New Blood Episode Six: The Toymaker

Jak still didn’t know where he was going, nor what his assignment would be when he got there. Still, Susanna had the same order code, so he was sure it wouldn’t be too bad. Even an airless dustball like Delbay 4 would seem almost pleasant as long as he had Susanna with him. As an added bonus, Jasper would be going, too.

Jasper, Jak’s Zipper, didn’t realize what an honor it was for him...it...to be included in Jak’s orders. Normally when an officer transferred, a local factory built him a new unit on site; it was cheaper to build most units than to ship them via Galactic Gate. Susanna would be getting a new unit, as would the others who crowded into the Gate shelter with them for the transfer. A couple of the men and one of the women carried cases, but nobody else had a unit.

*I don’t like Galactic Gates,* Jasper told Jak. *Why can’t we take an Atlas instead?*

The Zipper’s “voice” inside his head was still a rather childish one, but Jak couldn’t help but laugh at this unexpectedly childish question.

To answer it, Jak called up a simple star chart from the AI memory. Empyrrean sat roughly at the center. He zoomed in until green hills, streaked with the black rock of old volcanic flows, filled the designated area of his vision.

*This is approximately where we are,* he explained. That particular locale was actually located some thousand kilometers from where they stood...but in the cosmic scale of things, it was close enough. *I don’t know where we’re going, but...* He pulled the view back again to the star field and kept going until Delta Beta appeared in one corner. *That’s Delbay. It would take a million years to get there by Atlas.*

*Oh.* The Zipper remained silent a moment. *No, it would take six hundred twelve thousand years, rounded to three places.*

Jak sighed. How could Jasper be so ignorant and yet so sharp?

*I still don’t like Galactic Gates.*

Jak wasn’t fond of them himself, but he had the Zipper take its designated place within the quiescent Gate. He apologetically began the shutdown sequence that would protect the Kbot frame from the worst effects of the electromagnetic flux produced by the Galactic Gate. The thinking—living?—part of Jasper could not be deactivated. Although he would suffer, at least this time Jak knew the Zipper’s personality would survive the experience.

Once Jak and his Kbot got situated, the others crowded in around. Although he could see Susanna wrap her arms around the Zipper’s leg, with most of its systems offline, he couldn’t feel her touch. That morning she had confessed to him that she was a little nervous about a Gate trip. Always before, she had made the journey as a complex set of cloning blueprints and had never actually experienced the jump. Had there been a little more room in the Zipper’s cockpit, Jack would have invited her to join him inside, whatever anybody else thought.

Not knowing any of the others, he couldn’t be sure he would have anything to do with them when they arrived at their destination. They didn’t look like great warriors, or, perhaps, soldiers at all...but he had learned that outward appearance generally bore very little correlation to ability. People weren’t gated without good reason, though. Nobody there was a PeeWee pilot, or even a Rocko. Those traveled much more compactly and efficiently in a Commander suit’s files or in blueprint cases—like that dull silver box one of the men held to his chest.

Reinforcements. If additional cloning blueprints were needed where they were going, that probably meant a significant action of some kind. Jak felt an exhilarating combination of excitement and nervous anticipation—maybe he’d have a chance for some real action at last. Lieutenants who were always left on the edge of a battle might survive but they never got the experience High Command required of its captains. No kills, no promotion. All Jak had to his name were a couple of crippled A.K.’s, which wouldn’t impress a schoolboy, much less HiCom.

“Ready?” The standard Gate operator’s question was rhetorical, simply a polite way of warning the travelers to brace themselves for transfer.

Knowing what came next, the Zipper started whimpering before the glowing field hit them; by the time the flux died away, it sobbed pitifully.

*That was even worse than last time.*

Jak thought so, too. He shook his head—gently—to clear it. Increased power would do that, but he couldn’t even be sure the jump had been longer, because there was so much more mass this time.

“My God,” he heard Susanna whisper. “It’s Delbay 4.”

He didn’t know how she could tell at first, since one underground Gate shelter looked much like another. But as he looked around, he saw Lancer. Or a clone from the same stock, he reminded himself. The man stepped toward the Gate and squeezed into the press; before Jak realized what was happening, the Gate flared again.

For a few seconds, Jak was afraid he was going to vomit. With the AI down, no handy receptacle presented itself to his quivering white lips; he controlled the urge. Susanna still clung to the Zipper’s leg. Jak could hear her swearing faintly but comprehensively. Not for nothing had she been a non-com for...centuries perhaps.

“Sorry, all,” said the man Jak still wasn’t sure was Lancer. “Things just worked out for a double jump. No time to warn anybody.”

He stepped jauntily from the Gate. Others slowly started collecting themselves to follow, except for the man with the blueprint case; he tapped lightly on Jasper’s leg, the one opposite Susanna.

“How’s the Zipper?” he asked.

What did he mean? A typical Kbot had no difficulty with the most demanding Gate jump, so why would he be asking about Jak’s Zipper? Nobody was supposed to know about the unit’s self-awareness...which even now wailed pitifully inside Jak’s mind. He didn’t have to pretend confusion to ask blankly, “What?”

“It’s okay. I’m Dr. Michel.” The man smiled, but whether reassuringly or self-consciously, Jak couldn’t quite decide. “You can call me Mick. I’m the head tech guy on the project.”

Project? “Uh....”

Michel’s smile faded. “You don’t know about the project?”

“Of course he doesn’t.” Lancer—or his clone mate—had turned back, and now he wore a wry grin. “Nobody tells soldiers anything until they need to know it...and not always even then. I was on Delta Beta 4...” It was Lancer! It was! “...for almost two years, and I didn’t know for sure about the Gate relay until a couple of days ago. I still don’t know what planet we’re on right now.”

The scientist blinked a couple of times as he absorbed this information. “This is Nuxi 3,” he said.

Jak didn’t know of any star or planet with that name, so he supposed it was the third in a series of bases. Political geography had never been his best subject. “What star system?”

“Nu Xsi, although most people pronounce it ‘Nuxi.’ Core doesn’t even know it exists.”

Jak had never known of its existence before, either, and now it came to him why Delbay 4 was so very important. It not only harbored a Galactic Gate relay, that Gate led to a secret world, one where the Core had never penetrated. So much for getting combat experience.

Two

The others had mostly collected themselves by now, and were moving to leave the enclosure. Dr. Michel transferred his blueprint case to one hand and waved jauntily with the other as he ducked through the door.

“See you,” he said.

The Zipper still wasn’t ready, so Lancer stayed with Jak. Tera’s cloning plaque nestled safe in his pocket; she could wait another few minutes. The whole project could wait another few minutes.

Lancer had fully expected Jak to be glad to see him, and he was a little disappointed by the natural-born’s restraint. Maybe the kid still felt a little sick from a double gate transfer. The woman just now letting go her death grip on the Zipper’s leg certainly didn’t look too good after her trip. Rather, she didn’t look like she felt very good. Even ill, she was an attractive young woman. Wait a minute....

“Sue?” Lancer felt moderately stunned. If Jak hadn’t mentioned her in his letter, Lancer never would have recognized her. The Rocko Sue he knew was squat and square, while this clone was tall and shapely, almost as if Sue had been stretched out and remolded by an artist. He offered her his hand. Still not any too steady, she gave him a wan smile as she took it.

“Lancer.” She said weakly.

“This is Susanna, sir,” said Jak. Even though he was busy powering up his Zipper suit, he still apparently had some attention to spare for his girlfriend. And to judge from his rather stiff tone of voice, he did not care for another man’s interest in her. Figuring a little jealousy wouldn’t kill the kid, Lancer drew Susanna’s hand across his forearm.

“Susanna.” Lancer gave her his most charming smile. “Let’s go check out this new planet. I hope it’s nicer than Delbay.”

The woman looked toward Jak, who still didn’t have the Zipper completely up yet. “I think I’d rather wait for Jak, sir,” she said. “If you don’t mind?”

“Sure.” Lancer gave her hand a little pat as she slid away from him. Anyway, he knew he ought to go find the cloning lab and take care of Tera. “See you.”

The gate enclosure was the standard for a planet with a breathable atmosphere, but except for that, Lancer had no idea what to expect outside. He opened the door and stopped in amazement.

The world was green. It even smelled green. Green flowed over rolling hills up to an intense blue sky like something Lancer only dimly remembered having ever seen before. A spray of color arched over the doorway above him. Flowers. If he had ever known what they were called, he had forgotten their name now.

Before him lay a fairly standard Arm base, but it seemed different somehow—more spread out, with people moving calmly about without vehicles or suits. Bright-colored vining flowers grew over many of the doorways, while wide beds of roses and still more flowers Lancer didn’t know by name decorated the grounds.

“Welcome to paradise,” he muttered to himself. Then he took his first jaunty step onto the surface of Nuxi 3.

He asked a couple who were strolling by hand in hand the whereabouts of the cloning lab, and they were happy to give him directions. Turn right between the fourth and fifth solar generators, then go straight across the park (park? marveled Lancer), and you couldn’t miss it.

Lancer found the park easily enough; he followed a meandering walk through neatly clipped grass until he came to a playground. Some half a dozen little children climbed all over what had once been the turret of a Bulldog, and several more dug in the sand in its shadow. Two women and a man sat companionably on a bench watching the children play.

Playground. Children. Lancer felt a strange dislocation, as if what he saw couldn’t be real. Laughing in delight, a couple of boys bobbed up and down on the tank’s cannon. Now Lancer saw that the children on the ground were building a fort all of wet sand, using old scraps of armor as tools, including the toecap of a PeeWee as a bucket.

“I bet I could figure out how to produce some better toys for them.”

The sound of Dr. Michel’s voice behind him startled Lancer. He had been so enthralled in watching the children play, he hadn’t noticed the other man come up the path.

“Swings will be a challenge,” Michel said. He briefly gazed off into the sky somewhere before grinning suddenly. “I think I have an idea. But orders first. You on your way to the cloning lab, too?”

Lancer nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The scientist hefted his blueprint case. “I want to make sure we get your investigator into the queue before I hit them with this lot.” As he started on toward the cloning lab, Lancer fell in beside him. “I feel like a damned courier,” Michel said. “I had a few empty slots in my case, so HiCom slipped in some personnel. Nothing to do with our project at all.”

“Just...what is our project, sir?” Lancer thought he knew, but it never hurt to pump somebody knowledgeable for more.

“Oh.” Michel seemed a little nonplussed by this question. “The project. Code name Troutania. Essentially, we’re bringing a third-generation Advanced Construction Kbot here from Delbay 4, and we’re going to set up a small-scale production facility. We will, presumably, produce self-aware units, which we will then analyze to determine what makes them self-aware. That’s our part, anyway.” Michel grimaced. “I think some of the people are here to decide if self-awareness is a good thing or not.”

When the two men arrived at the cloning lab, Michel stood back to let Lancer go first with his single plaque. There wasn’t much he needed to do except give it to the technician, but he waited while she verified it was complete.

“It’ll be about four hours, then?” he asked. He knew very well how long a routine restoration took. “It is okay if I come for the awakening, isn’t it?”

“Of course, sir.” The woman smiled. “You can even cut some roses and bring them with you.”

Lancer hadn’t thought his personal interest was that obvious. Or maybe it was Nuxi tradition to bring flowers to the newly restored.... Nah. Wouldn’t Tera be surprised to wake up to roses, though? Almost as surprised as she would be to wake up to him bringing them to her.

He knew she had been interested in him before he had even noticed her. But he had no idea how long she had been nursing her infatuation before she had arranged their first meeting...which the clone would not remember. He rather hoped Tera had banked her memories at a time when she at least knew who he was.

Now Michel opened his case and sorted out half a dozen cloning plaques. The scientist simply piled them on the counter as if indifferent to their fate, closed his case and was ready to go. Lancer hadn’t consciously waited, but he found himself walking back toward main base with the other man.

Lancer still had a hard time believing the peaceful beauty of this place. Now the children were laughing and chasing all over the playground, playing at war as if it were nothing more than a game to them. It was nothing more than a game to them.

“Why did HiCom decide to move the investigation here?” asked Lancer. It seemed as if Delbay 4 would have worked just as well, if not better. Not that he was complaining.

“Secrecy, or so I’m guessing. HiCom doesn’t want anybody more than necessary to know about the existence of self-aware units, but even more importantly, they don’t want it known we’re trying to duplicate and possibly even refine the process. Besides...” Michel grinned. “I think it will be rather refreshing to be able to work without having to worry about the Core dropping in unexpectedly, don’t you?”

Lancer felt foolish. At the cost of numerous scratches, he had managed to hack a few blooms from a rosebush growing outside his new quarters. He clutched the somewhat bedraggled bouquet in one hand when he returned to the cloning lab. The tech smiled broadly when she saw him, and brought him to the recovery room without even asking his business.

Tera was not the only new clone there, but after a quick glance to verify he didn’t know any of the others, Lancer ignored the rest of them. Shoving a chair next to Tera’s bed, he sat there to wait. She was still asleep, but she shouldn’t be for much longer.

While he waited, he snapped the thorns from the roses and tossed them into a wastebasket halfway across the room. Sometimes he missed, but he didn’t care.

After about ten minutes, Tera’s eyelashes fluttered. Lancer tensed. What would she think when she saw him? Would she even know who he was? She gave a faint sob; Lancer could see the bright streak of a tear start from the corner of her eye and run down her cheek.

“Tera? What’s wrong?”

“You brought me back.” Her eyes were still firmly closed, so he didn’t think she knew who she was talking to. “And I hate it. War, war, war. I’d rather be dead.”

Lancer had come back feeling that way a couple of times himself. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But I’d rather you weren’t.”

This got her attention. She opened her eyes and...stared.

“I brought you some flowers.” Lancer smiled and awkwardly held the bunch out to her. Her gaze shifted to the roses and then back to his face. He didn’t think he had ever seen anyone so obviously stunned.

“Lancer?” Good. She knew him, at any rate. “Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming....” Now she took the roses from his hand. “There are no flowers on Delbay 4.” She held one of the larger blooms to her nose to breathe its scent. “And you don’t know me...do you?”

This was the tricky part, but he’d had plenty of time to think about it. “Not very well,” he lied. “Not yet. We had just gotten started when...um....” She had been kidnapped and patterned rather than killed, but he didn’t think she needed to know that, at least not just now.

“How did we meet?”

Lancer groaned inwardly. That was just the kind of thing a woman would want to know, wasn’t it? And he couldn’t tell her. She had been waiting for him after his last restoration, but not demurely in a chair in the recovery room. He might have bought that, but it would have been too public, so she had waited in his quarters instead. In his bed.

“We were...uh...doing an investigation together,” he said. She wouldn’t know about the self-aware units yet. “It’s what we’re going to be working on here. On Nuxi 3. There’s an atmosphere, and grass—“

“And roses.”

Three

The team still hadn’t made much progress into discovering the nature of machine self-awareness...but, after a little more than three months, they were ready to build a new playground.

Jak had gotten roped into the project by Susanna. Lancer never did say how Michel had gotten him into it, but both he and Tera put a lot of their own time into it, too. Most of the other Troutania staff members were good only for suggestions and criticism, though, so the work was done mostly by these five. Jak didn’t mind, or at least, not most of the time.

Michel was a master of blueprint modification; Jak found out that a lot more was possible than he had ever imagined. Who would have guessed you could make playground equipment with an unmodified level-two Kbot lab? He’d had an idea for something based on a Freedom Fighter, but they could get the authorizations only for the one Kbot lab—and that because the only authorization they needed for it was Dr. Michel’s.

Everything but the self-aware project’s production plant fell under Nuxi Base 1 command. The Commander was too concerned about compromising the military readiness of his establishment to allow any of his factories to be subverted to such a frivolous purpose. He didn’t even want the improved models Michel had brought with him in the blueprint case. The original units had been proven on battlefields all over the universe, and Commander Exter didn’t want to take chances with untested innovation.

So Jak and Susanna had designed a climbing structure from level-two leg and torso sections. When it was finished and assembled, the children could crawl through as well as climb on the tubes. There had been something like that at the Crèche when Jak had gone to school there, but much smaller, and made from scraps rather than purpose-built.

Lancer and Tera’s contribution was still recognizably a Fido, but one that would remain permanently crouched, sphinx-like, in the sand. Not only had the blast-resistant and opaque face surface been replaced with a large, clear section, the old manual controls had also been modified. Instead of controlling the actions of the unit, they now triggered sounds or lights.

As Tera proudly put the finalized model through its paces for the rest of them, she seemed a lot happier than Jak remembered ever having seen her before. Obviously, designing toys was more to her liking than making war.

“I’d have loved something like that when I was a kid,” he said, reaching out to touch a red bone-shaped button on the simulated control panel. Everyone laughed when the sounds of a dog barking came back at them. Last time, it had been loud panting.

“So we’re ready, then?” Michel grinned like a little kid. He had figured out a way to make a swing set out of wind generator parts, and he was eager to try it out for himself. If it had been left to him, Jak would have built the frame and then scrounged around for some cabling, but Michel had been a perfectionist. The whole design was in a modified blueprint that his Advanced Construction Kbot could use without requiring any operator input. “Let’s go, then.”

Once Michel had programmed the Kbot lab for the evening’s unusual production run, he climbed into his Advanced Construction Kbot suit. This Kbot had been imported from Delbay 4 before most of the team had arrived and was the only unit besides Jasper that hadn’t been manufactured locally. With the best will in the world, the scientist still couldn’t communicate with its personality, although Jak heard him talking to the unit all the time. Jak had spoken with the C-bot himself, and he had occasionally relayed messages between the man and the machine. He was sure the two would adore each other once they finally made the necessary connection.

After the first footing for the climbing structure was finished, Michel snagged it with a manipulator and began stumping toward the playground. Jak and Susanna went along in their Zippers, while Lancer waited in his new Maverick for the next section. Tera’s Zeus wouldn’t be much for carrying anything, so she went on to the playground as well.

The new playground was intended as a surprise for the children. If they didn’t experience too many delays, it would be all finished before morning. Jak and Susanna left their suits to shine light on the area while they themselves climbed down to properly seat the first footing. By the time it was settled, Michel had the next one located and ready for them.

It took several hours, but at last the structure was complete. Michel had bonded all the joints so that some mythical giant could now pick it up whole, and it would stay solid. By this time, the modified Fido stood by, ready for installation.

There was some debate about reclaiming the old Bulldog turret—Michel thought it unsightly, while Lancer maintained it gave the place some character. Finally Tera broke into what was building into a heated discussion.

“Ugly or not,” she said, “the children love it. I think we should leave it.”

“I agree,” said Susanna. “We can put the Fido over there.” She pointed to a likely open space.

“But that’s where I was going to put the swings.” Michel considered the situation a minute, and the rest of them waited for his decision. It was, after all, his project. “Alright, let’s put the Fido there, and the swings over here. That’ll work.”

Lancer guided the modified unit into position, then he and Tera dismounted from their suits and proceeded to test the Fido’s function. After Michel bonded it to prevent it from moving again, his C-bot stumped off to begin the swingset.

Jak and Susanna got busy making sure the climbing structure was as sturdy as it looked. They also wanted to check for any rough edges, inside or out. The structure was surprisingly roomy inside the tunnels, but with only the artificial light shining in sporadically through clear panels, it was rather dark. Jak’s knees suffered as he crawled slowly through and ran his hands over every surface. He didn’t remember having that problem when he was child, when he’d crawled through the PeeWee part tubes for hours on end. Except play period had never lasted for more than twenty minutes at a time, had it?

By the time he completed his inspection and passed the structure, Michel had almost finished the swings. Their wind generator ancestry was obvious in the support towers, but the modified hinge arrangement was nothing short of ingenious. Each swing seat, which had been taken from the pilot’s chair of a Zipper, hung on flexible cables attached to an overhead rod with a wind generator-style axle-and-hub arrangement.

As soon as Michel put the final touches on the last swing, he popped open his hatch and jumped out eagerly. “Let’s test ’em,” he said.

Since there were only four swings, Jak found himself watching enviously as the others climbed on. The seats were a little low for an adult-size person, and it took a while for the test pilots to remember how to power a swing. Jak’s muscles still remembered; when at last Susanna took pity on him and gave him her place, he took the vehicle to new and exciting heights.

By this time, the sky had started to get light. There was almost no color in the sunrise, promising yet another beautiful day. The five officers went to their quarters for a few hours’ sleep before returning later in the morning to see what the children thought.

Jak was almost sure he’d gotten sand in his eyes, although Susanna convinced him it was lack of sleep. The two of them sat on a low, grassy hillock that commanded a superb view of the new playground. The equipment was glorious, all shiny in white and blue, gleaming in the midmorning sunlight. Then came the children in a ragged line with three adults ranged loosely around them. Suddenly there came a childish squeal of delight.

“Look!” The line of children became even more ragged as several of them jumped up and down in excitement. “It’s a Fido! And...and...oh, look!” The adults couldn’t hold them back any longer, and the children ran to play.

Four

A few days after they had finished their playground installation, Dr. Michel called his “Delbay Four” together for a meeting. This was not unusual. Although Lancer had no idea why Michel wanted him, he felt no particular anxiety about it, either. The four of them took seats in the small meeting room and engaged in meaningless small talk until Michel himself arrived. He smiled, sat down and plunged immediately into business.

Commander Exter was not pleased with the new playground. He had even sent Michel a memo criticizing the Troutania program for misappropriation of resources; now the scientist wanted to come up with a cost justification.

Lancer didn’t see what the difficulty was. Production far outpaced need on Nuxi 3, and Troutania was an experimental project besides.

“Why do we need to justify such a small thing?” he asked.

“I don’t actually have to,” Michel said. “But I’d rather. We are using Exter’s resource production facilities, after all. I thought about doing some hand-waving about studying human cognitive development, but that’s Dr. Voule’s department. She informs me there is already far more information about that than we could generate ourselves, so that’s not going to work. Maybe we could say we built the Fido without the AI to compare it....” Michel’s face lit with inspiration as he considered this. “Yes. We needed to build some controls without AI—that would be the Fido, and without either AI or controlled mechanical function—which would be the swings. The crawl-tubes would be our controls with no AI, no controls and no mechanical function. Since we had to build them anyway, we thought we’d put them to use.”

If Lancer had ever had any doubt about who was the brains of this outfit, he would have lost them then. The man was brilliant. He was about to congratulate Michel when Tera spoke.

“So if they’re our controls,” she said, “we should study them, shouldn’t we?”

“Absolutely.” Michel grinned. “I’m betting we—or rather, you—don’t pick up anything, but yes, you need to study them.”

And so it was that the four of them packed a picnic and strolled down to the park for lunch. Even after several days, the children seemed just as pleased with the their new playground as they had at first. In the past, they would have already gone back into their classroom by this time of day. So instead of climbing into the equipment to listen for neural voices they didn’t expect to hear, the investigation team asked the children how they liked the new things.

Lancer was pleased to discover they liked the Fido the best. They liked the funny voices and sounds, but most of all they thought it was a nice doggy. They had read about dogs in school, and this one reminded them of the ones in their books.

“He’s a happy dog that likes to play with us,” said one little boy. The other children nodded their heads in agreement, making Lancer feel vaguely uneasy.

“It likes to play with you?” he asked.

“He likes to play.” A little girl gave special emphasis to her first word.

“Did...he...tell you so?”

“Oh, he can’t talk, exactly. Not in words. Not like when you push the buttons. But in your head.”

Lancer hadn’t noticed Tera next to him, but now she clutched his arm. “The Fido has it,” she said, stating the obvious. “And the children can sense it.” They hadn’t needed to be nearly killed to discover the sense, either. Lancer’s mind fairly reeled at the implications.

***

This time, Dr. Voule joined the rest of them in the small conference room. She sat down with a thump and glared around the room. When her flashing eyes caught his, Jak felt guilty, even if he had no idea why.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Those babies have neural links already.” She sniffed. “Outrageous.”

Oh, that. Yes, Jak thought it pretty outrageous, too. He hadn’t gotten his link until he had been fully grown, and for good reasons. If nothing else, a link like his could cause damage to an immature brain.

“They have to be different from the one I have,” he said. “I had to be twenty before they’d even do the implant.”

“Oh, they’re different, all right.” Voule seemed almost ready to explode, she was so angry. “They’re experimental. In order to be allowed to have children here, the parents had to agree to it. Good God, and I thought the Core were barbarians.”

“It doesn’t seem to have hurt them,” said Susanna. She had reason to know what the Arm was capable of, and it was a wonder she didn’t resent high command for it. Most of her memories came from incarnations as a specially-modified Rocko pilot clone. Giving children neural link implants probably didn’t seem all that bad to her.

“But they’re children.” Dr. Voule shook her head. “Natural-born children, not laboratory animals. Who knows what the long-term effects will be?”

“Fortunately, that’s not our concern,” said Dr. Michel. “Especially since there’s nothing we can do about it. What I want to know, Dr. Voule, are the mature clones given the same kind of link the children have?”

“Some of them.” She checked something on a little hand-held info-set. “All of the ones you brought, and—”

“How about Tera?” Lancer asked.

Dr. Voule frowned at the interruption, but she sorted through her information. “Yes.” She glanced toward Tera, who didn’t seem particularly concerned. “Can you tell any difference?”

Tera shook her head slowly. “None at all.”

“Oh.” Dr. Michel regarded Tera for a moment. “What we need is someone with the new type of link who could not already communicate with the self-aware intelligence. I want to see if it’s the new link or if it’s just because they’re children.”

Nobody with the project but Tera had the experimental neural link, so Michel regretfully concluded he would have to request a loan from Cdr. Exter. "And I’ll bet he won’t be happy about it.”

Exter struck Jak as somebody who wasn’t happy about his entire situation. What a plight for an ambitious commander—to be stuck on a planet the Core didn’t even know about. The rest of them could enjoy the peace, beauty and tranquility, but Exter could only see his prospects for advancement stagnate and wither. Jak supposed he was the only one in this room who could sympathize. Much as he liked Nuxi, he’d only been here a few months and was already starting to get bored. This was not what he had trained to do, and nothing like what he had expected. Furthermore, he’d never make commander if he didn’t see some action.

Five

It was starting to get dark, and the children were gone from the playground when Jak and Susanna arrived. They left their Zippers in the grassy area before crossing the sand on foot to the climbing structure they had made. Jak crawled in from one end, while Susanna crawled in from the other. They each selected a large section, got comfortable and lay there quietly, listening with their neural sense to ... nothing.

“I don’t get anything,” said Susanna after about ten minutes. “How about you?”

“No.” What Jak was getting was stiff, so he backed out. He stood there looking around for a minute or two, but the others still hadn’t arrived, nor could he see them coming. He suggested to Susanna that they try the Fido.

Jak would have loved a play unit like this one when he was a kid, even without the extra presence. He supposed they had missed it before because they’d been so busy trying out the buttons and pretending to be kids pretending to be Fido pilots. Besides, they hadn’t really expected there to be any personality without an AI. But there was. It had probably been enhanced by its interactions with the children, because now there was no missing it.

Had the children not been so insistent about it, Jak would never have assumed the awareness was male, any more than he could tell the gender of a cat. Perhaps the children had decided a person came in “he” or “she,” so a thinking machine must do so, as well. Except the nature of this personality was somewhat different than those of fully functional units. There were no words, not even the sense of words such as young Delbay Kbots normally had. Jak had the feeling that if the Fido had a tail, it would be wagging happily.

One of the buttons flickered invitingly, so Jak pushed it. Out came a delighted laugh, one of the sounds Tera had chosen from a library of sounds. They were supposed to play at random, but Jak didn’t think that choice random at all. He pushed the button again.

“Hi! I want to play!” Another sound from the library. “Let’s play...” This was a compound phrase, and there was a pause. There should have been no delay between the first part of the sentence and the conclusion; Jak wondered about it. Suppose he thought about playing Krogoth Hunt? “...Krogoth Hunt.” Yes, it was listening and reacting to his wishes.

There were more sound effects and flashing lights, but the designers hadn’t set out to make a gaming pod. Let the kids use their imaginations—after all, how else could a Fido and a Bulldog (turret) prevail against a Krogoth? Which they did.

“We win! We win!” This was another phrase in the Fido’s not-so-random repertoire.

“It...he really does want to play,” said Susanna.

They didn’t have much chance to discuss this, because now they saw an Advanced Construction Kbot stumping down the hill. Dr. Michel. He was nearly at the playground when a Zeus, a Maverick and a Fido rounded the fourth Solar. The Fido would be the new clone.

The construction Kbot came to a stop not far from the playground Fido. Michel opened his hatch and dismounted, so Jak and Susanna came down to the sand as well. By this time, the others had come to the edge of the play area. Like the Zipper pilots had, they left their combat chassises at the perimeter and went the rest of the short way on foot.

Lancer introduced the Fido pilot as Viking; Michel stepped forward to shake the man’s hand.

“What do you know about our project?” he asked.

“You’re experimenting with improving units, sir.” Viking grinned mischievously. “And some of the guys say you’re crazy because you’re trying to get units to think for themselves.”

Dr. Michel nodded, not at all offended. “That’s close, but that’s not what we need you for....” Now it was his turn to grin. “We put these things in the playground here, and I want you to make sure the play Fido is completely safe.”

“Me?” Viking seemed leery at first. The sidelong glance he gave Dr. Michel so eloquently conveyed his conviction that the scientist really was crazy that Jak almost laughed.

“No, we aren’t playing a joke on you,” Lancer said, although in a way they were. They didn’t want their subject to know he was supposed to listen for the Fido to talk to him. If it happened, they’d find out. “Just climb inside and go through a full system check, or something. Make sure it can’t get up and walk, that kind of thing.”

Viking shrugged his shoulders. “Okay,” he said. He swung up into the cockpit of the crouching chassis. The others watched him work through the clear panels, and they laughed every time one of the unexpected features surprised him. The spoken words from the control panel seemed completely random this time. After about fifteen minutes, Viking stuck his head out the hatch.

“I tried everything, I think,” he said. “There were lights and noise, but that’s all. Do you want me to check anything else?”

“No movement?” asked Michel. Viking shook his head in the negative. “No...ah...sense of a living thing in there with you?”

Viking uttered a sharp expletive and jumped out of the cockpit. “A living thing? What? Does this planet have invisible natives or something?” He seemed quite nervous as he crunched a few steps across the sand toward Michel’s uninhabited Kbot. Perhaps it represented familiar safety, because the Fido pilot stopped and turned only when he was close to its solid bulk.

“No, not natives.” Michel gave a wistful smile as he climbed into his C-bot. “It’s the unit. The children—and some of my staff—can hear its thoughts through their neural links.”

“Thinking machines?” Viking seemed utterly horrified at the idea. “Like...patterns?” The Fido pilot backed away from Michel.

“No—”

“How can you be so certain?” boomed an amplified voice out of the dark. A large Kbot frame—a very large Kbot frame—strode down the hill. Commander Exter. “I didn’t like this project at the outset, and now you’ve gone too far, Michel. I can see what this playground will do. The children are used to Fidos. Then they learn to accept a toy Fido that talks to them. They get used to being friends with machines, and the next step is, they expect to be friends with patterns.” He spat the last word as if it were an obscenity.

The Commander’s last step took him to the Fido. Without allowing anybody time to defend its existence, he started to reclaim it.

“Sir!” screamed Jak, outraged. He dashed toward the Commander, but there was nothing he could do when Exter ignored him.

Michel’s construction unit stood close by; he frantically tried to repair the Fido. The scientist knew how fond the children were of it, but his attempt would be futile. A Commander could reclaim faster than an advanced Kbot could repair.

Had Exter ignored Michel and continued in his work, the Fido would have eventually disappeared, while the commander could have dealt with the uncooperative scientist at his leisure. But Exter got angry—Jak couldn’t believe a man with so much experience could be so careless—and turned slightly to begin reclaiming the Advanced Construction Kbot.

The Fido wasn’t worth the risk, but Dr. Michel and his Kbot were. Jak was sure Exter must know he was there, but he counted on the commander to discount him as a threat. He dashed forward, jumped and grabbed a pair of seams on the Commander suit’s lower leg. His body slammed painfully into the armor. Ignoring the stinging in his hands, he shifted his fingers a little for a better grip on the narrow channels. Had Exter moved at this point, Jak would have been dislodged, but the commander ignored him.

Now Jak reached for the knee and pulled himself up. Clinging to the broad thigh, he started working his way around toward the front of the suit’s leg. Finally Exter paused in his work.

“What the hell are you doing?” he thundered. Jak almost lost his grip when the Commander moved, but he hung on.

“Sir,” said Jak, “you need to stop. You can get into all kinds of trouble for reclaiming that Kbot, and even more if...if...” If he reclaimed Dr. Michel. Jak didn’t think Exter would go so far, but he couldn’t be sure. Such things had happened before, he knew.

“I am the Commander.” Exter now pointed his reclamation nozzle at Jak, who flinched reflexively. “This is my planet. I can reclaim all of you if it is justified.”

“But it isn’t justified, sir.” Jak forced himself to loosen his hold, although it wasn’t easy while looking directly into the black emptiness of the reclamation nozzle.

Now he did something incredibly foolhardy. Using the narrow flange on the Commander’s knee joint to push off, he jumped and grabbed the reclamation nozzle. As he dangled there, his legs flailing, he tried for a better grip. Finally, he managed to throw one leg over the narrower base rod. Still Exter seemed to ignore him. Jak shinnied toward the hinge; inside the bend, he felt for a narrow groove that had to be there. Yes, there it was. He ran his fingers along it until they found a thin filament, then pulled out a loop just wide enough to slide his hand through. Then he jumped, putting his whole weight on the delicate strand. He didn’t think it would slice his fingers off, but...

The line bit deep before it snapped. Jak dropped to the sand below and rolled away from the Commander’s feet toward the Fido. He crouched there for a moment cradling his hand to himself. Not only was it beginning to hurt quite a bit, he could feel the blood running freely. Still, his fingers remained attached; he collected himself enough to climb into the cockpit of the Fido.

Exter slowly brought the nozzle to bear on the Fido again. “I believe I have justification now,” he said. And nothing happened.

“I just disengaged it, sir.” There was a nervous tightness in Jak’s voice that he couldn’t help. He had defied a planetary commander, possibly the worst crime in a long list of them. He had a right to be nervous. “My Uncle Zax showed me how once. It’s easy to fix.”

“You’re the Yren kid.” Exter snorted in disgust. “I suppose you disabled my weapons, too.”

“No, sir.”

“Then what’s to stop me from blowing you away?”

Not much. Yes, Dad would be upset, and Uncle Zax would look into the business...but a planetary commander had the power and the right to do with his subordinates as he saw fit. While it probably wasn’t a good idea to waste a natural born, Exter would be within his rights. Dr. Michel, on the other hand.... Jak hadn’t thought about the implications at the time, but now he recalled the scientist saying something about not needing to justify a seeming misappropriation of resources to the Commander. Jack forced a grin.

“Me, sir?” he said. “Nothing. But Dr. Michel isn’t entirely under your authority, is he, sir?” When the commander didn’t answer right away, Jak could only assume his interpretation was correct. “You could get into all kinds of trouble for doing anything to him...and he is my commanding officer, sir.”

There. That was plenty of trouble to go around. Yes, Jak could still get cashiered, but this wouldn’t look too good on Exter’s record, either. He’d go to the bottom of the commander list and stay there a while.

The reclaiming nozzle would still retract; Exter withdrew it back into the suit.

“Very well,” he said. “We will all forget this evening’s incidents. But I will bring the matter of your insidious thinking machines to High Command. The Core are not human, and it is dangerous to begin accepting any kind of machine intelligence as friend or ally. I shudder to consider how very dangerous.”

The Commander turned and began walking back toward the base.

Jak jumped down from the Fido. His hand throbbed, and there was quite a dark patch of blood on the front of his suit where he still held it. He thought he’d left a bit of a puddle on the Fido’s floor, too. He’d walk down to the cloning lab in a few minutes—they’d fix him up good as new.

Susanna came and put her arm around his shoulders, which was not something she had ever done in front of the others before.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“It stopped at the bone,” he said. “I’ll take care of it as soon as I make sure Dr. Michel is alright.”

The skin of one entire angular nacelle of the Advanced Construction Kbot was gone, revealing tangles of half-reclaimed machine guts. The unit was a comparatively massive one, so the reclamation shouldn’t have come very near to the man. Even so, Jak was relieved to see the hatch open and Dr. Michel step out somewhat unsteadily.

“Jak, I want to thank you for what you did,” he said. The scientist suddenly broke out in a wide grin. “And Lily—my C-bot—wants to thank you, too.”