“It took me nearly three years,” the Sean bot said. “Scavenging parts, rebuilding the z-field generator—”
“You don’t know anything about spacecraft repair,” I sniffed.
“More than you, JJ. And besides, why do you think it took me three years to get the orbiter operational?”
“So we’re just going to fly out of here?” Ana-Zhi asked.
“It’s a little more complicated than that. The shuttle in question is the Yueldian version of a Wexler MoonRunner.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
MoonRunners were basically slow-moving barges, with very limited maneuverability and zero in the way of weapons. If this shuttle was anything like a MoonRunner, we’d be lucky to get to the Fountain in a day.
“How is that going to work?” I asked.
Ana-Zhi jumped in. “We don’t have to get all the way to the Fountain.”
“Exactly,” the Sean bot said. “We just need to get out of range of Yates.”
“But if what you say is true, won’t the Mayir ship be somewhere nearby?”
“Of course it will,” the Sean bot said. “But I have a plan.”
We didn’t get to hear the plan, because at that moment my comm unit squealed.
“Jannigan? Come in!”
“Chiraine? We’re here.”
“Thank Dynark. Why the radio silence?”
“Who is she again?” the Sean bot asked.
“Chiraine Portelle, cultural anthropologist,” Ana-Zhi said.
“New hire?” the Sean bot asked.
“No,” I said. “She works for the Shima.”
“Sorry?” Chiraine said. “I thought I heard someone else talking. What’s going on over there? Did you find the comm station?”
“I’ll tell you when we see you,” I said. “I think we’re close.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Just keep an open mind.”
When we returned to the circular chamber that surrounded the lift, we found Chiraine at the LVX. She looked up as we approached and then backed away in shock.
We must have been quite a sight: me, Ana-Zhi, a hulking combat bot, and the little MJ-13 drone which had reconnected with us and was buzzing along happily at the Sean bot’s shoulder.
“Is that an Aanthangan clone bot?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “As far as we can tell, my father transferred his neural array into this bot, and… well, you tell her.”
“Hello, Chiraine.” The Sean bot extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m sure you have a million questions, but it appears we don’t have much time. Jannigan and Ana-Zhi filled me in on what was going on.”
Chiraine circled the Sean bot, studying him in disbelief. “I never thought I’d see one of these for real. Wait a minute, did you say this thing actually works?”
“Either Sean’s in there,” Ana-Zhi said. “Or it’s a damn-good simulation.”
Chiraine looked from the bot to my father’s human body, still in hibernation on the sled.
“As I said, there is a lot to explain,” the Sean bot said. “But now, we need to get to the shuttle.”
“You have a ship?” Chiraine asked.
“From what I heard, ‘ship’ is being generous,” Ana-Zhi said.
“It can’t be any worse than the heap we flew in on,” Chiraine said.
“This way, people,” the Sean bot said.
He led us back into the lift, explaining that the shuttle hangar was on level 16.
“Don’t we have to clear the zones of security bots?” Chiraine asked. She motioned at the LVX.
“So you’re the one who has been messing with my friends?” There was a smile in the Sean bot’s synthesized voice. “No, they won’t bother us. And, besides, 16 is mostly clear. I do have to make one detour, however.”
“Oh yeah?” Ana-Zhi asked.
“You said your mission was to recover the Kryrk.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But like I said, Yates stole it.”
“Whatever he stole, it wasn’t the Kryrk.”
“What are you talking about?”
As we rode up the lift, the Sean bot explained that over the past seven years, he had explored every nook, cranny, and vault of Bandala. He had found thousands of artifacts, including many—such as the Kryrk—that were on Beck Salvage’s “list” of notable artifacts.
“Are you serious?” Chiraine asked.
“Absolutely.”
“What else have you found?”
The Sean bot tilted his head in a very human way. “Lots of things. The Sun Chariot of Lacedon, Qedowa’s Gate, the Burned Star Scrolls…”
“You found the Burned Star Scrolls?” Chiraine asked incredulously.
“Yes, and the Map of the Seventh Star.”
“Where are they?”
“Safe,” the Sean bot said. “But not where they used to be. I switched them.”
“What are you talking about?” Ana-Zhi said.
“I knew that there would be more expeditions and I just wanted to make sure that Beck Salvage had a leg up. No one knows the actual location of these artifacts besides me.”
Now I had no doubt that the bot was my father. That’s exactly the sort of thing he would do if he had the opportunity.
We made a brief detour to level 10, and while the rest of us waited in the lift chamber, the Sean bot raced away on his errand with his little drone flying alongside him.
“This is the most insane thing I’ve ever seen,” Ana-Zhi said. “And I have seen some very weird shit.”
“I don’t know,” Chiraine said. “It makes perfect sense to me. Quite ingenious, if you think about it.”
I was still having a hard time processing this. I was happy and relieved that my father was alive, of course, but the idea that his consciousness was now in a clone bot was still hard to accept.
Chiraine turned to me. “Jannigan, how are you doing?”
“I don’t know. This whole thing seems impossible.” I pointed at the unconscious body of my father, stretched out in the sled. “This is my dad, I know that. That bot? I’m not so sure.”
“Actually,” Chiraine said, “they both can be your father. I’ve done quite a bit of research on the Aanthangan culture and military protocol. Do you know how these clone bots worked?”
“Vaguely.”
“The Aanthangans would take their top soldiers and copy their neural array into their combat bots. One soldier might be cloned, in a way, into a million bots. But the process wouldn’t affect the original. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it’s just weird.”
I don’t know why I had such an aversion to the technology. It obviously saved my father’s life. But seeing him made of
