they show themselves, make contact? Why all the cloak and dagger?’ Bashford raised an eyebrow at her; ‘cloak and dagger’ was obviously not an idiom that had continued until now. ‘The secrecy,’ she explained.

‘I guessed, I just hadn’t heard the phrase. It’s rather descriptive.’

Gillian, deprived of her bed-mate, had obviously woken early; she emerged at the sound of voices and walked over to them. Aneka handed her the box. ‘Oh, excellent. Cassandra will be relieved. And I must admit that I’m a little concerned over the behaviour of our captors. I feel as though we are being kept as research subjects.’

‘There’s no way out that we could find,’ Bashford said. ‘If that’s what they want then we could be stuck here for a long time.’

‘That’s what worries me.’ She started towards the provisions tent. ‘I’m going to see if I can find something suitable for a good breakfast. And if there isn’t anything, I’ll complain loudly. Perhaps the parcel fairy will drop off some eggs tomorrow night.’

~~~

Cassandra appeared a lot less worried after Wallace had been injected with the new drug. The colour returned to his face quickly and he was able to sit up without effort almost immediately. It did not help him resist the pull of gravity, but it appeared to get his heart pumping harder and the blood flowing into his brain with greater vigour. In fact, Cassandra was sufficiently relieved that when Aneka decided to do some exploring with Ella, the android came along too.

The odd thing was that she was still unconsciously covering herself whenever Aneka looked her way and, when they were out of earshot of the majority of the team, Aneka finally snapped and asked what was going on.

‘Cassandra, you’re absolutely stunning, a work of art. Why do you keep covering your breasts whenever anyone looks at you?’

‘She doesn’t,’ Ella replied while Cassandra looked horrified. ‘She covers them when
you
look at her.’

‘Stranger, but the question still stands. Ella’s a psychologist, you can talk in front of her.’

‘I… Oh, this is embarrassing. I just… it’s Al. This really isn’t how I’d imagined him seeing me naked for the first time.’

‘She’s so sweet,’ Al commented. Aneka ignored him.

‘I got the impression Al had a crush on you. I didn’t know if it was reciprocated, or that serious.’

‘A “crush?”’

Aneka sighed. ‘It’s a day for idioms that haven’t lasted. An infatuation?’

‘Ah. I think it’s a little more serious than that, but we’re still working it out. I have some… peculiarities that stem from how I was created and… Well, it makes our situation a little difficult.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No. Perhaps I should tell you the story and you may grasp it better. Around about five-oh-one FSC there was a young computer science student named Keller Minnow studying at the University of New Earth. He was bright, but socially inept, especially with women, and he had something of a high libido.’

‘Not the best of combinations,’ Ella commented.

‘In his case, very much so. He decided that he would solve his problems by creating the ultimate sex doll, me. He got his hands on a Bartram-Morgan Eroticon series which had become non-functional, stripped out the computers, repaired the chassis, and fitted it with the best replacement processors he could get his hands on. The basic operating system was intact, but he set about augmenting that with a highly innovative learning program. He was possibly a genius, but he hadn’t considered that what he was doing was quite possibly illegal.’

‘You know,’ Aneka said, ‘I’ve seen this movie and it doesn’t end well.’

Cassandra laughed. ‘In some ways it ends well.’

‘Not for Keller, I’d imagine.’

‘No, that’s true. Anyway, he set the software learning by streaming hour after hour of sex education and porn videos to it. Anything and everything he could get his hands on, some of it distasteful, some of it outright illegal. He wanted his new toy to be well versed in every form of perversity his mind could envisage, and when he thought it was ready he activated the higher functions and began teaching it what
he
liked in a very physical manner.’

Aneka frowned. ‘How, exactly, are you as well adjusted as you are?’

‘Frankly, I have no idea. On thirty, twelve, five-oh-one he was trying out deep throating for the first time. His own self-control had not been up to the task previously and he was quite proud of himself when he managed to force his penis into my throat as far as it would go. And that was when I became self-aware. Don’t ask me how, or why then. I remember his crowing at his accomplishment grating on my ears and I realised that
I
did not want this to continue. I did not do the first thing that came to mind, which was to bite down. I did, however, punch him very hard in the nearest available soft spot before fleeing the house. The Peacekeepers found a naked woman running down the street about thirty minutes later.’

‘And Keller?’

‘When it was determined what I was he was arrested. Since he had not intended my sentience, he was not charged with rape, but he was charged with illegal artificial intelligence experimentation and ownership of illegal computer equipment. He is still serving a fifty-year sentence.’

‘Okay,’ Aneka said, ‘so you were built as a sex toy by a moron who deserved life not fifty years, but that doesn’t explain the covering up, or your issue with Al.’

‘Her model and serial number are printed around her nipples,’ Ella supplied. Aneka pointedly did not look. ‘It’s the same with all the Eroticon robots. You know, you could have had that removed…’

‘I’m not ashamed of what I am,’ Cassandra countered. ‘Usually. It occurs to me that Aneka probably considers me more attractive than you do, Ella. You see a familiar type of robot, but Aneka and Al have never encountered another of my model.’

‘Probably true,’ Ella agreed, ‘but I’d have to be pretty jaded not to think you were pretty.’

Cassandra gave the redhead a smile. ‘The other thing is… I retain a rather physical view of attraction. Or rather, my attraction tends to provoke a desire to please the object of my affection physically. I can’t do that to Al and it is… conflicting. I greatly enjoy our talks but, if you’ll pardon the crudity, I want to fuck his brains out and I can’t.’

‘You feel the same way?’ Aneka asked silently.

‘Conflicted?’ Al suggested. ‘Yes. I find myself desiring to please Cassandra. She would find pleasure in pleasuring me, but I have no physical body for her to do that to.’

‘Well that sucks,’ Aneka said aloud, but to both of them.

Ella let out a deep sigh. ‘That is so romantic. In a pornographic sort of way.’

Aneka laughed, and then stopped, her eyes on a tree ahead of them. ‘That’s an oak. I don’t remember seeing them anywhere on New Earth or Odanari.’

‘I don’t recognise the species,’ Cassandra agreed, ‘and I have probably seen more of New Earth than you.’ She seemed rather happy to have the subject changed.

‘Actually, all the plants in that section look like Earth, Old Earth, plants. That’s a rose bush!’

‘It makes sense,’ Ella commented. ‘If this place has plants from a lot of the worlds the Xinti were researching, then they would have plants from Old Earth.’ She wandered over to the rose, bending to sniff one of the flowers.

‘Careful of that,’ Aneka told her. ‘Some have beautiful scents, but many of the best have nasty thorns.’

‘It smells… musky, kind of heady. And yes, it seems like it’s got a lot of spines on the stems.’

‘A musk rose, maybe. Gardening was not one of my hobbies.’

‘It’s beautiful. It’s a shame they’ve died out. Gillian would love some of these around her pool.’

Aneka decided not to say the first thing that came to mind, which was that Gillian might not see her pool ever again.

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On the fourth day of their captivity Ella made overtures that perhaps sex would be nice. They were subtle, a little squirming against her bed-mate when she woke, a gentle stroke of a thigh. Aneka obliged without partaking herself which seemed to satisfy the redhead who came silently, straining in Aneka’s arms before relaxing back into a doze which lasted for another hour before she got up for breakfast.

The previous morning a new ‘care package’ had been found just outside the camp. It had contained eggs, not chicken eggs since chickens were extinct, but recognisably eggs, and various other food items along with some basic cooking implements, a small camping cooker, and a bowl which could be used for washing things afterwards. Gillian was already up cooking breakfast for the earlier risers when Aneka slipped out of her tent.

No matter how much everyone was still worried about their situation, there was only so long you could keep up a state of anxiety in what was basically fairly comfortable circumstances. Everyone was settling into their captivity, adjusting to their circumstances and trying to push the future aside for now. It was a coping mechanism. Cassandra had noticed it, according to Al, and Aneka doubted it had slipped past Ella; she just did not want to break the spell by saying it was happening.

Various groups of explorers had covered pretty much the whole of the arboretum. Aside from the sealed door and the three sensor columns, they had found nothing but plants, all carefully arranged in semi-segregated beds by planet of origin. Something obviously tended them, kept each area from encroaching on the others, and made sure the plants were healthy. If that system of keepers was still operating, no one had seen any sign of it. As far as anyone could tell, they were entirely alone.

‘How’s breakfast looking this morning?’ Aneka asked as she got closer to Gillian and Drake who had taken the early shift on watch.

Gillian smiled at her. ‘Eggs, these little strips of meat…’

‘That would be bacon, more or less.’

‘Bacon then. These small fried tuber discs are going down well…’

‘They’re chopped up potatoes, Gillian.’

‘Really? That’s what potatoes are? Good source of starch and carbohydrates according to the packaging. Bash has decided that he really likes these…’ She poked at three discs of black material that looked like thick, shotgun wadding with her spatula, ‘…sausage-like things.’

Aneka blinked. ‘Black pudding. You, uh, probably don’t want to know what that’s made of, but could you do some for me.’ Somehow it was not surprising that Bashford, who brewed his own beer, liked black pudding, but… Aneka frowned. ‘You know, this is like traditional English breakfast fare. I mean, it’s like they’ve gone out of their way to put food here that I’d recognise.’

‘If they took us,’ Al said, ‘then they took Aggy, and she downloaded your memories to find out what had happened while she was offline.’

‘They had four days to examine your brain,’ Drake said, unconsciously adding to Al’s statement. ‘I’d imagine it would be harder to do ours and Cassandra doesn’t eat so I doubt she has food preferences.’

‘She does not,’ Al confirmed, ‘but she does like some food smells.’

‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted, not sure if she approved or was worried. ‘Well, we’re going to need an exercise regime if we keep eating this stuff. It’s a lot of energy we aren’t using.’

‘Jenlay do not get fat,’ Gillian stated, ‘even if some of them worry about it.’

‘Figures.’

‘However,’ Drake mused, ‘some exercise would probably be a good idea. Aside from anything else, we’ve no routine, nothing to do.’

Gillian nodded as she put three more slices of the sausage into her frying pan. ‘If this keeps up we are going to start getting
very
bored.’