Mansfield gives Abel a searching look, starts to speak, then thinks better of whatever it was he was going to say. “Now, look here. This is her wedding, and there—that’s my first grandchild. What do you think of him, Abel?”
The infant, much larger than life, moves within the hologram—the image was taken while he was snuggling into his blanket. Abel studies the tiny, chubby face, which interests him far more than logic would dictate. “I see you in him. The eyes, certainly. Maybe the chin. Gillian’s features are even more markedly observable.” What else should he say? How can he put into words this strange, happy fascination he feels? “He’s… he’s very cute.”
That makes Mansfield cackle with glee. “Excellent, excellent! Ah, Abel, you’ve come further than I ever would’ve thought. I’m only sorry thirty years in isolation is what it took to bring this out of you.”
It’s as close as Mansfield has come to apologizing for abandoning Abel on the Daedalus. Not that he needs to apologize—he had to save himself, of course, because any human life takes precedence over any mech—but even this small expression of regret soothes Abel tremendously.
As it happens, he needs soothing. Ever since he first saw the workshop, Abel has felt… wary around Mansfield. He’s not entirely sure why, since the workshop follows normal procedure for mech creation. And why should he feel strange when Mansfield is so clearly thrilled to have Abel back home? They’re eating a special meal tonight, something Mansfield had planned for a big occasion. The Sugar mech has even iced a bottle of champagne.
Perhaps he’s not afraid for himself. He remains worried about someone else.
“Father, may I use one of the communications channels?” He smiles and puts his hands behind his back, the way lower mechs do when asking a question. It’s important to make it clear that he isn’t demanding anything, or second-guessing his creator, only asking for a favor. “I’d like to double-check news reports on Stronghold.”
Mansfield chuckles. “Still worried about your girl?”
“She’s not my girl.” Abel knows Noemi doesn’t feel for him what he feels for her. She only just accepted him as a person and not a thing. This bothers him not at all. Merely discovering that he loves her—that he can love her—fills him with gratitude to Mansfield, to Noemi, even to the equipment pod bay. He knows better than to ask for more, and he doesn’t need to. Feeling this is enough. “But she helped me escape. I’d at least like to thank her. Wouldn’t you?”
His question catches Mansfield off guard. “Never thought of it that way. Don’t you think she’s gone home to Genesis?”
“Probably she has.” So few days remain before the Masada Run. Noemi will certainly have returned if she can. But if she can’t, she’ll soon miss her chance to save her friends and, perhaps, her world. “We should make sure she’s not in trouble. That’s the least we owe her.”
Waving his frail, spotted hand, Mansfield nods. “Go on. Check all you like.”
Abel does so, sitting at the station that’s been refitted to look like a nineteenth-century rolltop desk. Although Stronghold’s news accounts mention a “suspected break-in at Medstation Central” and hint that a staffer may be responsible, nothing is said about any capture or arrest. No citizen of Genesis is mentioned. There’s not even a report about an altercation in the spaceport, though surely security monitors must have picked up some of it. And what about the Daedalus? No news of the ship at all.
The longer he searches, the less satisfied Abel is. He had convinced himself that there might be news, mostly because he wanted so badly to know what has happened to Noemi. Apparently he’s evolved the capacity for wishful thinking. Yet he knows that a soldier of Genesis, found on any of the colony worlds or on Earth itself, would immediately be hidden away in a cell so deep no one could ever find her.
Maybe Noemi got away. The ship was right there. The Queen and Charlie were focused only on him; Mansfield told him they wouldn’t go after Noemi.
But Mansfield seems so unconcerned. So certain that Noemi hasn’t been found by the authorities.
Is it possible that Mansfield… lied?
Abel rejects the idea instantly. But he’s aware his objection is emotional, not rational. This, too, is new.
When he returns to the great room, Mansfield remains seated on the velvet sofa, smiling as he watches a hologram of little Gillian playing tea party with her father. He was a younger man then, younger than Abel ever got to know him. “I see the resemblance,” Abel says. If he’s going to lead up to asking Mansfield to let him go back to Stronghold, he needs to make sure Mansfield is in a good mood. Noting the dominant chromosomes in his genetic material seems to please him. “Between you and me. Our similarities are clearer in this holo.”
“Indeed it is. I made you a bit handsomer than I ever was, of course, but kept most of the features the same. After all, we can’t all be Han Zhi.” Mansfield smiles fondly at Abel. “I wanted the continuity between us to be clear.”
One word strikes Abel as odd. “Continuity?”
“I suppose we might as well get to it. Sugar will have dinner ready within the hour, and after that, well, the great adventure begins.”
“What adventure?” Abel doubts his creator is talking about going to Stronghold.
Mansfield settles back on the sofa. “Abel, you’re by far the most sophisticated mech ever created. I can justify you as an experiment, but for anyone else, you’d be illegal to create or own. So why do you think I built you?”
“I always assumed you wanted to expand human knowledge.” Abel remembers sitting in front of Virginia Redbird on Cray, watching her marvel over his complexity, and what she said then. “But I have come to believe you may have some specific purpose in mind for me.”
“I do, my dear boy. Always have. And tonight, that purpose will be fulfilled at last. For thirty years, I thought I’d never see this day.” Mansfield’s voice trembles. “I’d given up all hope. Then you came home just in time.”
Technically Abel was kidnapped and brought back to this place, but he no longer cares. “All hope for what, Father?”
One of Mansfield’s shaky hands strokes Abel’s hair, then catches a lock between two fingers for examination. “To have hair like this again—”
“Father?”
“Your brain is complex enough to contain the knowledge and experiences of a thousand human beings. But what I never knew was whether or not you could contain a mind. A way of thinking. Opinions, beliefs, dreams. Whether you could feel emotion. Now you’ve proved that you can. Finally I know that you’re big enough to hold me, and carry me for the next one hundred and fifty years.”