Exit Strategy

Home to her meant a planet. I knew that because I’d shipped memory clips to her family there. Important memory clips. Memory clips that had almost gotten us killed. I said, “I don’t like planets. There’s dust and weather, and something always wants to eat the humans. And planets are much harder to escape from.”

Behind her, Gurathin said, “I think that’s a yes.”

The ship didn’t have any cameras so I couldn’t see anybody. No, wait, I could use my eyes.

“We’re coming up on Preservation Transit Station,” Mensah said. “Do you know what happened?”

“I had a catastrophic failure. I think that’s obvious.”

She nodded. “You extended yourself too far when you were fighting off the code attack on the company ship. Do you remember?”

I think I did, but I didn’t want to talk about it. “Why is this ship so old and shitty?”

Ratthi objected, “Hey, it may be old, but it’s not shitty. It came to Preservation packed into the hold of that much bigger ship, the one that’s become the station, with our grandparents. Well, not Gurathin’s grandparents, he came later.”

“Your grandparents were packed in the hold.” I was skeptical. I’d been packed in a lot of holds and I hadn’t seen any humans in there. Not that I could see inside the other transport boxes, but … You know what I mean.

Mensah had a smile in her voice. I remembered what that sounded like. “They were in suspension boxes, because the trip took almost two hundred years. They were refugees from a failed colony world, and it was the only way to escape. When they arrived in the Preservation system, they were able to make an alliance with two other systems settled earlier by similar refugee ships. When ships from the Corporation Rim discovered us, they refused their help, which kept us independent.”

I found a pocket of archived data on Preservation. Right, my status there was better than equipment or deadly weapon, but I would still have to have an owner. And be a happy bot servant, or something like that. Yeah, that was going to go well.

Possibly I said that out loud, or had said that out loud at some point, because Dr. Mensah said, “No one else on this ship knows you’re a SecUnit. They think that you’re a person with a large number of augments, who was injured while helping us, and that you’re being brought to Preservation as a refugee.”

I actually turned around and looked at her. She was standing next to me, Gurathin was sitting in a chair with a portable display surface bubble, Ratthi was on the bench, and Pin-Lee was leaning on the wall next to the hatch. (And this ship is shitty. It smells like human socks.)

“That last part is true, technically,” Pin-Lee said. “You fit the legal definition of a refugee.”

“It’s very dramatic,” Ratthi added. “The crew think you’re a special security agent who betrayed the company to save us.”

It was very dramatic, like something out of a historical adventure serial. Also correct in every aspect except for all the facts, like something out of a historical adventure serial.

Mensah said, “We have more options now that you’ve changed your appearance, and have been successful at…” She was hesitating over the phrase pretending to be human. I remembered at least three conversations about that. “Let’s say, not being noticed. I want to keep those options open until you’re completely well and you can tell me what you want to do.” She was watching me carefully. “On Port FreeCommerce, I thought you would need a great deal of assistance before you could fit into human society. I was wrong about that and I apologize.”

I focused on her. “I don’t want to go to the planet.”

She nodded. “That’s fine. You can stay on the transit station.”

I was stuck, so I might as well make the best of it. “In a hotel?”

“If you like.”

“With a big display surface.”

She smiled. “That can probably be arranged.”

* * *

New memories kept popping up and sliding into place and my connections to all my stored media were coming back, which was distracting because I kept tuning out the outside world to watch them. But they also sparked neural connections that accelerated my process rebuild. When we docked at the Preservation transit ring, Mensah and Pin-Lee left the ship first to distract the humans waiting for us, which included a lot of outsystem journalists. When a crew member signaled it was clear, Ratthi and Gurathin walked me out through the embarkation zone.

They took me to a hotel attached to the station’s admin center, to one of the suites reserved for diplomatic guests. It was nice, even though its security monitoring was completely inadequate. I got a set of rooms to myself, though they were connected to the suites where the others were staying. It was a little like a mini-hotel inside a big hotel.

I didn’t like it.

I went back into the room with a bed and a display surface and locked the door. An hour later, Ratthi tapped my feed and sent, We set up a little network. I hope it helps.