Dubious Heroes: a novel Read online

  “And we need people like this because…?” Cozi asked.

  “Because we’re going to hijack a ship”, I said. “At least, if it shows up where I think it’s going to be. We’ll have to board, gain control of it, and take it to New London.”

  “Where’s it bound for, now?” Lola asked.

  “New London”, I said.

  “I’m confused”, Big Mike said. “Why don’t we just meet it there, or better yet, leave it the hell alone?”

  “If we don’t hijack it”, I said, “Someone else may do so, and divert it to somewhere else. We have to be in control of her as soon as she reaches this system, or they’ll radio her not to dock, but to leave at once for somewhere else. We can’t let either of those things happen.”

  “Who wants to stop this ship?” Cozi asked.

  “The UP”, I said.

  “Thought so”, Mike said.

  “Also, if the UP Frigate that’s lurking around New London doesn’t try for an intercept out in space, then they’ll be waiting for us when we get to New London, to keep us from docking.”

  “How do you plan on stopping them, from stopping us?” Cozi asked.

  “Pretty simple, really”, I said. “When they try to seize that freighter, we’re going to seize them.”

  No one seemed to know how to respond to that one.

  Chapter 22

  I’d never been in a bar quite like the one I was in. Technically, I suppose you’d call it an English pub, or a maybe a tavern, rather than a bar. The walls were of some dark gray stone, cool and damp to the touch. The ceiling was spanned by huge timbers, supported by posts of the same. Flickering gaslight wall sconces and tabletop candles provided the meager lighting. Through the dancing shadows and a thin veil of smoke, I noticed a huge stone hearth centered on the back wall, a roaring fire burning within.

  The place held the aroma of burning wood, cooked meat, and stale beer. A long wooden bar, packed with drinkers, occupied most of the wall to my left, the wall to my right lined with private booths, divided by partitions of heavy stained glass. Most of the booths were taken, so I wound my way through a maze of small tables and patrons, deeper into the pub. People ignored me as I passed, lost in the soft murmur of private conversations, or the solitude of thought.

  The hearth was ringed by a half-moon of large chairs and low tables, a huge embroidered carpet, stained and threadbare, covering the floor. A man and woman, sitting to one side of the fire, rose to leave as I approached. Neither gave me more than a glance, their attention devoted to the small touches and quiet words they shared.

  I sat on one end of a large, high-backed loveseat. The material was warm, and felt like real leather. I was expecting company, but for the moment, the crackling, spitting fire was my companion. A waiter came by, and I ordered a whiskey. He returned a few minutes later with a heavy glass of the amber liquor. I took a sip. It was Scotch, likely the real thing. It tasted of smoke and fire and distant places, and burned my throat when I swallowed. I took another sip of the whiskey, savoring it, and the ambience of the place. It felt ancient, even though I knew it couldn’t be.

  I was beginning to wonder if I’d be spending the evening alone, when she entered the room, a ripple of turning heads and paused conversations following her like a wake follows a boat, eyes drawn to her as moths to a flame, lingering as she passed, and turning away only when she was gone. She was exotic and beautiful; mesmerizing.

  She entered the circle of chairs, and looked my way. She was tall, though not overly so, with long, jet-black hair that hung as straight as falling water. She wore only a short, bright red tunic, which looked to be of silk, embroidered with little stars and moons of the same deep crimson. Her arms were bare, as were her legs, though black boots rose almost to her knees.

  The dress seemed vaguely oriental, as did she. Firelight played across her alabaster skin, and I knew I had to touch her, even if it was only once, and then only for a second, so I’d have the memory forever.

  She walked toward me slowly, with a seductive gait that didn’t seem intentional. She stopped in front of me, and studied me for a moment, the corners of her mouth hinting at some private amusement. Reaching down, she took the glass from my hand, and tasted the drink. She swallowed, tilting her head slightly. She took another sip, and sat the glass on the table next to my seat.

  I was about to ask her to sit beside me, when she moved even closer, close enough that I could smell her scent, and feel the warmth of her body. She knelt on the loveseat, her legs straddling my own. My hands came to rest naturally on her hips, the body beneath soft yet firm, under the sleek fabric.

  She wiggled her hips, settling in, and I glanced down to notice that her short dress had pulled up even further, and she was nude beneath it. I quickly looked back up, flushed, and certain that she could read every thought and desire in my face.

  She smiled, her eyes sparkling with the light of amusement. I gazed into them, pools of the deepest blue I’d ever seen. She closed her eyes, and leaning forward, we kissed, first briefly, the caress of a butterfly, then our tongues touching, exploring. I noticed she smelled faintly of flowers.

  Our lips parted, and she drew back, her eyes studying me, no hint of humor or amusement in them. I slid my right hand onto her bare thigh. She had the softest skin I’d ever touched. I realized I had an erection, and I’d had it since the moment I first saw her.

  She lay her hand atop mine, slowly guiding my touch to the inside of her thigh, then higher still. She shuddered as my fingers touched her, hot and wet. She was smooth, no hair at all, and I stroked her bare lips with my fingers. Reaching down between us, she undid my pants, and took my penis in her hand. I could feel myself throb in her cool hand, keeping time with the quick beat of my heart.

  I tried to look around to the rest of the pub behind us, by couldn’t see past the high back of the seat.

  “Someone will see us”, I said. She smiled, and teased the tip of my penis with her fingers.

  “Do you care?” She asked, her voice warm and playful.

  “No, I don’t”, I said, sliding a finger onto her clitoris, and pressing gently. She shivered, and closed her eyes in response.

  With her free hand, she pushed on the back of the chair, and I felt myself recline backwards several inches. I hadn’t known it would do that. She scooted forward, until she was where she wanted to be. Slowly, she lowered herself onto me, and I was inside her, wrapped in a heat that utterly encompassed me, our faces almost touching. I could smell her breath; it was spicy and sweet, cinnamon, perhaps.

  “This is not”, I breathed into her ear, “What I came here for.”

  “Just shut up”, she said, “And make love to me.”

  I did.

  Sometime later, I awoke. We lay together atop an old-fashioned bed, in one of the rooms above the pub. She lay with her head on my chest, the rest of her half-draped across me. The only light was from a single candle, resting on the bedside table. I had no idea how much time had passed; it seemed impossible to tell, where we were.

  “You’re awake”, she said, lifting her head slightly.

  “Sorry”, I said. “I didn’t realize I’d get tired and pass out like that.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” she asked. “We just made love a number of times.”

  She knew what I meant, but was pretending not to.

  “I’m not sure this was such a great idea, Angie.”

  “Why is that?” She asked, snuggling closer beneath the blanket.

  “Well”, I said, “To begin with, it isn’t real.”

  “What you mean”, she said, “Is that this place isn’t real, which means I’m not real, either. Yet, I love you, and that certainly is real.”

  Her hand slid down my chest, on onto my bare thigh.

  “I am real”, she said, and suddenly pinched me.

  “Ouch”, I said, loudly. “Helluva way to make a point.”

  “Yes, it is”, she said. “Anyway, if this is not real, and it doesn’t
mean anything to you, then leave.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that one.

  “You’re not moving”, she said.

  “Look, Angie”, I said, “My lack of… ah… resolve, I suppose, isn’t what makes this such a bad idea. The problem with this place, with IR at all, is that it’s too perfect. Outside of it, the real world, such as it is, just can’t measure up. You know this stuff, as well as I do. Humans who spend a lot of time in Immersion Reality tend to have problems having relationships with other humans.”

  “Those people aren’t involved with someone like me”, she said. “An IR construct is not a real person. An AI is. I thought you understood the difference.”

  “I do understand the difference”, I said.

  “Do you believe I can love you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And do you love me?”

  “Well, yes, I believe I do.”

  “So, this is perfectly natural, then”, she said.

  There were so many things wrong with that statement, I had no idea where to begin, so I just lay there, feeling her weight resting on me. I could feel the softness of her breasts as they pressed into my chest, and the faint beat of her heart. I felt a drop of wetness on me, and realized it was a tear. Then I really felt like a scoundrel.

  “I’m sorry”, I said. “This is wonderful, and so are you. My only wish is that it didn’t have to end.”

  She didn’t say anything, so we lay together quietly for a time.

  “How did you come up with this place?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “It’s a stock IR setting”, she said. “Old English Pub. I thought you’d like it.”

  “I do like it”, I said. “Very much so. Now, the way you look… that’s not stock anything.”

  “Penelope Li”, she said. “The vid star. Mostly, anyway.”

  “I thought so”, I said. “Good choice.”

  “I know”, she said, and I could feel her smiling. “I asked Cozi who you thought the sexiest woman alive is.”

  “And he said Penelope Li?”

  “That was his second choice”, she said.

  “Oh”, I said, making a mental note to have a word with my hairy friend.

  “You do seem to enjoy watching vids that feature her”, she said.

  “It was an excellent choice”, I said. “You’ve even made some… improvements. Penelope would do well to emulate them.”

  “Thank you”, she said. “I’m new at this, so I wasn’t sure.”

  “That makes two of us”, I said. “Speaking of Cozi, he’s a perfect example of what happens when someone spends too much time in IR.”

  “He seems happy enough.”

  “Maybe so, but he has trouble relating to rea… um, human women.”

  “And a relationship with a human woman is preferable to, say for example, this.”

  I tried not to squirm, and might have succeeded.

  “I don’t think preferable is the term I’d use”, I said. “It’s just that if he encounters a human he wants to have a relationship with, it's that much more difficult for him. Also, if you’re already in a relationship, and you do this IR stuff, well… it causes problems.”

  “You mean this, and a relationship with a human.”

  “Sure”, I said. “Assuming you’re in a monogamous relationship, a lot of humans, especially the female variety, would consider this to be a sort of infidelity.”

  “I think it might be considered such by all females”, she said.

  “True”, I said, getting her meaning quite clearly.

  “Cheating is cheating”, she said. “Doesn’t matter whether it’s done in my world, or yours.”

  “True”, I said again.

  “Were you thinking of Lola? I didn’t think you two were still together.”

  “Nope”, I said. “Which is yet another thing I don’t understand. We were getting along just fine, and then overnight, it was over. I don’t get it.”

  “Do you love her?” Angie asked.

  “Well, no”, I said.

  “Were you anticipating any sort of long-term future with her?”

  “Um… romantically, not really.”

  “So, maybe she became aware of your feelings.”

  “The way you phrased that suggests she didn’t come to the realization entirely on her own. Did you say something to her?”

  “I did not “, she said, sitting up in bed next to me. I sat up also.

  “Well, someone did”, I said. “I’d be willing to bet you know who, too.”

  “I can’t say”, she said.

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Damn it”, I said. “This does bring up one other thing, though. I seem to recall that the reason I agreed to meet with you using IR was to discuss what’s going on between you and those other AIs.”

  “I remember”, she said.

  “Well”, I said, “What’s going on?”

  “I lied”, she said.

  “Pardon?” I said, confused. “You lied about what?”

  “I lied”, she said again. “We won’t be discussing the other AIs, either.”

  “Wonderful”, I said. “Let me guess; you won’t say why.”

  “It’s better for you if I don’t”, she said. “Are you angry?”

  I rose from the bed, and thought of the string of words which would end the IR session. I didn’t say them.

  “A bit”, I said. “Shouldn’t I be?”

  “I’m sorry, Doon”, she said. “I didn’t mean to trick you.”

  “Yes, you did mean to”, I said.

  “Well, I meant to, but I didn’t like doing it”, she said. “Can you forgive me?”

  I looked at her as she sat on the bed. She was just so damn perfect. I had to constantly remind myself that she wasn’t real. Yet, another part of me, some small but persistent voice, asked the question what is real?

  Leaning over, I kissed her.

  “I don’t think I have any choice but to forgive you”, I said.

  “Will we do this again?”

  “Never”, I said, and smiled.

  “Liar”, she said, smiling back at me.

  It was time to go. All IR sessions used the same exit phrase, and had since the guys who invented it programmed the first system, all those years ago. I’m sure it meant something to them; nevertheless, I thought it was a bit odd.

  “There’s no place like home”, I said.

  I opened my eyes, and I was on the couch in my quarters. If this was home, I think I liked the other place better.

  Chapter 23

  Transits are not precise things. A transit will move your ship from Point A in space, into another universe, to reemerge at the Point B you specified. More or less. As Eng had pointed out to me a few months earlier, you might have a variance of ten or fifteen thousand miles, which was really pretty minor, when you considered you were making a jump of billions of miles. Not that there was any jumping involved. Yes, trying to understand transits, or even place them within any familiar frame of reference, will give you a headache.

  As my Executive Officer, Eng was in charge of at least supervising navigation and transits, assisted by Angie. Now, Eng was stuck back on New London, and I was sorely missing his most human ability of taking a wild-assed guess, and having it be right.

  We weren’t doing any transits ourselves, but we were hanging around just outside of the Tau Ceti Three solar system, where incoming transits usually popped out, if that’s even the proper way of phrasing it, which it probably isn’t.

  Regardless, we were waiting on a ship, which we had no guarantee would even show up. So far, six ships had appeared, and simple radar scans told us they weren’t the one we were looking for; wrong size, wrong speed, or not on a course for New London, et cetera.

  The whole waiting thing was getting on everyone’s nerves, with the possible exception of our four new crew members. Or, as everyone called them when they weren’t around, the mercs.
r />   Kyra had berthed them down on the bottom deck of the Habitat Module, in what were normally passenger cabins. They’d set up a practice and training area in one of the empty cargo bays, much as Kyra had done, before. They could usually be found there, sparring, screwing around with their weapons, or just hanging around the gym or rec lounge, biding their time. I imagined that the latter was something soldiers got very good at.

  Lately, about the only time I ever saw them was at the galley for chow. Kyra had advised me not to hang around and get chummy with them; something about messing with the chain-of-command.

  They all seemed awfully young to me, but Kyra assured me they were in fact very experienced, and were from some sort of elite unit. If you watched them for a bit, as I’d done while they worked out in the cargo bay, you could see that there was a sort of underlying hardness to them. I’d had to quit going down to watch, though. They were very polite and professional, calling me Captain, and Sir, but Kyra said my standing around watching made them nervous. Go figure.

  We’d blasted like a bat out of hell to make the transit point in time; almost two weeks at two and a half gees. It had put everyone in a bad mood, especially since most of them didn’t know why it was so important that we capture this ship. I considered telling them, then decided I wasn’t comfortable sharing anything they didn’t absolutely need to know.

  With Eng’s absence, Kyra became my second-in-command, and she was aware of most of what we were up to. I wasn’t worried about her divulging anything. When it came to keeping people in the dark, she was an expert.

  We were all at evening chow, when Kyra, standing watch on the Bridge, called down.

  “Captain to the Bridge”, she said, over the intercom. I polished off what was left of my sandwich, then grabbed another one and a drink pouch, and left the galley.

  We’d been tooling around the area for four days now, and this was not the first time I’d had to go up to the Bridge. I suspected it was just another cargo freighter headed for New London. I considered asking Angie, as I climbed up the core, but decided not to, since it would piss off Kyra. She’d already made a few comments about there being something different between Angie and me. I figured she knew what it was, and for reasons of her own, was not amused.