“Okay,” Jules replied as she mentally input the names. Old-timer monitored her activity through their mental connection. “They’re here,” Jules replied, “but…”
“But what?”
“It’s not a problem, but you have to understand that there’s billions of people in the replicator pods right now—”
Old-timer sighed as he impatiently sifted through the information in her mental locator. “And they’re seventy kilometers from here,” he observed, sighing when he realized they were still a long way from their prize.
“Yeah.” Jules nodded. “It’ll take a few minutes to get there.”
He grunted in frustration. “Let’s get moving then.” They started to fly into the endless labyrinth of metallic corridors. If they hadn’t had access to Jules’s navigational programs, they’d be lost quickly.
“Patience, Craig,” Jules said, sensing his frustration.
“While we’re heading that way, you might want to check for Aldous Gibson and Rich Borges. I lost contact with them.”
“Sure,” she replied. “Hmm. Now that’s interesting.”
“What?” Old-timer asked, as he pulled her screens over to his own mind’s eye.
“Rich Borges isn’t here, so he hasn’t been assimilated yet, but—”
“Oh my God,” Old-timer whispered. “Am I reading this right?”
“I think so,” Jules confirmed, a bit uncertain herself. “I mean, I’ve never seen this before, but it looks like this Aldous Gibson has already been assimilated, but he was discharged two days ago. He’s not in the pod.” She rubbed her temples. “That’s an anomaly. No one gets discharged that fast. They have to go through the assimilation education program. It doesn’t make sense...”
Old-timer’s face reddened with fury, and his upper lip curled into a snarl. “It makes sense...if the person in question made a deal.”
“A deal? What kind of deal?”
“The sort of deal that involved betraying his whole damned species.”
11
“Chief Gibson, this is Governor Wong, of the Purist colony,” the governor spoke in his deep, gravelly voice, a voice that had been weathered by the ravages of time. Post-humans weren’t used to hearing the wisdom in a voice that had aged to such a degree. The recorded message arrived crackled with interference. “We’re under attack from android forces. We’re defending ourselves with every means available to us. We’ve detected and identified your vessel and will monitor your approach. If you can break through the android blockade, we’ll take control of your vessel and guide you past our planetary force-field. Stand by for further instructions and, Chief Gibson, good luck.”
Rich blinked in near disbelief. “When was that message sent?”
Aldous looked down at the time readout and did some quick calculations. “It took two minutes to reach us,” Aldous replied. “At the speed we’re traveling, Venus and the android blockade should be coming up on our view screen soon.”
“Are we still trying to get to Venus?” Rich asked. “You did hear him, didn’t you? Under attack? Android forces?”
“I thought you were sworn to protect the Purists?” Aldous replied.
“Yeah, I am. But I thought you just wanted to go there to check for post-human survivors. If they’re under attack, why are you not in favor of getting as far away from the solar system as possible while the coast is clear?”
“Careful,” James cautioned in Rich’s ear. “You don’t want to tip him off that you’re suspicious.”
“And float through an eternity of space,” Aldous replied to Rich, “hoping beyond all mathematically reasonable hope that we’ll somehow encounter more survivors, all the while knowing that every day that we venture farther into the endlessness of space, the less likely it’ll be that we’ll ever see another human being alive other than each other?”
“It’s a reasonable explanation,” James pointed out. “Just keep an eye on him…and on us.”
Rich craned his neck and regarded the hard drive on Aldous’s waist as he considered James’s words. “When you put it that way…okay: break through the android blockade it is then.”
As Rich turned back to the view screen, he suddenly saw the faint image of something surrounding the pale blue glow of the tennis ball-sized planet in the distance. Although Venus was still hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, there was clearly a giant explosion onboard one of the android ships that surrounded it, a pulse of gold, growing like a flower opening its petals.