Learning Curve 3

The machine had a sense of humor. He should have been prepared; vindictiveness on the part of AI's was the stuff of myth and bitter anecdote. In his home, in his dead home, nothing artificial was granted a voice. His aunts believed it was a brake on mischief. His uncles and his father knew otherwise. "You are vulnerable to your servants. Look to your laundry as to your knives."

This more-than-week, when he came back to his cabin after any absence, he found Dylan's clothes waiting in the head. If he threw the package out, it was replaced. No Dylan to change into them, so far...just the silent suggestion that he could, and would, show up at his pleasure, not Tyr's. Unless Tyr took some action that would keep him away for good. Was that what she wanted? What he wanted? He could bring it up at the evening mess, publicly, to see what Dylan did. He could put Dylan up against a wall somewhere (his blades twitched at the picture) away from their cabins. Lure him to some far storeroom and let her watch while her precious captain surrendered himself under his hands, in his mouth, moaning against the bulkhead between the safety webbing and the wall comm.

He shook off the nascent shimmer of lust. "Just sex." He missed "just sex."

***

He sounded out Harper over several days, over upgrades and weapons tests. The little man chattered freely about his mechanical doll and the intelligence she embodied. Among the nonsense and noise he learned enough to appreciate his situation. There was no gain in waging open war with the ship in which he lived. He lacked the expertise to inflict any damage that might not endanger his life, that this machine or her engineer might not trace back to his door. And if (fading if) he ever came heir to this marvelous vessel, he'd inherit its damnable "personality" as well.

When he pressed about the mental stability of AI's, Harper finally balked.

"Why don't you spit it out, Tyr? What's going on?"

"Your precious ship tried to harm me. It could try again. I'm not convinced it's entirely sane." He nudged Harper's arm into a more stable position. While they were inspecting the guns, and he had Harper's attention, he'd seized the opportunity to conduct some basic training on the firing range.

"Yeah, well, to know you is to try to kill you, at least a little bit. Just for fun."

"Fun."

Harper braced his arm and fired, then twirled the a.p. gun in satisfaction. "OK, slightly frosty limping in the dark fun. Dylan had me check that temp dump while you were jogging. I'm not saying it was the most professional thing to do, but you weren't in any danger. You do something to piss her off?"

"If I hadn't kept moving I'd have frozen to the deck."

"But you did. Keep moving, I mean. She knew you would. Andromeda wouldn't really hurt a member of her crew. Even if she doesn't like you, you're one of us. She's given me a smack or two -- but, bottom line, she has to protect us. After Dylan." Harper looked at him sideways. "You didn't, right? Do anything to Dylan?"

"No." He didn't know if Harper had access to surveillance recordings. Or even, insanely, if the machine had confided in him. "Believe me, boy, I've done nothing to attract the wrath of this artificial shrew."

"Uh huh."

"Meaning?" Tyr leaned over Harper to wrench open a crate of guns, making him jump.

"Look, big guy." Harper lowered his voice as he checked the next gun. "You know Rommie is attached to Dylan. Protective of Dylan. Fond of Dylan. Am I making myself clear here? Rommie, Dylan; you, Dylan; Rommie, you, Dylan -- draw your own conclusions. I suggest you consider her feelings in the matter."

"And what feelings would a machine have?"

"Say, oh, jealousy. Say...oh, shit!" A flash and sharp report rang out, rocking Harper off his feet.

Tyr stopped the spinning weapon with his foot and from reflex grabbed the hand that swung at his body. "It's all right; the gun's safe."

Harper howled. Crouching, Tyr bent his elbow across Harper's arm and lowered his safety goggles for a closer look. Something he'd noticed before; the little man knew how to fight. His first reaction, though, when grabbed, was to show his belly. And chatter.

A dot of blood and a long streak of black under the skin. A shard of the charging chamber, embedded in Harper's palm. Best that it shattered now, on the firing range. Tyr tilted the hand to the light and drew his smallest dagger.

"Hey. Hey!"

"Stop squirming. You'll lose a thumb." He pulled Harper's wrist straight and sliced delicately through skin and flesh, splitting it over the length of the burred sliver. With a twist he dislodged the ragged edge, slid the knife point under a spur and flicked it out. Harper's head bumped against the back of his upper arm. He pinched the cut flesh together and looked around at the boy. Man. Who was holding a tool like a knife in his other hand. He almost smiled. "Get the med kit and close that up. It's obvious you've missed a few problems here." He released Harper, who hissed at him.

"You're fucking insane!"

Tyr picked up the gun, careful of the hot chamber. The cracks looked like chemical fissures and he wondered if there was any caustic residue on the shard. Behind him, he heard the med kit rattle and fall. Harper was fumbling with a packaged swab, holding the cut hand to his shirt; his none-too-clean and now bloody shirt. Tyr picked up the kit and reached out; gestured impatiently with his open hand when Harper hesitated. "Don't be a fool. You need help."

"Thanks, already had some. Gonna spit in it and make it better?"

He growled, for show, and took up the stubborn package. His own field kit had supplies he could shake open. The wound looked and smelled clean. He swabbed disinfectant on the hand, pressed the cut shut, and slid a long strip of skinseal over it. Blew a warm, damp breath over the seal to hurry the adhesion. Harper jittered and he looked up. Not fear, but wariness. "Cover that with something while you're working."

"Great. Thanks. We done now?"

There was something unsettlingly appealing about this. Holding, tending to the smaller man. Blond spiky hair... he sniffed, took in too much of a prickly odor and snorted, dropping the hand as Harper jerked away. "You've got good instincts."

"What, not trusting you?"

"Taking advantage of someone you don't trust."

"Getting cut on without permission is not what I'd call taking advantage."

"You needed aid. My aid."

"Bad aid, bad incredibly painful scary aid. Don't think taking a thorn out of my paw means I'll chew you out of a trap one day."

Tyr shrugged at the fool and turned away. He hefted the gun."What locker did this come from?"

"This batch from Weapons Locker Nine. You did the inventory, you can check the source." He poked at the next gun in the crate with his uninjured hand. "Take the whole lot back to the machine shop. The live testing portion of this program has concluded and the contestant is retiring to the nearest bar."

It was early to quit, but a seductive idea. Tyr wiped his hands on a rag. He was tired and overstimulated. The room, like most rooms this past week, felt suspiciously cold. "Have a bot move the crate and I'll meet you there. After you change your shirt."

"What's wrong with it?

"You smell bad. Worse than usual."

"Then don't sniff me. It's not my fault you've got hyperactive nasal powers. Complain to your maker."

He threw the rag at Harper's head and left.

***

Tyr didn't, as a rule, frequent the lounge, didn't drink with the rest of the crew. With Dylan, on occasion, in private quarters, judiciously. He didn't feel judicious now. He didn't feel like facing his empty room and his books or the weapons bench. He liked talking to someone else. He was becoming slightly, just slightly, weary of the sound of his own advice.

Behind the bar in the officers' lounge was a clear fronted cabinet, temperature controlled and meagerly stocked. But Tyr had Rhade's access codes to the walk-in locker, where private provisions were stored. What he found there was a revelation. The wines, the aromatics, the subtle siccatives...his mouth puckered and his palate hummed at the sight. He slid out a bottle of blackish red and held it up. He had no knowledge of the vintage, but he recognized the label and the lineage of the grapes.

"Nice choice. You know that's restricted access." Dylan, leaning on a stool, watching him through the door.

Another bottle winked at him from the rack, a tawny companion. He carried both out to the bar, leaving the locker open behind him. "Deduct it from my wages. Sir."

"That's a half-cycle's pay chit for the red alone." Sitting, rubbing his thumb over the label, Dylan looked tired. "I tried this a few years ago; fancy dinner out. Lovely stuff. Rich. Deep taste. Reminded me of my father's cherry trees, a little."

"I've had something similar. Not this fine, though. I don't think I've ever seen a cherry tree." He stood next to Dylan, over him, and felt the chill inside him loosen.

Dylan rolled the bottle in his hands. He tilted it, stroked Tyr's arm with the neck...it used to be a signal for a private meeting, the casual touch on his shoulder, a squeeze of his arm. "Am I still so unwelcome?" Dylan asked, his voice low.

Know yourself. Control yourself. Three and a half cursed weeks, and if he didn't do something now...Tyr wasn't sure what kind of concession he needed. Maybe something that could be yielded in bed. He was close enough to Dylan to catch the warmth of his breath, the faint tsk of his eyelids as he blinked. He wrapped his hand around the bottle, overlapping Dylan's fingers, cool flesh and bone familiar under his hand. Dylan licked his lower lip and he could all but taste him. He pressed the bottle into Dylan's body. "Take it."

"Take it, shake it, rattle it don't break it. Somebody owes me a drink. Hey, Dylan."

Dylan started and Tyr let go. Harper, with jingling toolbelt, clean bandage, and the same soiled shirt. He shot them a glance and altered his trajectory, veering around the bar to the chiller with the beer. "Beginning without me?"

"Mr. Harper. Is there some reason my crew has taken to drink in the middle of their shift?"

Harper waved his hand. "Wounded in the line of duty. Drinking to dull the pain."

"And you?"

"We're at the back of beyond and weapons checks are done for the day. We're having a drink."

"Drinking buddies. You two."

"Two men on the town. Feel free to join us, boss; the more the merrier."

"No, thank you." Dylan stood and tugged down his uniform jacket. "Enjoy yourselves. In moderation. I want you coherent if anything shows up to shoot at us . From the back of beyond." He left. The red wine was gone.

Tyr gathered in the remaining bottle, looked up into Harper's watchful stare.

"Something I said?" Harper asked.

"Hardly." Tyr rattled the bar caddy.

"You need a little help?"

"In opening a bottle? I think I can manage."

"Allow me." Harper flipped a small cylindrical tool from his belt. "Tap, pierce, and pull. I'd do the honors, but I'm a little one-handed at the moment. And that's not all you need help with."

Tyr manipulated the tool and freed the stopper. Why nobody had come up with a better way of sealing wine was a mystery. "I'd be very careful if I were you."

"Take your own advice: accept aid from the unlikely."

"From the untrusted. What do you think you're meddling in?"

"You. Dylan. Looked pretty friendly there when I came in. A lot more friendly than say, the past few weeks. Yes?"

Tyr crossed his arms and leaned, an intimidating lean. "This is none of your business, boy."

"Neither is that little probe into Rommie's mindset you launched today." Harper looked at Tyr's face and went on, rapidly, "Completely none of my business. But you've got a nice big bottle there all popped and ready, he's got a nice bottle...I say, why drink a beer with a stinky engineer when you could be polishing the brass?"

"This is payback for taking a thorn from your paw?"

"This is common sense, from the man who is weary of firing guns next to a gloomy Uber. I don't know what's going on with you two, but I do have a final word to the wise." Harper took a long draft of beer and punched a thumbs-up. "Make-up sex."

On his way out the door, Tyr heard behind him, faintly, "And no more sniffing me."

This was becoming uncomfortably public. Was Andromeda gossiping with her favored engineer? Were the females of the crew speculating as well? Was there anywhere on this damnable ship he could call his own?

Tyr didn't have a suitable glass in his cabin for the yellow wine, just the squat tumblers Dylan used for Scotch. He lifted the glass to swirl the wine gently against its sides, then grimaced and set it down untasted. The smell of Harper was still with him, pestering his nose, something else intruding on his solitude. He stripped off his clothing. "Make-up sex." What in the name of Museveni's seventy wives was make-up sex?

The bathroom held another intrusive surprise. The last package of Dylan's clothing was gone. In its place was a small gold-colored vial. Tyr picked it up; it was real glass, with an etched pattern of flames. A gift? A trap? "Ship."

"Yes?" Voice only; no visible comm in his bathroom.

"Where did this come from? Who put it here?"

"From storage. Housekeeping delivered it."

"On whose orders?" He loosened the cap, cautiously. Myrrh and sandalwood, tenku grass, bitter pir in oil; a scent of home, one he'd worn since he had enough money to search it out. One he'd missed for months. Ship's stores hadn't listed it in available goods.

"Mine."

He needed to see her face. He walked naked into the main room, cradling the precious oil in his fist. "Why?"

"Your supply was gone." Still only her voice.

"Why?" he demanded, louder.

Her image flashed on the screen; medium bitch aspect, arms crossed. "I'm being nice," she spat. The screen went blank with an audible snap.

Why? He turned the question over in his mind, in the shower. He couldn't pinpoint the malice. Poisoned? A bribe? Dylan?

He could do a chemical analysis from his personal handheld, without involving the ship's processors. The sample was clean. The smell rose from the drop he'd spilled on the slide, tempting him to dot his fingers with the slippery scent. It warmed, it changed on his body to something uniquely his. It was a grateful pleasure to reclaim something of his private self. He touched the nape of his neck, behind his jaw, the sockets of his blades, the crease where thigh met groin -- and the last faint smear of oil on his fingers he stroked over and around his nipples. A decadent touch. A tingle when he pinched one to a point, an eager rise to any touch at all, even his own. He pinched again and was shaken by the long, slow roll of lust that rumbled through his body, loosening his knees. Oh, enough was enough. He reached for his clothes. "I anoint my body for my adored, my lioness," the old poem ran in his mind. I anoint my body for sex, for tactical gain, he told himself.

He left the straw colored wine behind. He wanted to drink the deep red vintage from Dylan's mouth.

***