Chapter 20
COG 101 was not a planet any organic sentient being would visit for a holiday, Led decided. Especially not if you were a thwibble which, unfortunately, was his current loaner.
Small and furry. Blech.
He was a tough ex-cyborg; he could take it for a few days...maybe.
Smoke trails curled into the gray-gray sky from far-off fires. The landscape ahead was pocked with craters and small ponds of sludge. Bots from large to small in size trudged about scavenging. A few had erected huts made from left-behind sheeting or sat around in circles sharing stories and swapping power via cables. He’d listened in on some. The few tree-like structures were leafless. This planet used to be covered in chlorophyll-based forests – green enough to see from orbit – sparkling seas, mountains with crystalline peaks, and deserts surfaced by various rare metal ores. It was the sparkly bits and the ores that’d undone her.
For several decades, people had come and mined and ripped apart the surface, as well as a few klicks below it, looking for the precious things, then they’d left, climbing on their engines into the void.
Now, as far as he could tell from the rickety database, nothing remained except a whole planet like this. Even the seas were rotting piles of floating muck. Luckily, nothing intelligent had evolved here or they’d be weeping.
Instead, it was a mechanoid respite planet. After all, no one else could survive here for long. Toxins ruled.
Respite being not what one would imagine it to be, though. Rescue planet? A place to come hide from organic sentients?
The mechs and bots, AIs, and maybe a few hardcore cyborgs with the right adaptations, scrounged for what they needed, as well as brought in cargo from other systems.
The spaceport town wasn’t exactly an organized place. The streets around it were muddled mazes, with a mixture of modern buildings and rubble, and the LoL center was run by the first pog he’d met with drug issues. Customers must be rare. No wonder this loaner body was the only good one available. Thwibbles were tough, if unappealing. The dalk body had been shipped out on the shuttle.
He turned to look back, careful not to fall, and watched the shuttle take off. A ship was due in a few days. After that, who knew when the next would be.
“Sorry,” Jocelyn said as she stumbled over something and lurched.
He had to clutch onto her metal shoulder with his clawed feet.
“Now you know what it’s like being small,” Smorg said from where he was slung on her opposite shoulder. “Though for you this is temporary.”
Any other time, he might’ve dismissed Smorg’s grumbling. Today? No? He lifted one of the thwibble’s long, articulated feet and grimaced. Not looking in the mirror after getting a new loaner didn’t help much when he’d already seen a thwibble.
They were furred, more high than wide, and wouldn’t even come up halfway to the knee on his old body, on his original Ledderik cyborg body. Little furry beasts with dicks the size of, well, something tiny. A definite downgrade after the dalk.
If Thorn had a cycle hit while they were here, things would be difficult, to say the least.
“Come here, you.” A hand swiped him off Jocelyn and he stifled a yelp.
Thorn deposited him on her own shoulder. “I bet this grates on you.”
“Being small or looking like someone’s furry boot?”
She snickered but kept on walking. “Yes, those. However, we are here to find this Doctor S, and he is apparently on a mountain somewhere within a few day’s march. There.”
Following the direction of her arm, he vaguely saw a blob, a long way off. Thwibbles had shit vision too. “No wheeled or airborne transport available?”
“No. What do I do if I come into another cycle? They’ve been unpredictable, and often, and that box in my bag has that drug? I’m not sure I’m courageous enough to use it.”
“It’d be best not to take it – not unless you’re prepared to stuff an entire thwibble into your pussy –”
“Gods, nooo.”
“I thought not. Then maybe we should find a local humanoid for hire?”
“To fuck in an emergency? No.” Her soft answer was followed by silence. “If that happens, I’ll take what fate serves me.”
Fatalistic. He didn’t like the sounds of that. “Walk faster. At least this thwibble is tapped into the local communications. I’ll search for references to the doctor...images and so on. You have food enough for yourself?”
“Yes. I bought some.”
“Walk then, and get Jocelyn to carry you when you sleep. You can override routine downtime for maintenance?” he asked the bot.
“Yes, I can, sir. I will carry Thorn at night when my night vision is better.”
That would cut the time by half. He hoped.
“We still don’t have a ring,” Smorg said. “Maybe we can pick up a dropped washer and improvise? Engrave it with One ring to seal them all, one ring to stop the leaks?”
“And the sneaks?” Jocelyn suggested.
“Are we rhyming? A contest?”
“For the best, yes.”
“And the winner gets three nights and days at the COG 101 resort with free smog and sludge. Oh the fun we shall have.”
Being a thwibble, his eyes rolled well. At least he could do something well. The things bots found amusing. Still, Smorg wasn’t being grumpy and threatening, for once. Suspicious, he wondered if the sword was malfunctioning. On the other hand, this was happy for Smorg, and there was nothing wrong with happy.
He treadled Thorn’s shoulder through the coat then peered downward and realized there were advantages.
“Ow, fucking ow. Careful.”
“For a s’kar, you’re swearing too much.”
She scoffed.
“I might also point out that being here gives me a great view down your top.”
Her chuckle surprised him. “I think you’ve seen worse of me.”
“No part of you is anything except beautiful.” Led the poet? She was swearing, and he was being weird. “Now...to business. This Doctor S is a bot, as expected. Old type. Damaged in some accident and arrived here with nothing except knowledge. Somehow he has built a following. The others here go to him for advice.”
“On?”
“I’m not sure, but he does sermons where he preaches. The next one we should catch if we hurry. Tomorrow at sunset on the slopes of what they call Mount Eccles, he’ll be preaching. Afterward he takes individual problems and delivers –”
“Justice?”
“No, Thorn. He’s not a leader here. Just advice. That’s all he gives. They say he is blind and can only feed off the data streams. He’s dedicated his remaining lifespan to helping the bots.”
“A guru of sorts? Interesting.”
They continued on, night and day, over the demolished surface of the planet until the slopes of Mount Eccles lay ahead, steaming with the burning rubbish of the absent conquerors. Led only fell off her shoulder twice, and she caught him both times, kissed him on his beak, tickled his tummy, and put him back.
He’d told her he would get his revenge next loaner, and he never did anything by halves.
Though his small bout of evil laughter had not impressed her.
On the way up the mountain, he had to sit in Thorn’s lap while Jocelyn carried her. Asleep, Thorn was more adorable than sexy. Since this thwibble body seemed to need little sleep, it was good that the conversations between Smorg and Jocelyn distracted him.
They were an unusual pair of friends.
He’d already listened to them talk about the stars, what smell was, and how in space no one could hear you scream unless you had your commlink in range and were a non-breathing entity.
“Love? Pfft,” Smorg was scoffing. “What is that?”
“Love, oh doubting sword, is when you value someone so much that you know you would break if they were to go.”
“And how did you learn this?”
“Thorn said it, once.”
“Hmmm. So by go, you mean to leave?”
“No, she said it meant if they were to die. Leaving is bearable if you know that somewhere they still exist and are alive.”
“I’m not sure I understand love.”
“No. It is a difficult concept, Smorg.”
“It might be easier to comprehend if I had more programming space.”
It was difficult to understand. He’d never spoken to anyone like these two did to each other. They made him think in a way that was uncomfortable.
The track up the mountain meandered and seemed designed to avoid the simmering pools of black fluid. When Thorn awoke, Jocelyn took great care not to set her down too close to the fluid. This made it ever more tragic that, when she straightened, Smorg slipped off her shoulder and slid point first into a pool on the opposite side. The belt had snapped or undone. The sheath and belt burned away into a cloud of ash and sparks.
If he’d been humanoid, Led had no doubt he would’ve seen it happening and would’ve grabbed Smorg in mid-air before he fell.
Before he began to sizzle and sink deeper.
After one ear-rending tinny screech, Jocelyn stretched her leg over the pool and precariously balanced her broad foot on a piece of solid rock, then she leaned over to pluck Smorg from the pool. Almost nothing was left of him. Nine-tenths of the blade had gone and what was left was molten at the edge.
“My gods,” Thorn muttered. “We should wipe that off.”
“Gnersh swords are almost indestructible.” For once, he felt helpless. “Keep him point down. Whatever that is, it might destroy more of him if it drips toward the hilt.”
There was hilt but little more. Past a finger-length, the blade ended.
The warbling sound Jocelyn emitted was not made up of words, but within the thwibble’s commlink he could plainly hear sorry repeated over and over.
Smorg cut in with a short and somehow breathless, “I’m here. Alive, but I fear I’ve lost some of me.”
“Oh.” Jocelyn stared down at the sword fragment. If ever he saw inescapable puzzlement and sadness on a bot’s face, it was here and now.
“Crap.” Thorn looked at the plateau they’d almost attained.
A short distance ahead, a triangular edifice of rock and metal waved antennae and dishes at the sky. Cables were strung here and there, as well as anchored into the ground. Bots lined up before an entrance. Their heights, colors, and bulk, and construction varied from insect-like and small to bulky and lumbering.
“Let’s run,” she added. “Give me him, Jo. They might have something we can use to clean Smorg.”
He clung to her with his prehensile feet and claws after she snatched both him and Smorg from Jocelyn then sprinted, carrying the sword point-down.
The run was bumpy and fast.
Soon she’d reached the end of the line. Bots and cyborgs parted to let Thorn through to the crooked rectangular entrance. Inside was a long, cool room. A web of cables and ducts hung from the ceiling. A gray-white bot stood at the very back with one of the ceiling cables connected to its body.
Smorg seemed terribly small as Thorn carried him forward.
For a sword AI to last this long was remarkable, he knew this, and yet Smorg’s death would be tragic. He had a feeling, an inkling, an instinct, that what these two had – the Jocelyn and his sword, was more than merely companionship. He had been envying them.
The final bot before them, a bright and shiny, metal mantis thing, stepped aside and chittered, “You...wish, Doctor S?”
Thorn nodded.
It bowed. “Then-here. Behold you...have found-him. I shall...wait.” It folded up in a sitting position.
“Thank you.” Thorn looked to this Doctor S.
“What do you bring me?” Slightly smaller than man-height, Doctor S looked damaged by the years or battle. Though no rust showed on his body, he bore cracks and discolorations. The top of his roundish head was covered in dirty orange braids that’d been knotted together into a sort of pony-tail. His lips had once been red but were scratched down to streaks. No eyes, so the blindness rumor was true.
Led completed his inspection. One remaining arm made of white struts, two legs and a whole lot of what if this thing is a charlatan?
“A...umm our sword, Smorg. He is an AI and we accidentally dropped him into a pool of –”
“Nadiric acid, yes. I see this. Allow me.”
Though Doctor S did not touch the sword, he fell silent for several seconds. Led assumed he was communicating with Smorg.
“The damage is great but survivable. However Smorg has lost some sensory parts and some memory used for logical processes.”
“He’ll no longer be Smorg,” Led said slowly.
“Not quite the same, yes. That is correct.”
“Oh.” Jocelyn’s voice came from above and behind. Led hadn’t noticed her arrive.
“My Jocelyn was...” Thorn twisted to look back, for a moment. “They were friends.”
“We all were,” Led added. True, and yes strange, but he’d come to appreciate the sword’s obnoxiousness, and then there was Jocelyn.
“I see.” Doctor S hissed then asked, “What do you wish to befall Smorg?”
“Well, can you fix him?” Thorn held Smorg a little higher. “Please?”
That the sword hadn’t spoken again showed how great a shock this had been. Nothing else had ever stopped Smorg from talking.
“Hmmm.” Doctor S bent over the pitiful semi-melted remains. The cable that entered his back wobbled.
Led felt a rising awareness that this was a test.
What they said and did might affect more than the fate of Smorg. Nevertheless, no matter if what he intended to ask was wrong in some way, it had to be said.
What was the polite way to say this?
“Could you help us find a place for him?” This might be an insult. “As in is there any unoccupied bot that he could be loaded into?”
For the first time, the doctor looked directly at Led. “Yes. This I can do. I watched through my inputs as you rescued Smorg from the pool and ran here. All of you cared for such a small sentient being, and one I gather that has caused a degree of...annoyance in the past. That is remarkable.”
Thorn shrugged. “I guess we’re all masochists.”
“I am impressed.” He took Smorg’s remnant from her and passed the sword to the mantis bot that sat nearby. “Your task, sir, is to deliver Smorg to where I designated.”
“I-thank you, sir.” The bot stalked away, cradling Smorg as if he were precious.
“And so it shall be done. Now.” His scratched red mouth tweaked into a smile that quickly receded. “Thorn, I learned your main reason for being here. Because of Smorg, and your appreciation of him, I am going to help you, but before I do, I wish to speak to Ledderik alone.”
“Not again,” she muttered.
“We won’t be going far. You can stay where you are.”
Led could tell from the tension in her shoulders that she wasn’t happy and he kneaded her then whispered, “I’ll tell you it all afterward.”
“Walk with me.” The doctor retrieved Led from Thorn’s shoulder and placed him on the floor.
It took only a few waddling steps for Led to concede the silliness of this. He peered upward. To a thwibble the doctor’s head was comparable to a mountain peak. “Your head, sir, or arm, would be a preferable position.”
“Ahh. Of course. The floor is a little distant, and I suppose it makes you feel trivial down there, though the commlink still works. But, here.” He picked up Led and let him sit on the forearm structure of his one upper limb. Then he commenced walking again, with the cable tracking after him, aiming across the back of this building. It struck Led that this was almost a place of worship for these bots.
*I feel a connection between you and this girl, Ledderik.*
To the point. *Yes. She is my purpose.*
*That is all?* Doctor S audibly sighed. *You cyborgs can be worse than any bot. Let me summarize my own purpose. After a certain catastrophe befell me I decided to devote myself to helping others, and by others I do include organic intelligences as well as bots. I was a being of great power and once upon a time I held the strings of the universe in my ummm manipulators.*
*Okay.* This conversation was already making him suspicious.
*I sense a void in you, Ledderik.*
He bit back the inclination to say it must be a small void, considering he was inside a thwibble.
*And by the way, before I forget to say this. Being inside a thwibble can be bad for your mental health, Ledderik. I would suggest you make a back-up in case of personality loss, but I’ve already done it for you. You needn’t thank me.*
Uh. What? How had this doctor managed that? The hacking ability implied by that was godlike and scary.
*I believe that you, Ledderik, are living a fairytale. You are the prince taking the princess on a long arduous journey...*
Okay, the doctor was mad.
Smorg’s words came to him. Through hardships untold. Or was it hardships unnumbered?
*And at the end you should theoretically get to keep the princess.*
*What?*
*Theoretically, cyborg.
*There are prerequisites. One is the love. Two is bravery and overcoming great odds. You’ve done that, yes? Three is you need a fairy godmother, I think? Four. You aren’t a prince and she isn’t a... Okay it is a thin analogy but I still see the data correlations. Therefore to aid you in your journey I give you this knowledge, and maybe that makes me the fairy godmother?*
Overwhelmed and dizzy, and that might be the thwibble brain effect, Led could only listen. He did like these ideas. Keeping Thorn for starters. Just, he was the prince? Naaaa.
*You possess weaknesses, but these may become your strengths. Your origin and the manner of your birth is the first. Three hundred and two years ago, your mind and much of your body was harvested from a corpse on a battlefield.*
Thoughts spun down to nothing. Then he rebooted.
He was once a corpse? Led tried to comprehend what this meant but failed.
*Why is this important?*
*Because it’s when they first programmed you to kill and to protect.
*It’s what makes you, you. If you wish to keep this s’kar girl, you must learn the Lost Art of Talking and also recognize yourself for what you are. Look in the mirror, cyborg.*
Had the doctor confused him with Thorn? If he looked in the mirror, he would see a thwibble, and that was not him. Thorn was the one who needed to sort out who she wanted to be. Navel-gazing was not his idea of time well spent, and what was this Lost Art of Talking nonsense?
*Secondly, you have a secret mind cache of data, implanted by someone else, that I cannot copy or open. I found a name in your memory of someone I think may be connected to this – Fellen Zed.
*If you want to open it, I suggest waiting for a quiet time, in case it affects your thinking temporarily. Perhaps when you reach Skrull?*
“Skrull?” he blurted audibly. A mind cache sounded like espionage. Fellen Zed though? He would not be surprised. “How can you know all of this?”
“Magic? If you like. Or intensive analysis of probability and of statistics? Pick one. I can predict some of the future. Deducing the past and present is a lot easier, believe me. And yes, Skrull.” The doctor nodded, his braided ponytail swishing.
“So what’s in this mind cache? Some deadly military secret?”
“I can’t open it without destroying it. It is information of some sort. You can open it, I believe. Here it is.”
And he felt a strange touch fathoms deep within his mind, and saw where the cache lay.
“I suggest you muse upon this before trying to open it.”
They’d returned to where Thorn waited and Doctor S raised his arm.
Led walked onto her shoulder again. “We have to go to Skrull.”
“Yes. Skrull is where your band of intrepid heroes must journey to if you wish to find this genetic surgeon. He is the best in this corner of the galaxy. His name is Bob Stardrake Phd, DaTASS, MWoW, FRAGS – Fellow of the Royal Academy of Genetic Surgeons, and he has various other degrees.”
“Bob?” Thorn appeared to be skeptical but Led had already done a fast retrieval of evidence, and the man was a plain ol’ human with an extensive medical and surgical background.
“He’s real,” he said directly to her ear, after blowing away some strands of her white hair.
“Then, I guess we are going to Skrull. The final leg. Though I am a little annoyed about being relegated to observer considering it is my life being decided here.”
The doctor made a strange noise. “I had important stuff to say.”
“I’m sure you did.” Such great sarcasm in so few words. “Besides, I need to see what has been done to Smorg.”
“I am here and I am well, oh puny organic ones.” The mellow and resonant voice had Thorn and Jocelyn both twisting to see who this was.
Led peered around Thorn’s chin and there stood a gray bot with various BSoD and FATAL ERRORS stickers peeling off its square head. Smorg? It also had faded red markings, two stumpy legs, and two arms with multi-purpose appendages. It was taller than Thorn but shorter than Jocelyn.
“Bow before me? Joking! Just joking. Yep, it’s me.” Smorg held up a hand, made a fist. “I have an absolute, fucking, kraken-ton more memory room in here. Can I say thank you? I can’t recall if I’ve ever said thank you before.” He moved to step closer, tripped over both his feet and toppled face first into the floor with a loud thud. “I’m okay! Just, I may need some practice. At walking and stuff.”
Thorn swept back her hair with one hand, brushing some over Led. And what a lovely bare neck it was close up. “We need to get to the spaceport fast to catch that shuttle. Walking practice will have to happen on the way back. Nobody fall in a pool again. Please.”
“I...” Jocelyn declared, “shall carry Smorg where necessary.”
Smorg looked at her as she hauled him to his feet, and Led wondered if he would refuse. “Kinky. I like this idea.”
“I carried you the whole way up here,” she pointed out.
“Oh...now you’re spoiling it. When we get down the bottom I swear I’ll carry you.”
“I’m too big. You can’t.”
“You look just the right weight to me, though your ass is bigger than I remembered.”
“Bots don’t have an ass, Smorg.”
To preserve his sanity, Led decided to stop listening to the two of them.
“Safe travels,” the doctor said.
He had to ask. “Sir, are you truly blind?”
“I have nothing like eyes on my body, however I do receive visual input from many devices. I can see you all just fine.” He bowed slightly to Thorn then Ledderik. “Might I request the honor of officiating at the wedding? I’ve never done one before.”
“Wedding?” Thorn sounded strangled. “Jocelyn and Smorg?”
“No, you and Ledderik.”
In disbelief, Led shook his thwibble head, which meant he almost dislocated his thwibble spine.
The walk out of the building was strained by a surreal tension.
“I said nothing to him. I have no idea –” he began once they were on the trail.
“Me neither.”
Yet he could see the blush on her neck.
The march down the mountain and back to town let him think and think until he possibly wore holes in his brain.
The lost art of talking.
Look in the mirror.
You are the prince taking the princess on a long, arduous journey.
Everything was coming to an end on Skrull, and maybe he’d lose her. He didn’t want that. It had become ever so clear he needed to do something more.