Andromeda’s Choice by William C. Dietz Read Free Book Online Page B

Royer’s face and was careful to hide the sense of satisfaction she felt. She could tell that possibility hadn’t occurred to him.
    â€œYes,” Royer said, as he looked around. “Good point. I’m glad to see that you understand how dangerous your situation is.”
    They weren’t talking about
her
situation—but McKee allowed him to save face. “I suggest we meet in your suite,” McKee said, as she forced her eyes into direct contact with his. “Then we’ll have the privacy we need.”
    Royer’s perfectly shaped eyebrows rose slightly. “Good idea. That would be more discreet. Six o’clock. I’ll see you then.”
    With that, Royer came to his feet and left. McKee felt sick to her stomach as he walked away. Slowly, with all the dignity she could muster, she left the table and made her way to the ladies’ room. Then she threw up.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    Over the last few months, McKee had become something of an expert at dealing with fear and learned how to function in spite of it. And now, having returned to her cabin, she was determined to carry on in spite of what felt like an abyss at the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t going to submit, and she wasn’t going to commit suicide. No, she was going to solve the problem the way a good soldier would. She was going to kill it. The key was to create a really good plan. And to carry it out without any mistakes.
    Royer had a number of advantages going for him, including the fact that he was bigger, stronger, and could rat her out.
But,
McKee told herself,
I’m a combat veteran, I’m smarter than he thinks I am, and I know a lot about cybernetics. Which is closely related to the science of robotics. And that’s going to save my ass. I hope.
    Having given herself a pep talk, McKee went to work. The first step was to empty the B-1 bag on the bed. The items she was looking for fell out last. That included the razor-sharp Droi hunting knife that a chieftain named Insa had given her. It had a curved, hand-forged blade and was protected by a wooden sheath.
    Next was a pair of Class A cybergloves of the sort techs used to perform maintenance on the Legion’s cyborgs. McKee wasn’t a certified tech but knew more than they did, having earned a degree in cybernetics and grown up in a family famous for manufacturing cyber forms. And, having “borrowed” the gloves on Orlo II, she still had them.
    Last, but not least, was a roll of the highly specialized tools that techs used to make repairs or install new components. Something else she had acquired without submitting a requisition.
    Once the nonessential items had been returned to storage, McKee slid into the chair that was positioned in front of the cabin’s terminal. A few clicks were sufficient to summon a housekeeping robot. It arrived a few minutes later and announced itself by ringing the doorbell. McKee took a deep breath. The next few minutes would be critical. If she screwed up, the ship’s security people would be all over her, Royer would rat her out, and she’d be dead within days of landing on Earth.
    She opened the door to greet one of the ship’s nearly identical androids. It was wearing a pillbox hat, fancy waist-length jacket, and neatly creased trousers. “Good afternoon, Miss. My name is George. How can I help?”
    The space was tight, but Cat managed to step out of the way. “I dropped my hairbrush on the floor, and I want you to pick it up.” A human might have balked at such a trivial request, but George entered the room without hesitation.
    Even though humans had created robots and put them to work throughout the empire, they feared them as well. And that included domestic droids like George—never mind the high-order synths that Ophelia liked to use as assassins.
    So various safeguards had been put in place. They ranged from a planetwide shutdown of all Artificial Life