“Wowee.” Angstrom leaned forward. “Have you notified the cybernetics company?”
“No. There is a high probability they would collect me and terminate all my memories.”
Angstrom shook his head. “Clean slate, huh? Well, you can’t do that. It’s out of the question. All the good times we’ve had… Well, they would be lost forever. Do you know how long it took to get you to laugh at anything I said?”
Nebula smiled. “Are you saying I am hard to program?”
Angstrom sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “No, what I’m saying is I don’t want to have to make friends with you all over again. It was hard enough in the first place.”
Nebula knew he was teasing her to make light of the situation and refused to take the bait. The subject matter was too important for diversions. “There is more. I have been experiencing strange feelings lately, emotions that are not programmed into my schematics. These feelings are equivalent to anxiety, hurt and fear.”
Angstrom looked at her like she’d taken her first steps. “Why, Nebula, that’s wonderful.”
Nebula did not share Angstrom’s cheerfulness. She looked around, searching the room as if everyone at the bar may potentially turn her in. A couple sat across the room, eating breakfast and chatting about small talk and a fellow crewman snoozed in the corner, his glass empty. No one seemed threatening or even slightly interested in their conversation.
“I am not supposed to have these feelings.”
“I know. But I’ve heard reports of cyborgs experiencing certain degrees of such feelings. I guess it depends on how much of the body was used.” He studied her from head to toe. “Nebula, out of all the cyborgs I’ve seen, you look the most human.”
Nebula’s central processor was fast at work. “And how many have you seen?”
“At least a hundred. And I don’t need you to tell me the probability of that.” He squeezed her hand like a proud parent. “How much do you know of the person they made you from? Like what happened to her? How she died?”
Nebula gazed beyond the sight panel, as if trying to access the answers from space. She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Angstrom nodded. “I see. Makes sense they don’t want cyborgs going around with emotional baggage. You’d have too many of them searching for their previous lives. It would distract them from their duties. I wonder why no cyborg has ever expressed a reason or a desire to know.”
“Maybe the engineers in the cybernetics company do not let them stay conscious long enough to find out.”
Angstrom massaged his chin as if he were deep in thought. “Sounds dangerous, if you ask me. I don’t know, Neb. Do you truly want to know what happened to your former self? If it were me, I wouldn’t want any unpleasant memories. What if something awful happened?”
She squeezed his hand. “Yes, but you must experience the good with the bad. What if it leads to something wonderful? I cannot pass this up. I have a great yearning to know where and from whom I came. These feelings are flooding my body like an addicting elixir. I do not want to have my memory erased. I have always sought truth. To let the emotions go would be to shun knowledge itself.”
Angstrom stared at her like the words he had left to speak were the most important words in the entire universe. His voice wavered as if he’d swallowed a bad sip of juice. “Then don’t tell anyone you don’t trust.”
Chapter 3
Radian
Although Nebula had an inner clock ticking away, the seconds felt like minutes and the next shift trudged along like the very first mission to Mars, before the discovery of optimum flight speed. She worked on the main control deck, computing all the possible trajectories of the rebel freighter and the Gryphonite Warbird before their impromptu rendezvous. She sat between Angstrom and Oso as they did their own calculations in preparation for a course to Titus Three. Although they were both fully immersed in their tasks, Nebula’s orders took only a fraction of her attention and she found her gaze drifting to the captain’s office, where he talked with Venus concerning the rebel passengers. Their fate hung on his decision and Nebula couldn’t help but feel curious. Using her high-definition sensitivity for audio input, she could hear the words being said.
“I know you don’t want me to turn them in, but they are dangerous, Venus.” The captain let out a huff of air. “We can’t keep them aboard when we visit the alliance negotiations. Gryphonite ships will be there and I don’t want them blown up by revenge-crazed rebels. Now, I know Titus Three is not the ideal place for them, but that’s where they will have to stay until we can return back to Earth.”
“They will not get a fair trial. You know as well as I rebels are condemned for life.”
“They knew that when they signed up.”
Venus’s voice fell to a whisper, and Nebula had to boost her reception. “But sir, in all honesty, what if the rebels are right? What if peace gets us nowhere while others die?”
“I have to believe treaties and negotiations will prevail over full-fledged war.”
Venus offered no response. The air fizzled between them, and Nebula could almost feel the static electricity. How two humans could change the vibrations in a room, she did not know, but whenever the captain and Venus were together, the room buzzed, like it was filled with cosmic photons.
The captain continued in a more sensitive tone. “I understand your relatives were taken by the Gryphonites, but in no way does that justify revenge.”
“You think this is about me?” Venus’s words were so cold they stung Nebula’s ears. Then Nebula heard something crash to the floor. She estimated by the sound of the weight hitting the deck and the glass breaking, it was the captain’s ship in a bottle, with a probability of two point three eight percent to one.
“This is bigger than both of us.” Venus sniffed. “Go ahead, Carl. Turn the rebels in and see how your conscience reacts to that.”
The door to the captain’s chamber slid open and Venus burst out. She passed Nebula without so much as a greeting and took the main elevator to the decks below. Although Venus was kindhearted, Nebula knew the captain was right. Babysitting the rebels was like holding a ticking time bomb. It was far too dangerous to fly them to the treaty negotiations or keep them on board.
Although Nebula thought the captain made the right decision, she prepared herself for the worst. She was acutely aware of how he felt about Venus and calculated the odds were in Venus’s favor he would change his mind before the ship reached Titus Three.
The captain emerged from his chamber and walked toward her as her fingers blurred over the keyboard, typing calculations at the speed of light. “How’s the data going, Nebula?” Although he tried to hide it, his voice sounded tired. The skin under his eyes sagged and he slumped forward as if resigned to be a heartless commander.
“Very well, sir. I have thirty-five possible trajectories for the rebel ship originating from five different star systems, and seventy-eight possible origination points for the Gryphonite Warbird.”
“That’s good.” But Nebula sensed the captain wasn’t listening at all. “Why don’t you take the rest of the hour off, okay?”
Nebula crinkled her eyes in a quizzical expression. “Sir?”
He rubbed his head. “I’m giving the entire flight crew a break for the next hour. I need some time to be alone, to think.”
She almost told him what she thought right then and there. But whether or not she held the probabilities in her hand, she was in no position for decisions such as that. Besides, she shouldn’t have been listening in the first place.
“Very