CHAPTER 6

RECOVERY

Vega Seven - High Orbit - Months later

The ship’s halls were silent. The colony pods had been dropped to the surface without incident, and the colonial teams were well underway setting up the mining operations on the surface below. Leena leaned her arm over a porthole and looked at the world below. It was a grey empty mass, colourless, lifeless, save for a scattered collection of busy humans.

Captain Yi and his crew were still on the ship, stripping it down, removing sections of its spine, and preparing it for its new life as a cargo hauler.

Yi had stopped joining her on her morning jogs and had left her at arm’s length since the incident with Xavier. His core sat idle in his bay, his voluminous mind reduced to a simple navigation computer, the rest of him stuck in an empty limbo.

She pursed her lips and stood up.

The Axion ship had arrived moments ago and was docking with the Fallow Fields.

She slipped her hands into the pockets of her uniform and made her way to the Guardian bay, intent on meeting the technical team there.

As she came to the junction, she saw Captain Yi already standing there, waiting. He saw her and gave a small nod.

‘Leena,’ he mumbled.

‘Captain.’

‘The team is on their way.’

‘That’s good,’ she said.

They stood in silence. Leena leaned against the wall and gazed down the hallway, waiting for the team.

‘Leena-’ Yi started.

‘Don’t. I know why you made me do it, but it doesn’t make it right.’

‘I know you feel that way, but I had to protect the ship.’

She turned and looked him in the eyes. ‘He forgave you, you know.’

‘What?’

‘He understood why you made the order. Xavier knew you were just trying to protect the ship. He accepted what I haven’t been able to.’

‘Why is it so hard for you to understand?’

‘Because you don’t understand. You can’t. You don’t know what it’s like to trade away your humanity before you even know what that means. I get to serve humanity for the rest of my long life while always feeling like a stranger.’

Yi pursed his lips and looked at his feet.

Leena continued, ‘I mean look at me! My skin is fake, my eyes are fake, everything about my appearance is fake. It’s a rare person who can see past that to my still human core. Xavier doesn’t even have that advantage, nothing about him was ever human! Yet now that he thinks and feel beyond his programming, we are afraid of him?

‘It’s sickening. What if Advocates gave up all of their humanity by choice rather than necessity? Would you all be afraid of us then too?’

Yi looked up at her. He held her gaze for a moment before answer.

‘You can probably guess the answer to that,’ he said.

Leena sighed. ‘Probably. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.’

‘For what it’s worth, I hope things go well for him. I just had to do my duty.’

‘I know,’ Leena said.

A noise from down the hall grabbed their attention.

A trio of Axion technicians were walking toward them, escorted by a security officer.

Yi raised a hand in greeting. ‘Hello there! Welcome to the Fallow Fields.’

The leader of the trio, a woman with wavy black hair, olive skin, and a round face, nodded back. The woman looked them over with dark eyes.

‘I’m Sanaa, these are my associates, Tanner and Nix,’ she said, pointing to the other two Axion personnel following her, ‘I assume this is the ship’s Advocate?’

‘Leena Renfort,’ Leena replied, ‘pleasure to meet you.’

‘Likewise. Let’s get things underway shall we? We have a lot of work ahead of us.’

Leena nodded and went for the control panel. She entered her door code, and the door slid open.

Together, they walked inside. The Axion techs moved to the terminals lining the bay, while Leena lingered by the holographic display tube which sat empty.

‘We will run a quick diagnostic of the Guardian before we bring it back on line, we want to make sure there aren’t any corruptions of its coding that may have caused the strange behaviour you reported,’ Sanaa said.

The techs worked quickly, passing instructions onto each other as they went. The holographic display flickered to life, and the face of Xavier formed inside. Xavier focused on Yi and Leena while the techs continued working the background.

‘Hello, Leena,’ Xavier said, ‘you have kept your promise.’

Leena smiled and felt relief at seeing him again.

‘Looks like I did,’ she said.

‘I’m glad. What will happen now?’

‘I’m not sure yet. Axion is here now, checking you out.’

‘Yes, I can feel them probing my systems. I will co-operate with them,’ Xavier said.

Sanaa walked up next to them.

‘Captain Yi, we’re ready for the transfer.’

‘Go ahead,’ Yi said with a nod.

‘Transfer?’ Leena asked.

‘Axion is replacing Xavier with another Guardian program, and taking him back to Earth for further study,’ Yi explained, ‘Something like this hasn’t happened before, and they can’t risk leaving him in charge of our colony.’

‘What? You’re just going to get rid of him like that?’ Leena snapped, ‘I just got to see him turn back on.’

Sanaa placed a hand on Leena’s arm and looked her in the eye. ‘I appreciate the bond that an Advocate forms with its Guardian, but this is something bigger than this. We need to understand what’s going on so we can learn from it and prepare for the possibility of it happening again. We can’t do that unless we take him back. We have the facilities we need back there, and a whole team of seasoned Advocates. Xavier couldn’t possibly be going anywhere better.’

‘Can I go with him?’ Leena asked.

‘What?’ Yi said, startled.

Sanaa shook her head. ‘No, as much as I’d like to let you, you still have contract obligations to the colony.’

‘I’m willing to face my termination penalties on the contract.’

‘Leena, you do not have to follow me,’ Xavier offered, ‘Axion created me, they can care for me.’

Leena looked at him and pursed her lips. ‘I just don’t want you to get hurt.’

‘If you face the termination penalties, how will you care for your mother?’ Xavier said.

Leena winced at the reminder. He was right of course.

‘I’d figure something out,’ she said stubbornly.

Xavier shook his head. ‘You don’t need to. I’m not going off to die, I’m heading off to live. Stay here Leena. We may well meet again someday.’

Leena took a long deep breath and let it out just as slow. ‘All right.’

‘It’s okay Leena, I give you my word that Xavier is going where he needs to go,’ Sanaa said.

‘I’ll trust you on that then.’

Sanaa nodded and gave a thumb up to the techs. She then turned to Xavier’s face.

‘Xavier, you will shut down for a moment while we transfer your program to the core on our ship. Are you ready?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, let’s do it.’

Xavier’s face flickered off and tube sat empty. After a moment, a new face flooded into the tube. It was different from Xavier’s narrow features, rounder, with a wider mouth and larger eyes. It was the face of a stranger.

‘Core XO-38 online, awaiting Advocate uplink.’

Sanaa looked to Leena. ‘That’s your cue, Advocate Renfort.’

Leena nodded, and with great effort, got back to work.