Chapter 3: Balthazar

Aurora could see the same suspicion, that she felt at the tinner's agreement, on the president's face.

"During a visit last month to the hearing-impaired school in upstate New York, you used sign language."

"You want to communicate with sign language during those once a week calls?" It sounded like a plan that could get her killed or tortured. "The aliens are clever enough to build spaceships and travel to Earth from who knows how many miles away. Sign language won't fool them." She shook her head. "They won't fall for it."

"We do not have a choice. My first lesson starts tomorrow. Be very careful, just chat normally a few times before you start reporting. Let them relax their vigilance, start to trust you." The president smiled, a grim satisfied smile, his campaign smile. "We may yet prevail."

If he thought that smile reassured her, he was very much mistaken. She'd dealt with politicians in her duties as grand master of the Phoenix Foundation. No, he didn't fool her at all. At this stage, he'd sacrifice his own mother if it meant finding a weapon against the tinners.

"How soon do I need to go?"

"He's coming for you in the next few minutes."

Aurora stood and started for the door, her legs trying to take her to safety. Again, that roaring in her ears deafened her. She clenched her trembling hands into tight fists and forced back the urge to flee. She turned around on trembling legs and faced the pity in the president's eyes. Coming from the man willing to sacrifice her, she didn't appreciate it. At all. "I have to let my assistant know."

"Already done."

She couldn't do this.

Aurora took several deep breaths and returned to her chair, trying not to look as if her shaking knees would give way under her at any moment.

She had to do this.

Balthazar stood on the observation deck of the Rising Sun. The Tunrians had called the ship 7XXX54m, but after he and his cyborgs stole it, he'd named it. He traced the outline of the number embedded in his temple under his skin. The Tunrians never named their machines. But although they might not have named him, either, he was not a machine.

A slight buzzing in his veins signaled that his palm-sized ryhov - what the humans called a tattoo - was moving to cover his chest. Why did the Tunrians' God's gift him with the remnants of ryhov? He bared his teeth at his reflection. His ryhov might be small and without blue, but it had horrified the Tunrians that their machine, their slave, had one. None of the other cyborgs had ryhov. It had saved them from slaughter.

Far below him, the human planet sparkled blue, like a giant soul. He held out his cupped hands until it appeared as if he held the planet in his palms. Earth, rich in water and minerals, inhabited by a race called humans. They may not have ryhov, but the Humans had strict laws against the creation of cyborgs or any form of artificial life. Their prejudice sickened him.

Would she, the woman who moved like the finest Tunrian music, look at him with loathing? He placed his fist against the wall, and the ship sent him soothing pulses. Trying to calm his rage? Did it accept him, sense a soul in him? The ship was as much organic and sentient as it was machine. Balthazar's pulse sped up, and he had to regulate his heart. Did Bunrika tell him the truth all those years ago? Would the human woman give him his soul?

Every day when he came to the observation desk, he activated the file. In it, his human ran toward the street, pushing other humans out of the way. With her hair coming loose and streaming behind her, she grabbed the short male seconds before the vehicle that would've hit him sped past. Balthazar's body came alive. His ryhov moved faster, rushing between his heart and his groin. His blood pumped through his veins with lightheaded speed. His penis, that had been dormant for decades, stood to attention. His heartbeat sped up again and, this time, he failed to regulate it. His ryhov moved to his groin, and Balthazar planted his palm against the wall to support his weight.

He pressed play.

And again.

"General," Nebuchadnezzar said from behind him.

"Report," Balthazar said. Programming his Bunrika technology with command knowledge had been easy. Commanding four understaffed spaceships and taking responsibility for seventy cyborgs was a challenge.

"We have an anomaly in the cryo chamber, General," Nebuchadnezzar said.

"You don't have to call me general."

The two of them had started the cyborg rebellion and escaped in the Tunrians' brand new spaceships.

Nebuchadnezzar simply waited.

Suppressing a sigh, Balthazar asked, "What kind of anomaly?"

"Amelagar reported a discrepancy in the oxygen used in the cryo chamber. He ran several diagnostics, but it shows the same anomaly every time."

"Find the reason for the anomaly."

They couldn't afford any leaks in the hull. The humans were resourceful. It was only a matter of time before they built weapons that could reach the Rising Sun and the other ships. Balthazar had to ensure his ship functioned at optimum efficiency at all times. The safety of his cyborgs rested with him.

"Amelagar will solve the problem," Nebuchadnezzar said.

"Keep me updated."

"Yes, General." Nebuchadnezzar stiffened and stared at Balthazar's neck. "Your ryhov is bigger."

"Zero point two millimeters," Balthazar agreed.

"Because you found your human?"

The humans were technologically advanced, but millions of years behind the Tunrian civilization. The ship Balthazar used to command the fleet of four ships could house a thousand families. Only seventy cyborgs managed to escape. It took all of them, working triple shifts, to keep the ships running at minimal levels. "We need more people to run the ships," he said, ignoring Nebuchadnezzar's question.

"Maybe we should've kept some of the Tunrians alive," Nebuchadnezzar said.

"They would have become too big a problem in the end. They would never have accepted our dominance." No Tunrian would accept commands from a soulless cyborg.

Far beneath him, Earth sparkled blue like the pebbles in a riverbed on Tunria. Today he didn't marvel at how blue and water-blessed Earth was. A human nature program he'd seen kept coming into his mind. As part of an experiment to see if a wasp's actions were by choice or mindless instinct, a human had moved a worm, meant as a food source for the wasp's hatched eggs. The image of the mindless way the wasp kept moving back the worm and rechecking its lair wouldn't leave him alone. Did the wasp think? Was it capable of acting outside its programming?

"We could convert some of the humans into drones," Nebuchadnezzar said.

Balthazar clasped the safety rail against the hull. He had a memory of the time shortly after Bunrika brought him online. The metal beneath his hands screamed as it bent, and he eased his grip. Maybe it was merely stored data, but it felt like a memory. A memory of hitting a wall and walking mindlessly in place, not having enough sentience to realize he should turn in another direction in order to continue. Bunrika, his creator, swore viciously at him, calling him a worthless, mindless machine. Sometimes at night, Balthazar woke, convinced he was still walking mindlessly into that wall.