Chapter 4: Abominations without souls

What was he? He tightened his hold on the railing installed along the hull of the ship. When he saw her, the human woman with the shiny dark hair, his body had reacted. He'd experienced a strange tingling in his circuits. His organic matter reacted as well. His blood flowed faster through his organic veins whenever he looked at the recording of her - the human woman with the long dresses and the beautiful hair. Did his reaction to her make him a person? Would she give him a soul, like Bunrika said would happen? Balthazar had to find out.

"If we make them drones, we would be the same as Bunrika." The betrayal of their creator would always haunt Balthazar. He couldn't allow himself to be as evil as Bunrika.

They were not that desperate yet.

Nebuchadnezzar came to stand next to him and stared down at the planet sparkling below them. "It could almost be Tunria. Even the continents are similarly shaped."

"They have a brutal history that rivals that of the Tunrian dark era. And yet they pray."

"I have tried to pray," Nebuchadnezzar said.

"Do you feel different? Are you developing a soul?" Even while Balthazar denied the need for a soul to himself, he thought of the way his body reacted to his woman running to save the short human.

"No, maybe it only works for full organics with souls," Nebuchadnezzar said.

"That is what they would like us to believe." Balthazar walked to the door. "I am going to collect my human now. After I have studied her, I will understand the illogical concepts better." The feeling going through his organics might be excitement. It was one of the emotions he'd researched.

"Do you think Bunrika told the truth? That a human mate will give us souls? Maybe they don't have souls. They don't have ryhov."

Balthazar heard the longing in his friend's voice. He and the others thought themselves lacking because they didn't even have a small piece of ryhov like Balthazar.

"I will make her show me her soul." Balthazar had his doubts about Bunrika's promise of souls if they found a human mate. The logic was flawed. Where would this soul come from?

"Do you suppose we'll share our human's soul?" Nebuchadnezzar asked.

"I will find out when I have my human."

"The humans are going to hand her over?"

"Yes."

Balthazar flexed his hand and stared down at it. It was the shape of a Tunrian's hand with a thumb and three fingers, but larger than a Tunrian's. His body was also much bigger, his skeleton made of a strong alloy, with built in weapons only Bunrika, the creator of the Cyborg program, knew about. Would his human think it a person's hand? Would she be willing to share her soul with a cyborg without blue in his ryhov, with only a small ryhov covering his body? "The humans say we are machines," he said. "They call us tinners."

Nebuchadnezzar fell into step next to him.

"We will force their respect," Balthazar continued.

"That high priest on Tunria said we are abominations because we have no souls and were not created by their God," Nebuchadnezzar said. Of all Balthazar's cyborgs, Nebuchadnezzar obsessed about their lack of blue ryhov, their lack of a soul, the most. He'd been reading human religious works, comparing it to that of the Tunrians. "Most Tunrians are copies of their former selves, so I don't see how they could claim to be created by their elusive God," he continued.

"I heard Bunrika talk about it to the ruling twelve. Their cloning technology failed them."

They'd started cloning themselves nine hundred Tunrian years ago, at that time no longer having natural children.

"Is that why he created us?"

"No, he was instructed to create us to repress the naturals." That was what the Tunrians called the few Tunrians who refused to clone themselves and reproduced through sex. Balthazar suspected they were created for more than that. Bunrika had feared a powerful enemy.

They turned toward the launch bay, Nebuchadnezzar keeping pace with him, their footsteps echoing metallically on the deck.

"Why did he want us to find souls?"

"I do not know." Balthazar had never told the others that their maker had betrayed them. They needed to believe that Bunrika helped them. Nobody should live with the knowledge that their creator ordered their annihilation.

Balthazar and Nebuchadnezzar turned into the corridor leading to the launch bay.

"Monitor the humans while I collect her," Balthazar said. "If they try anything, bomb the area I sent you. Do not harm my human."

Balthazar believed the feeling he had that day when they escaped with the Tunrian ships was euphoria. When he'd watched Aurora run, he'd come close to that feeling. He rarely felt anything. That was until he saw his human.

He moved to the door, Nebuchadnezzar by his side. It was time to claim her and study her. Find out if she could give him a soul.