Chapter Three

 

Tassin entered a massive dining room filled with powdered, overdressed people, all of whom turned to stare at her, most with disdain, some with curiosity, and several with overt hostility. An immense banquet table, covered with a burgundy cloth, held a king's ransom of gold cutlery, silver platters, crystal goblets and jewel-encrusted spice containers. Vast crystal chandeliers hung above it, casting multi-hued light in slowly moving patterns. Liveried flunkies stood in the corners like statues while others moved amongst the crowd, offering golden trays of exotic drinks.

Tarl wore a new brown suit over a scarlet shirt. Judging by the way he scratched and fidgeted, the clothes itched and pinched him under the arms, but she suspected he had no choice but to wear them. He had received his summons just half an hour before the allotted time, presumably because Ashmond had told Endrovar about his cyber tech skills. Tassin had chosen to wear a layered silk gown of deep cobalt trimmed with gold embroidery, and a net of seed pearls covered her elegantly coiled hair. More pearls clasped her throat and dripped from her ears. A fortune in jewels had been available in her room, but she had confined herself to a tasteful minimum.

Ashmond came forward to greet her, his eyes sweeping over her with a gleam of appreciation. "Very nice, Your Majesty, you do indeed look queenly."

Tassin raised her chin. "Ashmond, I would look like a queen in sackcloth and ashes, simply because I am one."

"Of course." He bowed over her hand. "Endrovar is eager to speak to you."

The baron led her through the throng, and Tarl followed. Soft music lilted from a trio of harp, lute and flute players at the far end of the room. The banquet hall’s walls were adorned with battle banners, stuffed trophies, scarred weapons and coats of arms, with suits of armour standing like steel sentinels between them. Ornately framed portraits of dyspeptic looking individuals stared down with aristocratic disdain, their rough surfaces yellowed with age. Clearly Endrovar had striven to buy himself a history as well as culture, but the man himself lacked any, Tassin mused as the massive emperor came into view, sprawled in a cushioned chair and surrounded by giggling courtiers. He was clad in a robe that appeared to be made out of someone’s unwanted red and gold brocade curtains, belted with a gaudy jewelled golden rope.

Ashmond stopped in front of the emperor and bowed, then stepped aside. Endrovar gestured, making the fawning fops retreat, and leered at Tassin.

"Very nice; a definite improvement. Now, I want to speak to this cyber technician of mine."

Tarl said, "That would be me, sir."

Endrovar studied him. "Where did you learn to be a cyber tech?"

"On Myon Two. I was a repair tech for fifteen years."

"Why did you leave?"

Tarl frowned. "Well, I realised that they feel pain, and I couldn't stomach it."

Endrovar’s brows rose. "They don't feel anything. They're computer controlled."

"They feel pain."

"What makes you think that?"

"I was working on one with a defunct brow band, and he spoke to me. He begged me to kill him, because he was horribly burnt. He died a minute later."

The emperor turned his head. "Warrior One, come here."

Tassin drew a sharp breath as a cyber emerged from behind a knot of people and moved closer with a swift, gliding gait to stop beside the emperor. His gentle, familiar face was impassive, and his eyes stared ahead. Endrovar drew a jewelled dagger from somewhere in his opulent clothing.

"Roll up your sleeve and hold out your arm," he ordered.

"Sir, cutting him won't prove anything," Tarl said. "The control unit won't allow him to show any pain. The host is completely helpless. He can't so much as focus his eyes."

Endrovar gripped the cyber's arm and drew the dagger across his skin. Bright blood to oozed from the wound, and he gestured to the clone’s impassive face. "See? No pain."

"As I just said, they can't show any emotions, but they do feel."

The emperor snorted. "If they felt something, they'd show something."

"The brow band controls them completely, but the host is fully aware. He can think, feel, hear and see, to a certain extent, but he can't speak, move or focus his eyes."

Endrovar tucked the dagger away. "That's your theory, but impossible to prove, I'd say. Anyway, let's see how good you are. What grade is Warrior One?"

Tarl approached the cyber, studying him. Tassin noticed that one of his cheek scars was lower than the other, there was a tiny bald patch on the side of his scalp, and, after several moments, his right eye twitched.

"He's a high-quality grade B," Tarl said.

"Rubbish! He's a grade A!"

Tarl shook his head. "His plating is imperfect. Looks like a Monday or Friday job. He has scalp damage, and nerve damage in his face. I could probably find more flaws if he was wearing less clothing."

Endrovar scowled at Tarl, then the cyber. "Warrior One, strip down."

Tassin bit her lip as the cyber removed his uniform jacket and folded it over the back of a chair, revealing a torso covered with scars, then pulled off his shiny boots and stepped out of his trousers. Under them he wore only tight silk shorts.

Tarl walked around him. "He has more imperfect plating on his legs, judging by the misaligned scars, and on his back. Looks like they didn't plate his left little finger, and the boots are giving him blisters, by the way. I'd need an analyser to tell you more, but he's a B-grade, no doubt about it."

Endrovar glared at the cyber. "Get dressed, return to your station. Warrior Two, come here."

The second cyber left his post beside the cushioned chair and stopped in front of it.

The emperor glanced at him. "And this one?"

Tarl inspected the second cyber, peering at his face, then walked around him. "I'll need access to touch him."

"Warrior Two, allow this individual to touch you."

The cyber turned his head towards Tarl, his blank eyes staring through him, and the brow band flashed. "Acknowledged."

Tarl prodded the cyber's cheek and pried open his mouth to peer inside. He ran his fingers over the clone's face and stared into his eyes, covered them with his hand, then removed it.

"This one's not so obvious, but is actually a lower-quality grade B. His plating's okay, but he's blind, and he has missing teeth, which sometimes happens during early combat training. He's also got a crushed cheekbone, probably from combat training, which they've plated over to try to hide. With this much damage from his training, I'd have to say that he's got slower reflexes than normal, probably a birth defect or brain damage. I take it you bought them as A-grades?"

Endrovar nodded, looking angry. "Warrior Two, fetch the other two." The cyber left, and the emperor raked Tarl with a measuring look. "You sound like you know what you're talking about, but you could be making it up."

"If I had analyser I could show you the flaws. This sort of thing happens a lot. There are suppliers who buy nothing but B-grades, then sell them as A-grades. Customers who don't know about the flaws, or who don't know that A-grades are supposed to be flawless, buy them as A-grades. Even some A-grades have tiny flaws, but far less than these have."

Endrovar glanced around as Warrior Two returned, accompanied by two more cybers, and they stopped beside his chair. "Tell me about these two. Warrior Three, Warrior Four, allow this individual to touch you."

The cybers turned their heads towards Tarl and acknowledged the order, and Tassin swallowed a lump. Tarl inspected them, snorted and shook his head over one of them, peered closely at the other and placed a hand on his brow, then felt for a pulse in his wrist.

"Well, Warrior Three's a grade C. He has facial nerve damage, and his left hand hasn't been plated at all, or his left foot. He's blind, and he appears to have skipped the radiation treatments, judging by the colour of his skin."

He turned to the other cyber. "This one almost had me fooled. On the outside he appears to be a grade A, until you check his temperature and heart rate. He's either got a defective heart, or it was damaged when they put the barrinium mesh around it, because his heartbeat is about a hundred, and he's running hot. A cyber's normal resting heart rate is thirty beats per minute, so his is way too high, and will eventually lead to early failure, probably in his mid-thirties, or it could fail during high exertion, and he's running hot because of it."

Endrovar glared, his mouth a grim line. "I'm going to have words with my supplier. Warrior Three is supposed to be a grade B."

Tarl shook his head. "Definitely a grade C."

"Well, you could prove useful. Can you fix them?"

"No, these are production flaws. Cybercorp would have fixed them if it was possible."

Endrovar nodded. "This equipment you spoke about, where would I get it?"

"You could ask your supplier, but Myon Two only sends analysers to their repair stations."

"I'll get it. What else do you need?"

"I'll make a list."

"Good."

Tarl glanced at Tassin. "But I'll only do this work for you if you agree to give Queen Tassin leave to work in a menial capacity, and not as a pleasure partner."

Endrovar raked the Queen with a scathing glance. "Fine. She's really not my type, anyway. The cooks can use her in the kitchen. Ashmond, take her away and show her her new duties."

The baron bowed and gestured for Tassin to precede him, guiding her from the banquet room and back to the cabin in which she had changed earlier. He paused in the doorway.

"Take off the finery and put your old clothes back on, and I'll take you to the kitchens."

Ashmond waited in the lounge while Tassin changed in the bedroom, then took her down into the bowels of the huge ship, where she was given a burgundy uniform and a mop and put to work cleaning the floor.

 

****

 

The cyber's virtual warning light woke Sabre, and he opened his eyes and sat up. Shrain stood in the doorway, a scowling Estrelle hovering behind him.

"What is it?" Sabre asked.

"I told him you were sleeping," Estrelle said.

"It's okay. He wouldn't be here if it wasn't important. Shrain? What's wrong?"

"Overlord Fairen requires your presence at once, sir."

Sabre rubbed his face and stretched, then swung his legs off the bed. When he was dressed, the commander led him through the ship to the door to Fairen's private rooms, where he stepped aside. The cyber entered, and Fairen rose from a couch, turning to him.

"What is it, Fairen?"

The boy looked mournful. "I received a message from your friend, Kole. It's bad news, I'm afraid. Tassin's not on Omega Five."

"Where is she?"

"No one knows. Kole spoke to a man there who said that she and Tarl left on a ship, but he didn't know anything else. She was supposed to have been away only for a short time, but it's been three days now."

Sabre went over to the couch and sat down, staring ahead. "Who would take her?"

"I don't know. You'll be able to find out more on Omega Five. I'll take you there, then I must leave. I'm needed in the Presda Quadrant. I'm sorry."

The cyber nodded, wondering what the strange emotion was that clogged his chest and made it hard to breathe. It seemed as if an immense weight had just dropped onto his shoulders, and a dull ache filled his heart.

"I must find her."

"And you will. But I can't help you, unless you get into trouble. You understand, don't you?"

"Yes, of course, you have too much to do already."

Fairen sat beside him and clasped his shoulder. "I wish I could help, but... I'll do what I can, give you whatever you need, but I can't intervene personally."

"I know. You have to save planets..." Sabre shook his head. "I just can't believe this is happening."

"If she was my friend, if I had given her a bracelet too, she could have sent a distress signal, and I could help. But finding her... will take too much time."

Sabre turned to him. "It's okay. You've done more than enough already."

"What do you need?"

"A ship. Something with a lot of firepower."

Fairen nodded. "I'll appropriate a battle cruiser from Myon Two, but you'll need a crew. It will mean you'll have to command enforcers."

"I can do that."

Fairen turned his head and addressed the air. "Summon a Myon Two commander at once."

Sabre looked down at his hands. "We're still at Myon Two?"

"Yes. It was quiet, so I got some sleep, then the two messages came in right after each other."

"She must have been trying to find me." Sabre rubbed his face.

The strange emotions were growing, making it hard to think. His initial reaction of determination and illogical optimism was fading, giving way to a growing sensation for which he had no name, but which robbed him of his motivation. The more he thought about the problem, the larger it loomed, and it was growing to gargantuan proportions as the ramifications of the immensity of space swamped him.

"She's gone and got herself into trouble," he muttered. "If anything happens to her..."

"You'll find her."

"She could be anywhere."

Fairen patted his shoulder. "She's resourceful. She'll be all right. And Tarl's with her."

"I'll kill him." The sudden irrational urge made Sabre's hands clench.

"No you won't."

"If anything's happened to her... Why didn't he stop her? He should have known better."

Fairen shook his head. "Tassin's too strong willed for him to have stopped her. Don't blame him. I'm sure he's doing his best to keep her safe."

Shrain's voice spoke from the com-link by the door. "A Myon Two commander awaits you, My Lord."

The young Overlord stood up and donned his hood, arranging the veils over his face. Sabre followed him into the command centre, where the silver-haired commander waited. Fairen mounted the dias and sat down on the black throne, Sabre wandered over to gaze out at the pearly globe of Myon Two. The immensity of the task that faced him had reached an incomprehensible magnitude, and the sheer impossibility of it clogged his thought processes. His analysis of the situation had expanded to encompass the myriad possibilities that existed after three days of space travel. His mind seemed numb, and the unidentified emotion kept intruding, making logical thought all but impossible. The volume of data available to him in the form of star charts that mapped a three-day travel radius of the space around Omega Five, and the specifications of the dozens of planets in it, overwhelmed him. His mind followed the train of logical impossibilities down the black hole of illogical emotional overload like a rabbit down a burrow.

 

 

Fairen beckoned to the commander. "Approach."

The man walked up to the dias and bowed. "My Lord."

"Your name?"

"Commander Thestan, My Lord."

"I am appropriating your ship, Commander. I am placing it and its crew under the command of my friend, Sabre. You will do exactly as he orders at all times. If you feel that any of your crew is liable to disobey him or show him disrespect in any way, you may dismiss them now. You will dock in the Scorpion Ship for translocation. Is that understood?"

Thestan nodded. "It is, My Lord."

"You will be given instructions when you have returned to your ship."

The commander bowed and backed away, and Fairen's men escorted him out. The Overlord pulled off his hood and went over to join Sabre, gazing out of the screens.

"You're very calm."

The cyber frowned. "I don't know how I'm supposed to react. This is new to me."

"How do you feel?"

"Numb. Detached. And it hurts, here." He tapped his chest.

"You're in shock. It will pass."

"I'm not sure it will. I... I feel like my reason for living just disappeared. She could be dead."

"I doubt it," Fairen said.

"They might hurt her."

"Possibly, but you'll save her."

"I don't want her to be hurt, but I can't prevent it. I don't know where she is. I don't know how to find her. There is no way. There are a hundred and eighty-seven planets within three days’ travel of Omega Five. Forty-two of them are outlaw worlds. She could have been taken by Myon Two, or slavers, or hitched a ride on a friendly yacht, or paid for passage on a merchant vessel. The possibilities are endless. She could have travelled as much as eighty-two light years in any direction. There's no data to base a working theory on. There's no way to find her."

Fairen frowned and glanced at Shrain, who hovered nearby as usual. "Bring me the tech, Martis."

"At once, My Lord."

Fairen replaced his hood before Martis was ushered in, looking nervous. Estrelle followed him, and the Overlord beckoned them over. They stopped beside Sabre, who continued to stare out of the screens.

"Cyber Tech Martis," Fairen said. "Sabre has just received news that his betrothed has been abducted, and he appears to be dealing with it badly. What's wrong with him?"

Martis studied Sabre with a frown, waving a hand in front of his eyes. The cyber ignored him, not even blinking. "You have no information about where she might be, My Lord?"

"No."

The host tech looked worried. "I think his brain block just failed."

"What is that, and what does it mean?"

"Most of his emotions and human instincts were locked away behind a wall in his mind, which has been gradually weakening. I think this shock has caused it to fail, and he's gone into emotional overload."

"So he's in shock?"

Martis nodded. "Of a sort, My Lord. He has a machine-trained mind that has just been swamped by a huge amount of illogical human feelings, instincts and urges, and he can't handle it."

"Can you help him?"

"If I can get him to focus on something. Right now he seems to have gone into a sort of illogical loop." Martis hesitated, then gripped the cyber's arm and shook it. "Sabre. Snap out of it. Focus."

The cyber's eyes flicked down to him. "What?"

"What are you going to do to save her?"

"I don't know."

"Is there a way to find her?"

"I don't know."

"She needs your help, what can you do?"

Sabre's brows drew together. "I don't bloody know!"

"What about going to Omega Five and finding out what happened to her?"

"They won't know anything, they're peasants."

"What about tracking the ship that took her?"

The cyber shook his head. "It's too late; the ion trails have faded by now."

"There must be a way to find her."

Sabre's hands flashed out and gripped Martis' shoulders, making him wince. "Listen, you bloody little shit, she's gone! Get that through your head! She could be anywhere in the damned galaxy, a hundred light years away by now."

"Or she might be close by, waiting for you to rescue her."

Sabre's face twisted, and he released Martis, reaching up to grip the brow band. "I can't think straight. I don't know what to do."

"Okay, calm down. Everything's going to be all right. We're going to find her."

The cyber swung away, releasing the brow band, and stalked towards the screens, shaking his head. "No one can find her."

Martis looked at Estrelle, who chewed her lip, then at Fairen, who had turned his head to watch Sabre. "My Lord, to be honest, I don't know if there is a way to find her, and he knows it. I think he's experiencing a whole host of emotions, the strongest of which, I would imagine, is despair. He's experienced that before, but in a dumb, distant capacity, for himself. Now it's full strength, mixed with anguish, helplessness and grief, for someone he cares about. He can't handle it, and I think he wants to shut down to escape it, but he can't do that either."

Fairen glanced around as Shrain said, "The enforcer ship is docked in berth five, My Lord."

"Translocate to Omega Five."

"Yes My Lord."

As the distant booms and groans echoed through the ship, Fairen turned to Martis. "You must help him. You know what's wrong with him. An enforcer battle cruiser is at his command; he just needs to decide how to find Tassin."

"Right now I think he wants to curl up in a dark hole to escape his emotional turmoil. His logic has been destroyed by overpowering feelings of anguish and sorrow."

"Then he needs hope."

"Yes."

Fairen swung away and went to the dais, stepping onto it. "Shrain."

"Translocation in thirty seconds, My Lord."

"The beacons around Omega Five record all traffic. Download the data from three days ago."

"Yes, My Lord. Connecting."

Fairen sat down, gazing at Sabre, who stared out at Myon Two, his hands clasped behind his back.

Shrain tapped his com-link. "Translocation in ten seconds, My Lord."

The suffocating stasis field gripped them in a momentary flash of white light, and the two techs reeled as it released them. Sabre gazed at the blue and white globe of Omega Five as if nothing had changed. Fairen turned to Shrain, who tapped his com-link again.

"Downloading data, My Lord. Three days ago, a ship was in orbit for seven hours. It was a Gigantor, E-class luxury explorer, two years old. Its tracking beacon was deactivated, so no other data is available, but the satellite recorded some local voice traffic. I'll play it for you."

A gruff voice came from the com-link, speaking a strange dialect, then faded in a hiss of static. Fairen glanced at Sabre, who turned to face him, frowning.

"That's a Frellan dialect, a sub-dialect of Nardrin, spoken on only two planets, Farrelin Eight and Pragan Prime. He was issuing instructions to a shuttle, guiding it somewhere."

"Does that help?"

"A Frellan dialect, spoken on a Gigantor ship, which was built on Endron Two, can only mean they're smugglers or slavers, and it's a stolen ship."

Fairen nodded. "There's nothing worth smuggling on Omega, so it must be slavers."

"It's worthless information."

"Let's assume they have all the slaves they can carry. What's the closest slaver planet?"

"Darvel Three."

"Then perhaps that's where you should start your search?"

Sabre turned to gaze out of the screens again. "Then there's the Dellan Station, half a light year further away in the opposite direction, and Mintar Four, two light years further away in a completely different direction. And let's not forget Forge Prime, a mere five light years further in yet another direction. Who wants to pick one? Perhaps we should draw straws?"

"Which would be the preferred haunt of Frellan slavers?"

"Probably the Dellan Station, but who's to say they're all Frellans? Maybe only the coms-op is."

Fairen sighed, the voice distorter turning it into a hiss. "You have to start somewhere."

"It's hopeless."

"Only if you give up. Tassin didn't give up, did she? She found you on Ferrinon Four, against all odds."

Sabre nodded. "Tassin is a... mule."

"And what are you?"

"Right now I'm not sure. I can't find a workable solution. There are too many variables, too many unknowns, not enough facts. She's gone. In three days, those slavers could have taken her to any of those planets, or about seven others, and sold her, so she could be anywhere."

Fairen leant back, tapping the arms of his chair. "You are correct, of course, but I want you to take the enforcer ship and search for her." Sabre stared at Omega Five, and Fairen turned to Martis. "What is his problem?"

The young tech cleared his throat. "Well, basically, he's not entirely human, My Lord. If you ordered a cyber to search for this person, with these few facts, he would tell you pretty much what Sabre just did, that there was insufficient data to formulate a workable strategy, and no possibility of success. Sabre's been swamped by a whole host of new, irrational emotions, but he's unable to deal with them yet, so he lacks the ability to use them to base hope on faith, or luck. So he has no hope. You're asking him to do the illogical. If he was a cyber, the only way to order him to do this would be to give him exact instructions, which planets to search, and in what order."

"All right." Fairen turned to Sabre once more. "Sabre, take the enforcer ship and start your search on the closest slaver planet, then work your way outward from there."

Sabre turned to face him, a wry smile tugging at his lips. "I'm not a cyber, Fairen. You shouldn't listen to that little twit."

"You have a better plan?"

"She's just a girl, lost amongst a dozen planets with over a hundred and twenty-four billion people on them."

"So what will you do?"

Sabre lowered his gaze to the floor, his brow furrowing. "If I go to any of those slaver planets in an enforcer ship, they'll attack it. There's no way to find her. It's impossible. She's been swallowed up like a drop of water in the sea. So I'm not going to look for her, it would be a pointless exercise. I'm going to look for Tarl."

"Why Tarl?"

"Because he'll be easy to find. He's a cyber tech, the only one who doesn't work for Myon Two. That makes him a rarity, an oddity, and, while Tassin is just a pretty girl who will vanish without a trace, he'll cause ripples wherever he goes. He'll use his skills to keep himself alive, otherwise he's a worthless middle-aged man, but his skills make him extremely valuable to anyone who has cybers.

"Whoever has him is going to use him. They'll want to buy cyber repair equipment and drugs. They might even offer his services to others. Tarl will either know where Tassin is, or he'll put me on her trail. I just need to find where she was taken, and I can find who bought her, then the trail's easy to follow."

Fairen inclined his head. "Of course, a good plan."

"It's still a long shot. I'll need the battle cruiser's emblems changed to something suitable for an outlaw, and made to look like some other kind of ship."

Fairen turned his head. "Shrain, see to it."

Sabre clasped his hands behind his back and paced in a circle, frowning at the floor. "I'll need Kole to do the Net searches, and Martis and Estrelle to do any repair work that comes our way."

"Err..." Martis said. "Battle cruisers don't carry analysers or repair equipment, only regeneration drugs. They don't have a repair tech on board. Badly damaged - injured cybers are put into cold sleep and taken to the nearest repair centre and swapped for functional units. Omega Five is a Rim world; there are no repair centres out here."

Sabre shook his head. "We'll deal with that if we have to, not now."

"Where do you want to start your search?" Fairen asked.

"The Dellan Station."

The young Overlord addressed Shrain again. "Bring Kole Arvan aboard, then translocate to the Dellan Station."

Sabre looked up. "No, you can't go there. The presence of an Overlord will cause a lot of suspicion. It's bad enough that we'll be newcomers. I'll leave you here."

Fairen nodded, glancing at Shrain. "Belay my last order, and have all the cyber repair equipment in my hospital put aboard the enforcer ship at once."

Sabre stopped pacing and faced him. "Thank you. Kole can ship-clamp Striker to the enforcer, it'll add to our disguise."

"Pass on the order to Kole Arvan,” Fairen instructed Shrain. “Is the battle cruiser ready yet?"

"No, My Lord, you only issued the order five minutes ago."

"Tell them to hurry up."

Sabre looked at Martis and Estrelle. "Go and get aboard the battle cruiser... does that damned thing have a name, Shrain?"

"She's Pathos, sir."

“A fitting name.”

As soon as the door slid shut behind the two techs, Fairen pulled off his hood and stepped down to join Sabre, looking concerned.

"Are you all right now?"

"I'll be fine."

"What happened?"

The cyber shrugged, rubbing his brow. "I don't really know. I couldn't think straight. It was like my head was full of... I don't know what. Ready to burst. I can't describe it."

"How did you overcome it?"

"I haven't, it's still there, I'm just... working around it, I guess."

"It's understandable that you should find your first experience of despair overwhelming; just don't give in to it again. You mustn't give up hope. You'll find her if you try hard enough."

Sabre nodded, lowering his eyes to the floor to hide the expression in them. "I didn't give in to it, exactly. I tried to deal with it, but I can't, not yet."

"I must go."

"I know. So must I." Sabre hugged the boy and ruffled his hair. "Don't go blowing up too many planets."

Fairen smiled. "Good luck."

 

 

The cyber paused in the doorway to glance back, and Fairen raised a hand in farewell. Once more he was struck by the sadness that surrounded the lonely boy; a small, forlorn figure in the massive control centre of the mightiest ship in the galaxy. The fate of worlds rested on his thin shoulders, yet friendship and happiness were denied him, leaving his life a joyless existence. Somehow, thinking about Fairen's misfortune pushed aside his overwhelming concern for Tassin. He could not think about her right now, the stress was too intense and the accompanying emotions too strong.

As Sabre loped along the corridor towards berth five, he resolved to return, when he found Tassin, and spend more time with the young Overlord. Being Fairen's only friend was a responsibility he would take seriously now he knew the full extent of the rare privilege and all it entailed. Fairen could have anything he wished with a flick of his fingers, except the friendship he needed so much. First Sabre had to find Tassin, which was impossible. He pushed the thought aside. He would find Tarl, which was more feasible. The mocking voice awoke deep in his mind to scorn his intent. How was he going to even find Tarl, when he was just a broken killing machine? The task was just too great. He tried to ignore the sneering voice's insistent ridicule. Cyborg! It had not said that for some time, and somehow that made it worse.

In berth five, he found a group of enforcer officers watching the transformation of their ship with bemused eyes. Red-uniformed workmen swarmed over it, spraying on layers of ultra-hard brown and grey paint. Already the battle cruiser had a dull, moth-eaten appearance. A snarling wolf's head replaced the Myon Two emblems, and engineers were welding ramming spears to the bow and cutting shears to the sides. The battle cruiser was a massive ship, more than a kilometre long, and barely fitted into the docking berth. It only looked small when compared to the Scorpion Ship, and the workers were like ants on it.

Sabre headed for the open door, and the distinguished-looking commander trotted after him, falling into step beside him.

"Sabre, isn't it?"

The cyber glanced at him. "It's 'sir', to you."

"Right. Can you tell me what we're going to be doing?"

"We're going to pretend to be outlaws, so have your men wear plain clothes, make some if you have to. We're looking for the outlaw cyber tech Tarl Averly, so we're going to offer to sell cyber repair services, equipment and drugs. Have Fairen's men finished setting up the repair equipment in your hospital?"

"Yes, almost."

"Either they have, or they haven't, which is it?" Sabre asked.

"Host Researcher Martis is inspecting it."

"He's not a host researcher anymore, so quit calling him one. No more Myon Two jargon, got it? When we come into contact with outlaws, your men had better keep their mouths shut. I'll do the talking. Get your men on board; we're going to be leaving soon."

"Right, okay."

Sabre bounded up the steps, leaving Thestan at the bottom, and made his way to the hospital, where Martis and Estrelle were checking the equipment. They looked up with hesitant smiles, and Martis came over to him.

"How are you doing?"

"You mean apart from the fact that my head's full of ridiculous, illogical rubbish and I feel like an elephant's sitting on my chest? Just great."

"Is that how you're dealing with it, by dismissing it as ridiculous rubbish?"

"That's what it is."

Martis shook his head. "I suppose for now we should be glad you're still able to function, but at some point you're going to have to deal with it."

"Or what?"

"Or become psychotic. Those emotions seem ridiculous to a machine, but humans need them, so you're going to have to face them."

The cyber tilted his head. "What do you need them for?"

"To be human."

"I'm not a machine, and I don't have time to deal with it now."

Martis said, "That's debatable. You're at least forty per cent programmed, and until now the rest was memories and a small amount of experience. Now you've just had a shitload of humanity dumped on you. Sort through it, don't just push it aside."

"I don't want to sort through it right now, so piss off, okay?"

The tech raised his hands. "Okay, don't blow a gasket."

"And no dumb machine metaphors either."

"Okay, you're pissed off, I get it."

"Good."

The husky tones of Scorpio's voice came from outside, announcing a translocation in thirty seconds. Sabre cursed, heading for the door. The translocation stasis field gripped him before he made it back onto the dock, and when he staggered free of its stifling embrace one of Fairen's aides came into the dock and hurried over.

"Overlord Fairen has translocated to within two hours of the Dellan Station, saving you a nine-hour flight, sir. He must leave immediately on urgent business."

Sabre nodded, and the aide gestured to the workers' foreman, who spoke into a tiny microphone on his cheek, which sprouted from an earpiece. Workers streamed from the battle cruiser's hull, floated down on antigravity platforms and gathered up their equipment before vanishing out of the dock. Patches of Pathos' original shiny black paint remained, but it added to her ratty appearance. Re-entering the ship, Sabre went to the ultra-modern bridge. Pathos was no more than three or four years old, he calculated, and had all the latest hi-tech equipment. Data screens and consoles lined the bridge’s smooth grey bulkheads, and the crew sat at smooth, contoured dark grey workstations, each equipped with a monitor and keypad. Thestan sat in the ergonomic black command chair, and his officers manned their stations, powering up the drives.

Sabre stopped beside the commander and watched the last of the workers file out of the dock. The dock doors slid shut and a warning claxon brayed outside. The battle cruiser floated up as the dock's space doors rumbled open. Pathos drifted out and moved away from the blood-red city ship, whose extremities were folded close to her hull, the long, segmented tail stretched out behind. Starlight glinted on the ancient, scarred ship, a veteran of many battles, judging by her pitted flanks and gouged arms, some of them remnants of Fairen's ramming the Moth Ship to save him.

When the Scorpion Ship had shrunk to fit into the screens, a shimmer of white light engulfed it and a gravity shockwave rippled outwards, then it was gone. Sabre fingered the bracelet on his wrist and turned to Thestan.

"Get the hell out of my chair."

The commander rose and moved away, and Sabre took his place. "You're demoted to sub-commander, pass it on. Since Fairen brought us closer to the Dellan Station and left Kole behind, I'm going to assume that he told him to catch up. Set course for the Dellan Station."

Thestan relayed the order to the cyber pilot, and Sabre frowned at the screens as they headed for the closest corridor. He had grown accustomed to the Scorpion Ship's method of instant travel, and disliked the idea of spending two hours cooped up with a bunch of enforcers. The tension on the bridge made Sabre's nerves jangle, adding to his foul mood.

That, plus the dark lump of emotional trauma that sat in the back of his mind like a crouching beast, making his breath catch every so often in an irrational emotional reaction, stretched his frayed nerves to breaking point. Martis was right, he wanted to find a dark corner and curl up in it to escape this hopeless quest and its inevitable failure. After half an hour he stood up.

"Thestan, take over, I'm going to have a rest. I hope you've cleared your shit out of my cabin."

The sub-commander stared over his head. "I'll have it done now."

Sabre glanced around at the rest of the officers, most of whom looked away, frowning. He stepped closer to Thestan, and a muscle jumped in the sub-commander's jaw. Sabre glared up at the tall man.

"Oh, I get it, Thestan, I really do. You're not used to taking orders from a damned cyber, are you? And yeah, I say 'I' and 'me' and even 'my'." He glanced around again. "You're all going to have a tough time with it, I can tell. But you'd better bloody well get used to it, and fast, understand? And you'd better start tacking a damned 'sir' onto the end of those clipped sentences. I know what you're thinking. You've got four cybers on this ship, and I'm only one. Take me back to your cronies on Myon Two, and you're heroes, right?"

A muscle twitched in Thestan's cheek again. "We will obey Overlord Fairen."

"You really think I'm going to trust you? I want your cybers' overrides, now."

Thestan nodded to a crewman, and Sabre stalked around the bridge while he waited, pausing beside each man to study him before moving on to the next. The tension rose, becoming thick enough to hit with a hammer by the time the crewman returned and handed over four overrides. Sabre took them and went to the commander's cabin, where more crewmen were carrying out the last of Thestan's belongings. He flopped down on the bed and closed his eyes, turning his attention to the confusion of emotional debris in his head.

It still threatened to swamp him, ebbing and surging in waves of raw, unbridled and unwelcome sensations, which he did not understand, and he was not sure he wanted to plumb their illogical depths. It had been so powerful when the wall had first failed it had threatened to push him into catatonia. He had wanted to escape it, but there was nowhere to run. It terrified him. His logical mind rejected it as useless data, and he had spent those minutes on Fairen's bridge stuffing most of it into as many dark recesses in his mind as he could find.

A lot of it he had shoved into the dark void where his mocking voice lived, and it had silenced its cruel jibes. He was no longer just a cyborg, he was more, he had feelings. Too many of them. His mind shied away from them, and all thoughts of Tassin. Thinking of her brought a rush of strange and alarming impulses, ranging from a strong wish to open an airlock and step out into space, to a powerful urge to crush the skull of whoever had taken her. Despair, Fairen had called it. He tried to analyse it, but his mind ran in circles, failing to find a logical explanation for it. He was a machine with human emotions. He was a human with a machine mind. He was a wreck.

Certainly he was intensely angry, and the feeling would not abate. Whereas before he had experienced occasional spurts of anger that quickly faded to a dull background of simmering hatred for Myon Two, now he could not shake off the fury that filled him. He tossed on the bed, rubbing his brow. He tried switching the control unit off, but that made it worse, and he considered letting the cyber take charge, so he could slide into the peaceful, enervating darkness. Surges of rage made his hands clench, followed by waves of a strange feeling that clogged is throat and made it hard to breathe.

Cursing, he jumped up and left the cabin, shoved aside two crewmen in the corridor and marched down to the exercise room in the bowels of the ship. A row of punching bags lined one wall, and he started on them, his fists ripping through the tough outer skin and shredding the dense foam inside. When he had demolished all of them, he went over to the rack of weights and picked up the heaviest, which a normal man could barely lift, and hurled it across the room, denting the wall. A crewman stuck his head through the door and goggled at him, retreating when a dumbbell smashed into the wall beside his head.