“What do you call these little guys, anyway?”
“A vox.” Abrahams shrugged, smiling. “Ilesca coined the name and it just stuck.”
The vox leaned forward eagerly, sniffing at Boone’s face. Its eyes, which had been crystalline and clear a moment before, were now a deep bluish-green, not that different from the color of Boone’s own eyes, K saw. Suddenly it shot out a long pink tongue and licked his cheek.
Boone laughed in surprise. “Friendly little guys, aren’t they?”
“They feed on positive emotions as well.” Abrahams nodded at the vox. “In fact, it’s possible to tell what the person holding the vox is feeling, simply by reading their eye color. This little one senses your happiness to hold him and your interest in him.”
“Really? You can tell all that by its eye color?” K was interested despite herself. “Do they live only on emotions or do you feed them other food as well?”
“They get a daily ration of nutrition feed, of course, though they can fast for up to a solar week with no ill effects. However, without a sentient being to hold and touch them every day, they will become weak and ill almost at once. I think you can conjecture which type of ‘food’ is more important to them.”
“Is that right?” Boone murmured. “I don’t suppose the trace amount of human DNA you used in them was Erian?”
“As a matter of fact, it was.” Abrahams nodded. “Excellent deduction, Doctor Boone.” He looked at K. “I should have asked you earlier—would you like to hold one, my dear?”
“You mean…touch it?” K bit her lip uncertainly. The idea should have filled her with revulsion but somehow it didn’t. The animals were so small and sleek and furry with their big eyes and funny little pointed faces. What had Boone called them? Cute. They were cute.
Boone was watching her with a slight frown on his face. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, darlin’. Though I think you can see they’re pretty harmless.”
“No,” K said, surprising herself and, from the look on his face, Boone as well. “I’ll hold one. For a moment.”
“Excellent.” Abrahams bent down and scooped up another of the little voxes to put in her hands. “They make wonderful pets, you know,” he said as K accepted the little creature from him, being careful not to make skin-to-skin contact during the transfer. “Most everyone in our settlement has one now. They eat so little and give so much affection. All they really ask is a little attention and access to your emotions. Would you like one?”
K held the soft, furry vox carefully. “You’re very generous but if you know as much about my kind as you claim, I’m sure you’ll see that would be a bad idea. We are taught from an early age to purge our emotions—to feel nothing. I fear I would starve such a creature to death. I cannot give it what I do not have.”
“On the contrary, my dear.” Abrahams motioned to the vox. “Look at its eyes.”
K glanced down to the little pointed face that was upturned towards hers and had to repress a gasp. The vox’s eyes were swirling with a blend of colors, changing so rapidly it was hard to keep track. Red…black…gray…orange…dark, stormy purple—each shade came and went in an instant.
“My, my, my.” Abrahams shook his head. “Anger, fear, worry, distrust, desire…you are a maelstrom of negative feelings, my dear. A veritable emotional vortex—this little one will be full for a week at least.”
“I…that can’t be right.” K stared at the little creature who was looking back at her intently. She looked up at Boone who was studying her quietly. “It’s somewhat more difficult to control what I feel without the suit but I never thought… Here.” She thrust the vox back at Abrahams. “Take it back.”
“Are you sure?” He took the little creature from her. “If you hold him just a little while longer you may be relieved of some of your pain and doubt.”
“I have no pain and doubt.” K crossed her arms over her chest protectively.
“Very well, my dear. If you say so.” Abrahams put the vox back, ruffling its fur gently. He looked at Boone. “What about you? Would you like to keep yours?”
“Well…” Boone looked indecisive until the little animal leaned forward eagerly and licked his cheek again. “Hey,” he said, laughing. “That’s cheating.”
“He’s quite taken with you. He must like the taste of your emotions.” Abrahams smiled. “You can give him back at the end of your stay if you like but in the mean time if you wouldn’t mind it would help me out immensely if you let him stay with you. It gets quite tiring holding each one enough every day to give it sufficient nourishment. Not that I don’t enjoy it but it takes time away from my work.”
“Poor little guy, just looking for three squares a day, huh?” Boone scratched the vox between its pointed ears. It closed its eyes and made a soft humming sound. “Aww…okay, then,” Boone murmured. “I’m sold. I’ll help you out with this one—at least while we’re here.” He lifted the vox up to his shoulder and it curled up beneath his ear with a contented sigh, its long tail wrapped around the back of his neck.
“Excellent. I thank you, truly I do.” Abrahams nodded earnestly. “Well, then, now that you’ve seen my work shall we adjourn to the other room where I can fully explain our problem?”
“Sounds like a good idea to me.” Boone nodded, looking relaxed.
“Good. This way if you ple— ” Abrahams was interrupted by a shrill yip-yip-yip coming from the vox cage. The animal K had held was standing on its tiny hind legs and begging. How she could tell them apart and know it was hers, K didn’t know but it seemed obvious somehow.
“What…what does it want?” she asked. It was an effort to speak since her throat was suddenly dry.
“Hmm.” Abrahams bent down again. “I do believe it wants you, my dear Paladin.” He shook his head. “Most unusual for them to form a bond so quickly. Would you like to take it back and keep it for me while your ship is being fixed?”
K shook her head quickly. “I can’t. I told you, it would starve to death with me.”
“Come on now, darlin’, we both know that isn’t true.” Boone spoke quietly and his vox’s eyes went deep blue. K wondered wildly what the color meant—sadness? Was Boone feeling sorry for her for some reason?
“It is true,” she insisted. “And I don’t think you should have been so quick to accept a strange animal as a pet, Boone. How do you know what its long term effects on you might be? It’s dangerous and you’re being irrational.”
“You’re the one who’s being irrational.” Boone frowned and his vox’s eyes flared reddish-orange. “Here,” he said to Abrahams. “I’ll take that one too.”
Abrahams smiled and nodded, rubbing his hands together. “If you’re sure you don’t mind…”
“Not at all. Bring ‘em on.” Boone held out his hand for the second little animal and Abrahams scooped it up and gave it to him. It turned toward K and yipped appealingly but Boone shook his head. “Sorry little guy. She doesn’t want you. Here, you get the other shoulder.” He placed the vox on his other shoulder where it curled up reluctantly, though it continued to stare longingly at K.
“Now that’s settled, if you’ll follow me.” Abrahams swept out of the glass enclosed room leaving them alone for a moment.
Boone started to follow him but K grabbed his shirt. “Stop.”
“What?” He turned back, frowning.
“I think you should put those things back. I don’t trust them.”
“You don’t trust anyone, K—that’s part of your problem. Like denying you have feelings all the time. ‘I am a Paladin. I fear nothing, I feel nothing,’” he mimicked softly.
“I have admitted to having some emotions since you took away my suit,” K said tightly. “Though not nearly enough to feed one of those things.”
“That’s a lie and you know it,” Boone said. “The only reason you don’t want one is because they tell on you—they know what you’re feeling even when you don’t want to feel anything at all.”
“Emotions are messy and irrational. Of course I don’t wish to have them and it’s your fault I do!” K flared. The vox on Boone’s right shoulder—the one that had originally been hers—sat up and howled softly, its eyes turning bright red.
“Look at that—he’s still attuned to you.” Boone watched the animal with great interest. “He misses you, K.” He scratched the vox under its pointed chin with one finger. “Sorry, little buddy, she’s not interested.”
“This is ridiculous,” K said tightly. “I will not be made to feel guilty for refusing to accept a strange animal into my life.”
Boone shrugged, a smile quirking up one side of his full mouth. “Oh no? I guess we’ll see. What color do you think guilt is anyway?” He walked out of the glassed in area laughing.
K followed him, fuming. The vox on his right shoulder turned its head to look at her, its eyes whirling a muddy brownish-gray.
Chapter Ten
“Well, as I’m sure Ilesca told you, we have a rather unique problem that I hope you may be able to help us with, Doctor Boone.” Abrahams nodded genially as they settled into the deep leather chairs in the sitting area.
The leather was thick with an almost pebbled texture that struck Boone as odd. Still, it was quite comfortable and at least the seat was large enough and strong enough to accommodate him. He’d been away from Colossus for so long, conforming to the smaller scale of the littles, that he sometimes forgot how pleasant it could be to simply be able to sit on a chair and not worry that he might break it.
“I’m certainly willing to listen, Doctor Abrahams,” he said, nodding. “Though I don’t know what I can do.”
“You can help save our lives, I hope,” Abrahams said seriously.
“And what have you done to endanger them in the first place?” K demanded. She was still fuming although Boone was sure she wouldn’t admit it. Her tone was cold and calculating but her vox’s eyes were glowing a deep red with what he assumed must be anger and/or frustration. This little critter is going to come in handy. Especially when it came to decoding his cold, withdrawn Paladin.
“Come on now, K,” he said, trying to soothe her. “You can’t just assume that whatever problem Doctor Abrahams has is his own fault.”
“Oh but I’m very much afraid that it is.” The doctor plucked the strange brass and crystal goggles off his head and began adjusting them nervously. “You’ve seen my creations—the mixtures I’ve made and I am very proud of each and every one of them. In fact, they went so well with nary a glitch that about a cycle ago I decided to experiment with the native fauna.”
“What?” Boone demanded. “But the native fauna on Minotaur consists of mindless, meat-eating carnivorous saurians.”
“What are these saurians like?” K asked. “The Purists don’t have much intel on Minotaur though I know it isn’t considered inhabitable.”
“Have you ever seen pictures of the dinosaurs that used to inhabit Earth-that-was?” Boone asked her. She nodded. “Okay then, imagine something like that only ten times uglier, nastier, and hungrier. It’s a wonder humans can live on Minotaur at all.”
“Indeed, establishing ourselves here in the first place was not easy.” Abrahams sounded grim. “Especially once the saurians got a taste for human flesh.”
Boone thought he saw K shiver, though her face remained cool and collected. A quick look at her vox, however, showed glowing eyes that cycled between burnt umber and dull olive green. Fear or worry? Maybe disgust? He would have to make note of the colors and try to decode them later to be sure.
“So the saurians…you decided to experiment on them?” K raised an inquiring eyebrow at Abrahams who nodded.
“Unfortunately yes. I thought if I could give at least one of them some human intelligence I could reason with it, teach it to coexist with us peacefully.”
“So you gave human intelligence to one of the fiercest predators in the known galaxy?” Boone still couldn’t believe it. “I’m sorry, Abrahams, but that sounds like a bad idea to me.”
Abrahams sighed. “As it turns out, it was, though it didn’t seem that way at the time. The female I mixed seemed so docile at first—we called her Sweetie.
“Sweetie?” Boone raised an eyebrow.
Abrahams shrugged. “At the time, the name fit her perfectly. Ilesca and my son used to play with her. She grew and learned at an amazing rate—I was even able to teach her to read Standard.”
“But then…” Boone prompted.
“But then she went through some kind of change. Hormonal, I think. I used Erian DNA in her mixture to make her more docile, more touch-dependent.”
“So you could use her needs to control her.” K shot Boone a glance and her vox’s eyes went reddish-purple.
“Yes, of course.” Abrahams nodded, clearly missing her anger. “It seemed the easiest way. But I used too much. The touch-dependency worked well but then Sweetie entered a mating cycle.”
Beside him, Boone could see K was listening intently. “This…mating cycle. What did it do to her? What do you know about it?”
“Not enough, apparently.” Abrahams shook his head. “Only that the hormonal changes she experienced made her completely reckless and unreasonable. If I had known what would happen I would have created a male for her. As it was, there were no others of her kind to mate with. I didn’t want to let her mate with a wild saurian—I feared for her, feared that it might savage and attack her.”
“You thought an unenhanced male might sense the difference in her?” Boone asked.
“No mentally, no. But the changes in her physiology, her chemistry—I feared they would make her a target. The pheromones she was emitting were far beyond what was normal for her kind—they made her completely irresistible.” He looked embarrassed. “They, er, even affected those of us who worked with her—so I knew they would drive a male saurian completely mad.”
“What happened?” K wanted to know. Boone had an idea her interest was more than just academic.
“I tried everything. Muscle relaxants, mood recalibraters, psychotropic drugs—nothing worked.” Abrahams shook his head. “Finally, though, I developed a collar I thought might work. Something she could wear all the time that would inject her continuously with calming drugs—much like your skinsuit, my dear,” he said, turning to K.
She stiffened. “My suit—”
“Is damaged at the moment,” Boone interrupted smoothly. Clearly K still wasn’t willing to admit to the suit’s true properties. “So did the collar work?” he asked Abrahams.
“I never got to find out.” Abrahams sighed. “The morning I went to try it on her, I found that Sweetie had escaped.”
“Escaped?” K demanded. “You let a huge sentient predator with the ability to think and reason like a human get away from you?”
“Believe me, I have paid for my mistake many times over.” Abrahams looked grim. “Sweetie has mounted several attacks on our settlement and claimed many victims. My…” He cleared his throat. “My son was one of them.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Boone said somberly. “But I don’t really see how we can help.”
“Unless you want us to target Sweetie and blast her from orbit,” K added.
“Oh heavens no!” Abrahams looked shocked and upset at the idea. “No, Sweetie might be out of control at the moment but everything she’s done is not her fault—it’s mine.”
“It’s good of you to take responsibility for your actions,” Boone said. “But what good will it do if you just let her keep rampaging around, killing people?”
“That’s where you come in.” Abrahams cleared his throat. “You see, I had a special stunner built—one with enough power to stop even a charging saurian.”
“So why haven’t you used it?” K demanded, leaning forward and glaring at the doctor. “Why ask Boone to do your dirty work?”
“Because in order to give the weapon enough power to stun Sweetie, I had to make it disproportionately large,” Abrahams explained earnestly. “No man
in our settlement can even lift it. The power cells alone are outrageously heavy. But Doctor Boone here, being from Colossus, should be able to handle it with ease.”
“I still don’t see why you don’t mount it on some kind of vehicle and use it that way,” K said.
Abrahams looked thoughtful. “A most intriguing concept. I admit I hadn’t considered that before. Clearly your Paladin’s mind is attuned to the nuances of weaponry in the way mine is not. However, I’m afraid that still wouldn’t work.”
“Why not?” Boone asked.
“Because. Ahem…” Abrahams cleared his throat delicately. “Unfortunately, Sweetie knows all of us by scent. She has incredibly sharp senses—the best I could give her. And she knows that everyone in the settlement is armed now. But if she smells something—someone new, she’s much more likely to assume that the new person is unarmed and—”
“Bait! You want to use Boone for bait.” K jumped up from her chair and her vox sat up on Boone’s shoulder and yipped angrily, its eyes flashing reddish-orange with her rage.
“Well, in a manner of speaking, yes,” Abrahams said mildly. “But he would be in no real danger. Sweetie is a loner and she’s carved out a territory for herself close to the compound so he wouldn’t have to worry about other saurians. Plus he’ll be armed with the stunner which, as I said before, is extremely powerful. All he really has to do is wait for her to approach, stun her, and fit her with the control collar. Simple.”
“Simple?” K was pacing now, obviously furious. “You want to send him out armed with nothing but a stun gun against a seven ton predator that has teeth as long as my arm and you call it simple?”
“My dear Paladin, please calm yourself. He doesn’t have to do it.” Abrahams shrugged laconically. “Of course, we don’t have to fix his ship, either. Everyone here has free choice.”