Stars Gods Wolves by Dan Kirshtein (best classic books .txt) 📕

the way he seemed to be so calm on the inside while falling apart on the outside. His head was slightly lowered, his mouth hung open in the cold, and the hand that wasn’t being used to herd the others was carrying Ula.

“What do you think, Ula?” Gally tried to lighten the mood. “You think Harper would make a good shepherd?” Harper’s helmet shifted to his left and she could make out the smallest smirk under his visor.

Ula took this question to heart and began a serious examination of the man, albeit she could only do it from about the chest up from her current position. “No,” she answered, decidedly.

Gally laughed, watching Harper take offense before realizing it was rhetorical anyway. “Nah, me neither,” she added. “He’s more of a—” she trailed off for a moment. Before she could finish the thought, a familiar humming caught her ear. When she recognized it, her face tensed. “Shit.” She turned and ran off.

Ula’s eyes burst open and her jaw dropped before turning back to Harper and placing a hand on each shoulder. “Listen to me.” Gally could still hear the translation over the coms. “You are not a shit.”

Mitch met up with Gally, pointing to the ruins. “Into the buildings,” he urged, and they all started to seek shelter.

“No,” Gally stopped them. “We hide, and we’re the enemy. They haven’t started shooting at us yet.” She watched Harper turn to them. She could tell he wanted to argue, wanted to bring up his ship. She was grateful when he didn’t, but his point was made by the way he shifted Ula to his other arm. This freed his right arm to unhook the clip in his holster, should the need arise to free the pistol.

They didn’t have time to argue: a tense silence overcame them as the glider slowed. One of the Eighth stepped off the vehicle and approached the group, holding its own rifle lowered in its arms. It was silent, lacking any of the whirring or mechanical sounds Gally had heard of when she read the reports on the automatons.

It walked as she remembered the others walking, stiff yet strong: a tin soldier. She watched its eyes scan them all; they were being assessed. Gally walked toward it, head lowered, wanting to be more of a threat than she was in actuality. As tense as the situation was, the Eighth seemed tame enough. While it saw her approach, it opened a compartment in its chest, and a large red light emitted from it, projected onto the snow. The red light eventually took shape; it was another of the Eighth.

The Eighth in the projection stood straighter, carried itself differently than the others they’d encountered. It seemed more regal, more confident. Gally recognized the posture before noticing the scar on its face. Rage filled her as a familiar voice crackled from the hologram. “Hello, my name is eight point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero—” he would have gone on had Gally not interrupted.

“Rook,” she boiled.

The Eighth twitched as its attention snapped to the girl. “That name,” it began with disdain in its voice. Gally had always wondered if the Eighth were familiar with the rules of chess, and the whole journey was almost worth it just to hear Rook acknowledge that it knew the name was an insult. For a robot made by an alien culture, it reacted in quite Human ways. It composed itself before continuing. “Am I correct in assuming that you are the poachers we shot down earlier?” it said, unable to shake all the anger from its metallic voice.

“You tracked us from the beginning,” Gally replied, her eyes never leaving those of the beast that killed her father.

The red light flickered. “My apologies for the intrusion. I had to ensure that you were not further interfering with my work here.”

She spoke as if no one was near her, as if she had no responsibility for the people around her. “And what is that, exactly?” she snapped.

Rook looked to her, and its face softened with understanding. It even emoted more clearly than the other automatons. “Your current course suggests that our base of operations is your destination. Why is that?”

Gally could hear Doctor Howlette mutter under his breath, behind her. “Stockholm syndrome?” he said.

Gally realized the danger she was in. If she’d revealed her intent, they would have been killed. Only Harper was carrying a weapon, and she doubted the pistol would have been enough against the Eighth messenger. Her mind raced and her mouth opened slightly, a pathetic lie about to flounder upon her lips, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Martin, to the surprise of everyone, stepped beside her. “I wanted to meet you.” He straightened his back and tried to look as if he’d been part of civilization his entire life, despite only recently rejoining it. “And from what I hear,” he stuck out his chin, “you’ve been looking for me.” His eyes darted to Gally’s for a moment, just enough to see her shock. In that brief moment, she saw his fear.

The red hologram ran its eyes up and down the doctor. “Scanning,” it said. After a pause, Rook continued. “Collier, Martin. PhDs in Biochemistry and Engineering. Born on Zeta-Six, divorced.”

Martin’s face soured. “Don’t see how that’s relevant, but yes,” he grumbled.

“It’s your work that interests me, doctor.” The projection seemed pleased and surprised. “Yes,” it mused. “I would very much like to speak with you.” There was a twitch. “Perhaps if there’s no more killing of my soldiers, we can be more hospitable to your approach.” Martin smirked. He’d seen what Purple Company had done to the prison guards on Heru, and he could only imagine what they’d done to the Eighth riders.

As if on cue, Nitro’s newly acquired snow-glider buzzed around the corner, hell-bent and furious. He was met by the scientists and the fear in their eyes, holding their hands out as if to stop him. Only seeing them when it