The Corporation Wars_Dissidence by Ken MacLeod

Author:Ken MacLeod [MacLeod, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Science Fiction / Action &#38, adventure, Fiction / Science Fiction / Military, FICTION / Science Fiction / Space Opera
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2016-05-09T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Arcane Disputes

Carlos woke on the bus from the spaceport. This time, the dream he seemed to wake from was of his return from orbit: the spaceplane gliding in for hundreds of kilometres, forests and mountains flashing by below, and the long shallow approach to the runway. Going down the twenty steps to the concrete, up the three steps on to the bus, taking his seat and dozing off. He had no memory of the real journey other than the short burn to orbital rendezvous—they’d been unceremoniously flicked to sleep mode as soon as they’d clamped to the tug.

He looked around. Again the same crowded minibus. The others were dispersed among the passengers. Like him, they were just waking up and looking around. He smiled and nodded as heads turned. The view outside was the rock-lined, rutted, dusty road he remembered. There was no kitbag between his feet. What was new was how he felt. His body and mind seemed sluggish, his muscles feeble, his senses dull. After being connected again, just like he’d been in his first life, the return to isolation in his own head jarred. He missed the wireless chatter, locational awareness as direct as proprioception, the new sharp senses. He wondered if the others did, too, and realised with another pang that he couldn’t just message them. Without radio telepathy, he’d have to wait to ask.

A moment later he discovered what else was new. As the fighters jolted awake the other passengers noticed, and welcomed them with smiles and claps on the back. The woman jammed in the seat beside him looked as if she wanted to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“Welcome back!” she said. “Well done!”

It took Carlos a moment to realise she was speaking her own language, the local language. So was everyone else. Carlos found he could understand the whole joyful hubbub of praise and congratulations coming his comrades’ way, and he could see they understood, too. They must have acquired the language while they were robots in space. His best guess as to why they hadn’t arrived with the skill already implanted was that conversing with locals before their first briefing from Nicole would have been confusing, and there had been no way to plausibly give them the ability within the sim. A more troubling, because puzzling, possibility was that the language might in future be of use to them in space.

“Thank you,” he said, in the same language. “We didn’t exactly cover ourselves in glory, I have to admit.”

“Oh, but you did!” said the woman. “You fought the evil robots so bravely!”

Carlos decided not to debate the matter further. “Well…”

“Yes, yes, no need to be modest. Here, have this.”

She reached into the big cloth bag between her feet and pulled out a fruit that looked like a kumquat.

“Thank you.” Carlos bit into the yellow waxy skin and found the inside soft and sweet, with a sherbet fizz in the mouth. The juice miraculously didn’t drip on his hand, but the flesh almost liquefied when he chewed it.

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