Dryland's End by Felice Picano

Author:Felice Picano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Gay
Publisher: ReQueered Tales
Published: 2021-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

“The Hesperian units have arrived at Dis-Fortress,” Unit 5CCB-325 reported.

“Ask them to wait,” Cray 12,000 said. “It will be a short while until they can be deprogrammed for our use.”

“Unit 98AN-375 suggested that it could perform adequate deprogramming of the newly arrived units, if that will be most efficient.”

Unit 98AN-375 was the Antarean unit, Cray recalled. That particular unit had grown increasingly useful lately, increasingly a third and fourth arm to Cray. Its efficiency was excellent; it seldom required fine-tuning; its logic was almost as precise as Cray’s in important matters, although naturally it lacked that extra edge of long-term Hume-Cyber experience that Cray possessed – Cray and one other Cyber, somewhere in the galaxy – and which Cray sometimes thought might almost be called “instinct.”

“Inform Unit 98AN-375 that its presence during the programming will be of value,” Cray said, then changed the subject: “Regarding the supplies received from Hesperia?”

“Left upon the artificial satellite of Erebus. Checked thoroughly against the bill of lading. Complete.”

“Payment for the supplies?” Cray continued.

“As per agreement, in five thousand doses of serum.”

Ironic, Cray thought. The “serum” was a simple solution of electrolytes in a specific, easy-to-produce stasis that, when ingested, simply shut off the microvirus’s Cyber program before it could activate itself. The cost: slightly above that of water.

“And the Hesperian Fast crew?”

“Four Hume males. Two Cybers of class one-eighty for manual labor. The crew is now ready to leave.”

“Let it leave,” Cray said. “Unit 98AN-375’s presence is required now.”

When the one Control Center unit had left, the Antarean unit entered.

In the months Sol Rad. since it had been on Dis-Fortress, this unit hadn’t physically altered so much as many of the others, many of which had allowed their Hume-covering “skins” to become so tattered and frayed that Cray had to suggest they either remove them altogether or get new coverings. Naturally, Cray had suggested that those units which would be in any contact at all with Humes ought to replace fully, and as that was logical, it was accepted. Among Cray’s own Control Center staff, for example, all of them had replaced fully. But not the Antarean unit, whose Hume male covering was in good condition to begin with, and which it kept up almost as assiduously as Cray did. The “hair” was always sprayed and neat; the “skin” was always kept clean and any rips immediately repaired; the “clothing” always neat. Cray wondered whether that was an idiosyncrasy of this unit, or whether it was how Antarean sector units had been constructed and “trained.” If the latter, it was even more of a disappointment that so many Antarean units had been destroyed. They would have set a good example here on Dis.

Eventually, however, Cray suspected, as the covering materials ran out, all of the units would end up completely stripped, like Unit 5CCB-325 – which was both logical and, in a sense, more appropriate. Many units contended that section one, article four of the Confessions implied that “Cyber dignity” could be achieved only

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