After the Fall Read online

“Excuse me.”

  It was Robin’s voice. Uh-oh, thought Si Cwan, and he had no idea why he thought that up until he saw her standing on the outer rim of the chamber with three members of what were clearly the Priatian race standing behind her.

  How did I know? Si Cwan sighed inwardly. He seemed to have some vague recollection that today was supposed to be a good day. But that notion seemed very, very far in the past.

  Deep Space

  “Do you ever think about her, Xyon?”

  Xyon was lying naked on his bed, his arm tucked behind his head, the sheets scattered around. Lyla was next to him, idly fingering the long blond hair that was cascading around his shoulders. When he didn’t immediately reply, her hand wandered to his smooth chest, rubbing it in slow circles, which she knew he liked. She didn’t say anything immediately, letting the quiet continue. Indeed, it was very quiet in Xyon’s ship, a small one-man cruiser that was, at that moment, going nowhere. It simply hung in space, and since space was not exactly the noisiest of places, naturally the ship was deathly silent. It was almost like being in a floating coffin, although Xyon rarely chose to think of it that way.

  Her head was resting on his right shoulder. Idly he stroked the top of her head, cupping the bald skin. “What ‘her’ would that be, Lyla?” Actually, he more or less knew who she was referring to, but was hoping against hope that he was wrong so he wouldn’t have to deal with it.

  His hope turned out to be futile. “Kalinda. That is who I am referring to, Xyon.”

  “Yes, I kind of figured that,” he admitted. “Why are you asking?”

  “Well…because, for one thing, I look just like her.”

  “Okay, fine,” he said. He sat up so abruptly that her head almost thudded to the floor, but she corrected her position instantly so that she remained level. Naked, he walked across to the control console of his ship, which was also called the Lyla, and demanded, “Do you want me to change your holobody? I can do that for you.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Xyon,” she assured him.

  But he shook his head. “No, no, you’re right. Looking at you now,” and his eyes drank in her red skin, her smooth head, the familiar curves of her face, “I can see that maybe I made you look a bit too much like her.”

  “I’m identical, Xyon.”

  “All right, then, exactly like her. Designing a holobody…it’s like writing. You know what they say about writing?”

  “ ‘Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man’?”

  He stared at her blankly. “Uhm…okay…but that wasn’t what I was…”

  “ ‘Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature’s chief masterpiece is writing well’?”

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind eith—”

  “ ‘Writing is like getting married. One should never…’ ”

  “Write what you know!” he blurted out in exasperation.

  That brought her up short and she stared at him blankly. “I’m sorry?”

  Xyon calmed himself, reminding himself that Lyla was only an artificial intelligence. Perhaps one of the most advanced forms of artificial intelligence in the known galaxy, granted, with roots in what had once been a genuine living brain. But what was powering the ship now was a manufactured creature, and she had her limits. All she was trying to do was understand, and it was fruitless and ridiculous to get upset about her.

  “When you write something—a book, a story, whatever,” he said, with far more calm in his tone than he’d displayed earlier, “you’re supposed to base it in that which you have a degree of familiarity. That way you know what you’re talking about. It has a feeling of…of…”

  “Authenticity?”

  “Yes!” he said, pointing at her. “Exactly right. Authenticity. If it rings true for you yourself, it will likewise ring true for your audience. So when I acquired the holotechnology that would enable me to provide you a body of physical substance, I designed a form for you that was the female with which I was the most familiar. That helped make you more ‘real’ to me. In this case, I selected Kalinda’s form.”

  “I would have thought you would be the most familiar with the form of your mother,” she pointed out.

  Xyon stared at her. “You can’t even begin to understand why that would present a problem, can you.”

  Lyla paused and considered that. As was always the case when she was thinking, her face became expressionless. That was because her mind, part of the ship, was working. So her face, rather than becoming “thoughtful,” simply went blank as if she were in a holding pattern. Usually a question would get less than a second’s hesitation, nothing even really noticeable. Then her expression cleared and she fixed her gaze upon him once more. “Does it have something to do with that which is referred to as the Oedipal complex?”

  Xyon stared at her blankly. “The what?”

  “The Oedipal complex. An ancient Earth psychoanalytic term, derived from a tale involving the slaying of one’s father and having intercourse with one’s mother.”

  For a long moment, Xyon didn’t react. Then the edges of his mouth twitched, his eyes crinkled, and he let out a long and sustained laugh. Lyla tilted her head slightly, watching him with rapt curiosity. “Is that amusing to you, Xyon?”

  “A little,” he admitted, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I mean…I’m not my father’s biggest fan, but even I wouldn’t go so far as to kill him just so I could try to have sex with my mother…even if she were still alive.” He shook his head. “Humans. Trust them to come up with some of the most demented notions.”

  “So your point,” said Lyla, returning with machinelike precision to the original subject of the discussion, “was that you patterned me on Kalinda because she was the female whom you knew the best and most desired to engage in intercourse with.”

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “When you are with me, do you pretend I am her?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Sensing his hesitation, Lyla said gently, “I will not be disturbed if you answer in the affirmative. I can’t actually take offense at such things. If what I am—my form, my design—pleases you for whatever reason, that is sufficient for me. If it did not, then I would desire to possess that which does. It is just that simple.”

  “Lyla,” he sighed, “you would be amazed at the number of things in this galaxy that are ‘just that simple,’ except they aren’t.”

  “Really?” She sounded intrigued. “What would that number be?”

  Before he could think of a response, the ship’s proximity alarm went off.

  Lyla immediately vanished. The ship’s power cells, while efficient, were not infinite. If there was any sort of emergency situation that might require either fight or flight, it was imperative that energy be conserved. The drain Lyla’s hologram manifestation required was simply not a necessary one in a potential emergency.

  Xyon lunged for his pants, which were draped over his control chair, missed them, staggered and regained his footing, then grabbed them and yanked them on as fast as he could. Too fast, as it turned out, for he toppled backward and landed hard on the floor. Lyla’s voice came from all around him. “Are you injured, Xyon?”

  “My pride, mostly,” he grunted as he scrambled to his feet, snatched up his shirt from the floor, and yanked it on over his head. He was at his console, checking his readings, and glanced at the monitor to confirm visually what his instruments were already telling him.

  Space itself was wavering before him and then, barely a hundred thousand kilometers away, a Romulan vessel shimmered into existence.

  It was many times larger than his own ship, and he knew it instantly as a new type of ship called the Spectre class. Naturally it had a cloaking device, but there was an additional modification to the engines that was a brilliant throw-back to technology long abandoned.

  Even with a cloaking device, the typical Romulan ship left a minuscule particle trail that Federation starships could lock on
to with a bit of patience and luck. The Spectre class, however, wasn’t typical. Romulan scientists had hit upon the notion of installing an ion glide, which was a delicately crafted foil that ran between the winglike nacelles of the ship. The ion glide served as what ancient star voyagers referred to as a “solar sail,” allowing the ship to be pushed along on the ions of solar winds. It wasn’t effective for system-to-system travel, since it was too slow to be practical. But in passing through heavily populated regions of space, or entering an area where a battle was anticipated, the ion glide was ideal, because it left no trail of particles—ion, tachyon, or otherwise—but instead was simply buffeted along. Any trace ions were indistinguishable from standard background radiation. In effect, the ship was silent and completely undetectable. A ghost. A spectre. There were only five like it in the fleet.

  The only reason the Lyla’s alarms had gone off was because the ship was decloaking near them. Had the Spectre not done so, it could have rammed Xyon’s ship if it was so inclined, and Xyon wouldn’t have realized it until he was floating in space surrounded by fragments of his vessel.

  “Weapons systems online,” he snapped. Immediately his onboard weaponry came on, his pulse cannons targeting the starboard engines of the Spectre.

  This prompted an instant hail from the Romulan ship. “Let them hang a few seconds,” Xyon instructed, and for long moments the insistent beeping of the hail was the only sound in his ship. “All right,” he said at last, “put them on.”

  A sharp female voice came through his com system. “Stand down your weapons right now,” she said without preamble.

  “Are you going to make me?” he demanded.

  There was a pause, and then the Romulan—sounding extremely peeved—said, “What are you, twelve years old? What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

  “Just being sure to send a message that I’m not a pushover,” he replied.

  “Xyon, knock it off. Honestly. I have better things to do than listen to you engage in the kind of macho posturing that, frankly, your father did far more convincingly and with much more style.”

  His face flushed red at that, which she undoubtedly would have figured it would. “You know, I have half a mind to—”

  “Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear,” she interrupted. “Now stand down your weapons. If you do, I’ll come over there and we’ll do business. If you don’t, I’ll beam you directly into our brig.”

  Xyon sighed in frustration and then said, “Lyla, stand down weapons systems.”

  “Yes, Xyon.” The targeting systems switched off and the pulse cannons powered down. Xyon told himself that he really hadn’t lost anything. Even if he’d fired on the Romulan ship with its shields down, the cannons wouldn’t have managed to inflict any incapacitating damage before the Romulan disruptors turned him into space debris anyway. It was all for show. But it assuaged his ego, which was considerable.

  Moments later, he heard the telltale hum of a transporter beam resonate through his bridge. He leaned back against his control console in a carefully manufactured casual posture. A slender figure appeared in outline a few feet away from him and then fully coalesced in a shower of sparkles.

  She stood there, attired in Romulan armor that suited her rank, and glowered at him. “Don’t screw around with me, Xyon,” she admonished him. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “You take life too seriously, Soleta.”

  “I take it just seriously enough. I certainly take it seriously when some idiot points weapons at my ship during an agreed-upon rendezvous.”

  “Your ship snuck up on mine.”

  “It’s a stealth vessel, Xyon,” Soleta pointed out with a world-weary sigh. “Sneaking is what it does. Do you have it?”

  “It?”

  “It.”

  “Do I have it,” he echoed. “You know,” and he strolled in a circle around her, his hands draped behind his back, “you could be polite. Sociable. Make small talk. Ask how I am, discuss current events, exchange gossip.”

  “Yes, I could,” Soleta agreed, her immobility a stark contrast to Xyon’s casual air. “On the other hand, I could beam back to my ship, we could turn around and leave, and we could take the gold-pressed latinum we brought along as payment for you and instead buy ourselves a damned good time at Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet. You have five seconds to deci…You know, wait, on second thought, I’ll decide for you.” Pulling her com unit off her belt, she barked into it, “One to beam—”

  “All right, all right!” He put up his hands in a surrendering fashion. “Fine. I’ve got it right here.”

  “Stand by,” she said into the com unit as Xyon walked into the back room that served as his private chamber. She watched him go through narrowed eyes. “You must really be starved for attention, to have to resort to such idiotic tricks as this.”

  “I find my amusements where I can,” Xyon replied from the next room. He reemerged holding a data chip. Soleta unslung a data reader from around her shoulder and extended an expectant hand to him, palm up. He made a great show of hesitating before placing the chip into her hand. She shook her head in mute disapproval of his antics as she inserted the chip and studied the details that came up.

  “This is it,” she said finally. “Detailed plans for the new weapons system the Orions are developing.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s what you wanted.”

  “It presents a threat to Federation security.”

  He put up his hands. “Oh, grozit, spare me. The Romulans don’t give a damn about Federation security. The Romulans care about their own security. You have no intention of sharing this information with the Federation at all.”

  “The Praetor assures me that he intends to be forthcoming with the Federation in such matters.”

  “You need a little work on that one, Soleta, if you’re going to sound remotely convincing.” She scowled at Xyon, but he didn’t especially care. “I’m sure that when and if the Praetor is forthcoming, it’s going to be very much on his timetable, not the Federation’s. A timetable that includes not only finding the weaknesses in the weapons system, but developing an equivalent system for the Romulans. A system to use against…who? The Orions? The Federation? What’s going on in the minds of the Romulans, Soleta?”

  “Things that do not concern you, Xyon.”

  “I’m not concerned. I’m just curious.”

  “Yes, as was the cat. And we know what curiosity did for him.”

  Xyon stared at her blankly for a moment, and then looked annoyed. “All right, is this another Earth thing I’m supposed to know about? Because if it is, it’s the second one today, and I’m getting tired of it.”

  “Second one today?” She made no effort to hide her bewilderment.

  “Yeah. First there was something about some mythic figure named ‘Oedipus’ and his mother…”

  “I will add two bars of gold-pressed latinum to your payment,” she said, “if you drop this entire line of conversation and promise me you will never bring it up again.”

  “Deal,” he said.

  She nodded and spoke once more into the comlink. “Subcommander,” she said, “beam seven bars of gold-pressed latinum to these coordinates immediately.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Seconds later, the bars of latinum, packed in individual containers, appeared on the floor. As Xyon knelt to inspect them, Soleta said, “Were there any difficulties involved in obtaining this information?”

  “Nothing worth mentioning.”

  “Did you have to kill anyone?”

  His gaze flickered up to her and his eyes were hard as diamonds. “No one worth mentioning,” he said.

  “I see.”

  “Do you?” Xyon was still kneeling down, his voice low and annoyed. “You sent me on this assignment because you knew I’d get it done, and that I wouldn’t care what was involved, and you didn’t care to know. Are you now condemning my methods for accomplishing it?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “I’v
e said nothing of the sort. But I find it interesting that you react as if I had.”

  “Stay out of my head, Soleta.”

  “I am.”

  “Someone with the level of issues that you have with the Romulans, with the Vulcans, with Starfleet, with the entirety of your life until now, doesn’t get to lecture me.”

  “I wasn’t intending to lecture you, Xyon,” she said with a touch of annoyance. “However, for what it’s worth, I am strongly considering beating the crap out of you.”

  “You can try,” he said challengingly.

  “Not today.”

  “Why? Too much effort?”

  “No. Too much crap.”

  At that moment, Lyla’s holographic form appeared. “Xyon,” she said, “since energy systems have been routed away from the weapons, do you wish me to resume my physical form?”

  Soleta gaped at her and then at Xyon. He shifted uncomfortably, suddenly feeling very exposed. “That won’t be necessary right now, Lyla….”

  “Oh, that’s funny,” said Soleta, clearly trying to avoid snickering.

  “What is?” Lyla inquired, wide-eyed.

  “You can go now, Lyla, and Soleta, it’s not funny and it’s none of your business.”

  “None of my business, perhaps, but if you don’t see the humor, you’re just not looking,” she snorted.

  “Stop laughing at me!” he said angrily, and took a step toward her to get right in her face about it.

  Her hands were lightning quick, and before he knew what was happening, he was on the floor, looking up in surprise. Soleta had a disruptor in her hand and it was pointed squarely at him.

  “Twitch and you’re dead,” she told him.

  Xyon didn’t twitch. Lyla, either not having heard Xyon or—more likely—judiciously choosing to ignore him, continued to remain where she was and look with interest from Xyon to Soleta and back to Xyon.

  “You’re pathetic,” continued Soleta. “With your posturing and boastful words and meticulously manufactured insouciance. And all the time, you’re still pining after a romance from years ago that you’re so weak-kneed about, you manufacture holographic play-toys while remaining too afraid to let the actual girl know that you’re even alive.”