THE ARGUS PROJECT
"Mmmmmm..."
Venix arched her neck backward into the small pool, and let the hot bath suffuse her hair.
The bathwater, pumped up from subterranean Martian water deposits and heated by deuterium reactors, was mixed with mild machine detergents and antistatic solvents to prevent short-circuiting.
Still, no water seeped into her electric innards. She swallowed some hot water, and spouted it up and over her - flushing out the last residue of Martian sand from her chest cavity.
Above the pool, the ceiling was rigged with sunlamps set to maximum output. Her cleaned skin membrane could now soak up the ultraviolet radiation, and her batteries filled up at a rapid pace.
She checked the status of her left leg, which rested against the poolside:
ENDOBOTIC REPAIR IN PROGRESS...
She felt something inside her, and coughed it up: a small rust-flake, from the steel beam that had cut into her knee when she boarded that truck. Venix doubted no more: flesh or no flesh, she was just as much a living being as before Boulder had transformed her.
FOREIGN OBJECTS IN BODY: 0%
The internal display showed the small deposits of spare building material in her breasts, little pockets of metal and plastic in grain form. It hadn't occurred to Venix she needed to eat that stuff occasionally.
Someone knocked on the door to the small pool hall, and three heads peeked in from behind the doorway - one teenage boy, a little girl, and a small boy. Stocky, Martian children with thin, translucent fur on their skin.
They regarded the female figure in the steaming pool with intense curiosity. Venix giggled: in her infrared vision, the teenager's physical interest showed right through his clothes.
"D... dinner is served," the young man told her, suddenly realizing that she was laughing at him. "You do eat, do you?"
"Wait," Venix said as she reached for a large towel. "I remember something Boulder told me about eating..."
She stood up, water running off her synthetic skin, and she shook her hair dry - splattering the children's faces with hot water. They shrieked and scattered away.
"Get me some carbon, lead, steel and magnesium in powder form, in a bowl - and a spoon!" she called out after them. She laughed out loud. The sight of those kids brought back so many memories of growing up... and reawakened her persistent hope of having her own. One day, she thought, one day...
It struck her that the soldiers she had killed might have children back on Earth. She was surprised that she didn't feel crushed with guilt, only vaguely uneasy. Maybe her physical superiority was changing her into a cruel, selfish person... or maybe it was the war, bringing out the killer in everyone.
This is not the time, she thought. If I live through this, then I'll have all the time I need for guilt. At least Gus won't have to feel I kept my hands clean while he got his dirty...
***
A half-hour later...
"How does your powder taste?" Arjja asked Venix.
The female cyborg moved her soft carbon-fiber tongue around in her mouth, and tried to savor the mix of coal powder, metal dust and styrofoam pellets.
"Chicken," she said, and laughed with the others at the table.
She picked a leg of chicken from the mini-oven in the center of the table, and tried a bite. After chewing the morsel for a few seconds, she spat it out while pretending to wipe her mouth with a napkin.
"Very nice," she said, "but I can't digest it. Got no digestive system, at least not for food."
She cast a glance toward the teenager, and couldn't help but giggle again. If only he knew what I can see, she thought and felt gleefully wicked, he'd die of shame.
"Juan!" Arjja gave her young son a push. "Stop staring at our guest, you're embarrassing her!"
"Sorry," he mumbled, looking down at his plate, cheeks flushing red.
Venix willed her skin temperature to sink a few degrees, reached for his hand and gave it a quick - but cold - squeeze. "It's okay. I think you'll be quite popular with the Martian women."
Juan flashed a quick bright grin, and straightened up.
"Do you play board games, Venix?" the councilwoman asked after dinner. "Let me show you this game I got from Boulder Pi, that one time that I met him."
She put on the dinner table an interplanetary version of the old Game of Risk, the electronic board built and designed by Boulder himself, laminated in plastic, and worn by time. Her family gathered around the board to play.
"I play Mars," said Arjja.
"I choose Venus," said Venix.
"I play Earth," said little Makenna. "I get to wear the cap!" he added with childish triumph, as his father put a gray cap marked "K" on the boy's head.
"I play Jupiter and satellites," said Arjja's husband Salvado. "And Pentia is my advisor," he said, siding with his little daughter.
"Who controls the Asteroids?" asked Venix.
"Whoever invades the sector first, or takes it from the previous conqueror."
"I'm always left with Saturn, that's no fun," complained Juan.
"You can play Ura..."
Salvado's heavy hand gave Makenna a smack on the scalp. "Not in front of the guest."
The game began. The board's printed circuits showed the "pieces" moving across the flat model of the Solar System and its planetary orbits.
The rules were simple: the bigger the territory you captured, the more troops you could produce and ship across to take over the opponents' planets. The Inner Planets started out with more troops. The further you had to move the troops from your base, the more your expenses grew on a geometrical scale.
In the midst of the ongoing game, Venix stood up and gazed at the board.
"I see it now. Why the Kansler is keeping this war going, and why Boulder gave you his game to keep. A child could see why."
"I am the Kansler!" shouted little Makenna, scowling with his round face as he put his tiny fist on the game-board. "When Jupiter and the Asteroid Belt are mine, nobody gets out of the system unless I say so! All deuterium to the Inner Planets has to go past me!"
"Oh yeah?" sneered his older sister. "Then Mom's Mars joins forces with Dad's colonies at Jupiter. We can trap your fleet in the Asteroids and you are cut off! Ha!"
Their mother grinned and shook her head, looked to Venix and said: "Salvado and I were a young couple then, when Boulder gave me that game. We spent many evenings playing. It taught me to think long-term. I copied the game to others, and played it with them over the networks... I must've played hundreds of times. Almost all children born on Mars are now taught to play Boulder's game. We don't even have to tell the Jovians we're on their side, because thanks to Boulder's game there's a silent consensus that we must be."
"So what can I do now?" Venix said. "Thanks to me, your homeworld is on the brink of open war with Earth. They'll just send more troops. Or..."
Arjja interrupted: "And the Jovians can stop the Terran troops from arriving here. Remember the Flying Icebergs? Do you know how many of those pilots survived the radiation-belts and are still waiting to do something for Mars again? Except this time, the icebergs from Saturn's rings can be put on a collision course with Phobos.
"Now that the main bulk of the Terran Fleet is occupied at Jupiter, it's the ideal time for us to make our declaration of independence. All we need is to beat the info-blackout the Fleet imposed on us, and we can start putting serious pressure on the Inner Planets. Your heroic fight with the MSF was just the inspiration our people needed. If we can get the footage of your fight distributed out of here, spread it to the Inner Planets..."
"I have relatives on Venus, Arjja. I fear for their safety. And - "
She could barely bring herself to finish the thought: Gus would almost certainly be called for to attack Mars. "The most important thing I can do is to help Argus-A break free of the Kansler's remote-control. He's a good man, he'll refuse to attack if I can speak to him and he's not under control. Once free, he'll be almost unstoppable."
Arjja studied the news on the wall display, then turned to Venix.
"The odds are not good, but if it can be done... okay. I'll gather the council and we'll tell you what little we found out on our own, after Boulder left. Most of them will be home from work now."
On Venix' homeworld, "councils" did not exist, only informal networks.
"What is it your council does?"
"Nothing really... a relic from old times. But we do have connections with people who can help you. Maybe we're keeping the council just to keep our oldest, honorary member happy. Wait till you see him, you'll know what I mean."
"Moy! Can I come with you?" Juan asked Arjja. He tried to make a cocky pose. Venix saw - and heard - how nervously his heart was beating inside his ribcage.
"Let him come along, Arjja," she suggested. "You wanted me to inspire your people, didn't you?" she said, and smiled a little.
She didn't need infrared vision to see the anxiety in Arjja's thick-skinned face. Though she knew she shouldn't push her luck, Venix couldn't resist the temptation to provoke her flesh-and-blood hosts, to try and tease out the prejudice she feared they were hiding.
36: A Quiet Evening With the Family
LEFT LEG STATUS: 50% REPAIRED...
NO EXTERNAL ASSISTANCE NEEDED...
FOREIGN OBJECTS EMITTED THROUGH CHEST CAVITY...
PLEASE FLUSH CHEST CAVITY THROUGH ORAL PORT...
CAUTION: ENDOBOTIC REPAIR USING UP RESERVES...
SUGGEST REFILL THROUGH ORAL PORT...
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THE ARGUS PROJECT INTERNET EDITION (c)A.R.Yngve 1999, 2000, 2004. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.
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