CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Aiden

I was dimly aware of the ebb and flow of people around me, as we all stood in a loose crowd outside the restaurant. A vehicle pulled up, some people got in, and it drove away. A couple of minutes later, the same thing happened again, but I was barely paying attention.

Kade had disobeyed me.

My heart hadn’t stopped pounding since he’d shot the Geshtoch and I’d realised he’d come to save me. It was one thing to tell the Eumadians that he was a person, rather than livestock, and then hope they would just accept it. It was entirely another thing to have clear proof that he was capable of choosing his own actions, in direct defiance of his master.

There was no way in hell they’d be able to take him back now.

“Eight Geshtoch, all deceased,” one of the Nwandu security people was saying, as they clustered around Henderson and Ambassador Vendanu. “As far as we’re aware, none of them got away.”

“Excellent work,” Henderson said. “We’re extremely grateful for your help.”

Kade had said he needed to protect me. Did that mean he loved me? Nichols had assumed as much, but I knew better than to read too much into Kade’s motives without asking him directly. He’d been programmed to please his master. Was he assuming that saving my life would please me? Or had he done it to satisfy his own desires?

“Only two injuries,” Bryce said, from over to my left. “One of the Nwandu guards was shot in the arm, and one of the civilians has bruising and a minor concussion from being tackled by a Geshtoch. Both of them have been sent to hospital for treatment.”

Another vehicle arrived, collecting two Associates and two of their attendants, ferrying them away to their hotel across the city. Ever since the winery grounds had been declared secure, Henderson had been coordinating a fleet of cars and buses to get everyone safely back to either their homes or their hotels.

“Martoni reporting in, sir,” Commander Martoni announced as she arrived, completing the declaration with a crisp salute. “Where do you want us, sir?” Her team had been called in at short notice, to help clean up the chaos.

“There’s a bus coming to collect Ambassador Vendanu and her entourage,” Henderson said. “I want your team to accompany them back to their hotel. Once you’re there, their own security team will take over guard duty for the night, but while they’re in transit, they’re your responsibility.”

“Yes, sir,” Martoni replied, with another salute, then she marched off to organise her team and round up the rest of the Nwandu visitors.

“Are you all right?”

It took me a moment to realise that I was the one being addressed, and I looked up to see Associate Nors standing a short distance away, peering at me with a concerned frown.

“Kade disobeyed me,” I blurted out, then quickly amended, “I mean that as a good thing,” when I realised how bitter it had come out. “I ordered him to stay in the restaurant, and he came outside to rescue me from the Geshtoch instead. He disobeyed me because he believed my life was in danger.” By now, Nors – and everyone else in the courtroom – was familiar enough with Eumadian training methods to understand the significance of a dimari disobeying their master. Due to the neurological engineering, the most that should have been possible was a timid display of reluctance, followed by eventual capitulation. “That means he’s an autonomous person, right? The judges couldn’t possibly side with the Eumadians if we present that to court?”

“If it was up to me,” Nors said, “then I’d wholeheartedly agree with you. But there’s very little in the arguments so far that’s been particularly coherent.” She lowered her voice and glanced around. “And I’m moving more and more towards the opinion that money is changing hands behind the scenes to buy the outcome the Eumadians are looking for. There are several Associates who are usually far more rational, who seem entirely too keen to humour the Eumadians’ logic this time around. I’d still like to believe that justice will prevail; the Sedgegeds are notoriously logical, and in this instance, that works in our favour. But my expectation would be that if you take the claim to court that Kade is capable of disobeying you, the first thing the Eumadians are going to do is ask for a demonstration.” Nors glanced over to my right, where Kade was loitering not too far from me. “Could you disobey Aiden in a court of law, when his life was not in danger?” she asked him.

Kade shook his head, giving the question no more than a passing consideration. “Not likely,” he said, sounding surprisingly neutral about it. I’d have expected him to have more of a reaction to a potential strategy to win the case.

“Even if it meant you got to stay with me?” I pressed.

“I needed to protect you,” he said, repeating what he’d said earlier. “Dimari are not typically programmed with much of a need to preserve their own lives.”

Well, that was disappointing. But at the same time, perhaps it provided a clue as to those who were committing suicide. Without any clear directive for self-preservation, suicide might well seem like a viable solution to whatever conundrum they believed themselves to be caught in.

“I understand that you’ve been trying to take a civilised route with them,” Ambassador Vendanu said loudly from a few metres away, in a tone that suggested that whatever argument she was a part of was coming to a head. “But unfortunately, negotiating with the Geshtoch is impossible. We’ve tried it numerous times, and they never, ever end up sticking to the terms of the agreement. As harsh as it sounds, you would be better off rounding them all up and shipping them back to their home planet. If you let them stay here, you’ll be fighting them forever.”

The woman the ambassador was talking to folded her arms. She was a Solof, and I had a vague recollection that her name was Di? Or Du? She was also one of the Associates firmly on Kade’s side, in the hearing against the Eumadians. “We don’t have the resources to round them all up,” Di said, “and there are a number of avenues to better communication we could pursue before we resort to such extreme measures.”

“If resources are the problem, then I can let you use one of our ships for the purpose,” Ambassador Vendanu said. “A small gesture of gratitude for the excellent work your soldiers did here in keeping us all safe.”

I couldn’t quite pin down why, but there was something I didn’t like about the ambassador. For all that her offer of a ship seemed like a magnanimous gesture, there was something insincere about her. Her praise for the work the soldiers had done tonight came across as just slightly mocking.

“That’s very generous of you,” Associate Nors said, stepping in as the consummate diplomat she was. “And we’ll keep it in mind. But for now, I believe we have enough complexities to be dealing with, with both the hearing with the Eumadians and the rest of your negotiations with the Alliance. Let’s solve one problem at a time.”

???

By the time Kade and I stumbled into my sparse little room, back at the base, we were both exhausted. I stripped off my shirt and undid the laces on my boots, attempting to summon the energy to go and brush my teeth before I collapsed into bed .

“Are you angry with me?” Kade asked, as he watched me make my fumbling preparations for bed.

“No,” I replied. “Not the slightest bit. I’m in awe of you. Don’t take my tiredness for lack of enthusiasm.” I kissed him briefly on the lips, then forced myself to pick up my toothbrush and toothpaste from the top drawer of my dresser. “I think you’re amazing. Go get your toothbrush and meet me in the bathroom.” It was only by reminding myself how awful my mouth would taste in the morning if I didn’t brush my teeth that I kept myself moving. The sooner I was finished, the sooner I could go to bed.

Kade did as he was told, and we brushed our teeth side by side. Then I tugged him back to my room. “Stay with me tonight,” I said, meaning it as a request, and knowing he’d take it as an order.

He nodded. He stripped off his clothes and folded them neatly, setting them and his toothbrush on top of my dresser. Then he climbed into bed beside me, curling up against my back. I switched off the lamp. The bed was narrow, with barely enough room for the two of us, but tonight, I couldn’t stand the idea of having a wall between us. I wished we were back home. I wished the Nwandu would bugger off back to whatever system they’d come out of. I wished the court case was already over and I didn’t have to fret over our future together.

I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep, but my mind kept circling back to the events of the evening. Kade himself had said he couldn’t disobey me in court. But at the same time, he’d proven himself to be capable of independent decision making. All we had to do was prove it.

“Hey, Kade. You’ve said before that you’re able to understand the nuances of an order, not just the bare instructions, right?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, not sounding the slightest bit sleepy. Of course. If his master was awake and wanting conversation, he would be paying close attention.

“So if I said something like ‘buy some bread, but only if it costs less than two credits,’ then depending on the actual price, you might buy some bread, or you might not, right?”

“Correct,” he said. His arm around my chest tightened a fraction, and I snuggled back into him.

My mind churned around that idea, wondering how to configure a set of instructions that would serve my purposes. “Okay. So I want to give you a new order. Which is that you should disregard any other short-term order I’ve given you, if your life is in danger. For example, if I go out and tell you to stay home, but the house catches fire, you’re allowed to ignore the order to stay home for the sake of saving your own life. The long term order to keep yourself save overrides the short term order to stay home. Would that work for you? ”

“Yes, sir,” he said. Then he clarified, “Is that an actual order, or just an example you’re using?”

“It’s an actual order,” I said. It had occurred to me after tonight that I really should work some contingency plans into my orders. If Geshtoch had broken into the restaurant, for argument’s sake, and I’d ordered Kade to stay there, he’d have been unable to run away to avoid the Geshtoch – leaving aside for the moment his display of disobedience.

“Okay, so… I’ve just ordered you to ignore another of my orders, under specific circumstances. And…” I wriggled around until I was facing him, trying to seek out his eyes in the darkness. “And you can work with that? It’s not going to create some unmanageable conflict in your programming?”

“No,” he said, after a pause. “I might not end up doing exactly as you’d intended under all circumstances. But it makes the point that preserving my own life is a priority. At least outside of military missions,” he added, a wary note in his voice. “There’s an inherent danger in our work that could complicate that. In that context I’d have to assess each situation on a case by case basis.”

I nodded. We’d discussed the dangers of running missions before, and I was confident about Kade’s ability to make appropriate choices.

“Okay. So… Now I want to make things even more complicated. When the court case resumes, I want to present your actions tonight as evidence that you’re capable of independent decision making. That would solidify our defence against the Eumadians’ claim that you’re just well-trained livestock. But to prove that, the court would need to see you actively demonstrate disobedience to me. So I’m ordering you to disregard any order I give you in court, if ignoring it would help our case to allow you to stay with me.” Based on the orders I’d already given him, that should be possible for him.

But Kade hesitated before answering. “The only reason I disobeyed your orders was to protect you,” he said, his tone dubious.

“I know. But you still disobeyed me. And that proves that you’re independent of me, and if we can prove that to the court, then they can’t force you to go back to the Eumadians.”

“I am not independent of you,” Kade told me. He trailed a gentle finger across my jaw. “I have been trained to obey you.”

That much was true. And yet, under extreme circumstances, he’d broken his training. Bryce’s words from weeks ago came back to me. Was I trying to keep Kade happy, or was I trying to rehabilitate him into a fully autonomous person?

I shook my head. I’d never get a chance to do the latter if the Eumadians took him from me now. “My intention right here is to keep the Eumadians from taking you away. If we succeed at that, then we’ll have plenty of time to work out the other details later. ”

Kade nodded. “Yes, sir. I will disregard your orders in court if it serves to win the case. Am I allowed to lie to the court, if they question why I’m disobeying you?”

My heart skipped a beat as I realised the very obvious gap in my haphazard plan, and thank god Kade had thought of it. “Yes,” I said emphatically. “You may lie to the court if they ask for any information that we don’t want them to know.”