Page 3 of Agrippa's Acceptance

The other cyborg answered. “No, not yet. Three temples were blown up and it will take them a while to rebuild and follow us.”

“We can be certain they will be on our heels. Have Balthazar decided where we are going yet?” They have names now? What did Cyborg 321 call himself? “You will never use it.” She shivered. Those words suddenly had a sinister meaning.

“Not yet.”

They moved away and she wanted to beg them to come back, not to leave her alone. At the same time, she feared they’d flush her out into space. She wasn’t brave enough to chance it. Agrippa shuddered and hugged herself. What on Tundra was she supposed to do now?

They might say they were only machines with no emotions, but she knew hatred when she saw it. She’d seen it in the eyes of clones her whole life. Sometimes she wondered if hate was what kept everyone on Tundra going. The clones hated the naturals and her people hated the clones and feared the cyborg who seemed to hate everyone not cyborg.

The little she’d seen of Cyborg 321 during her time on this ship had convinced her it would be better to stay out of their way. Except, Cyborg 321 drew her like a dying clone was drawn to his designated temple.

She waited until their footsteps faded away and then looked up and down the corridor through the grid. Nothing. She couldn’t stay here for however long they travelled. Sheer terror kept her unmoving. Where did they think they were going? What if they never found a habitable planet and their food ran out. Their water? Or did they plan to live on the ships?

She whimpered with sheer blind terror and clapped her hands over her mouth to keep the sound trapped.

Maybe if she could get to a shuttle she could get back to Tunria. Her family and The Souls, depended on her, she couldn’t stay on this ship.

Deciding to stick to the crawl space that accessed most parts of the ship and allowed her relative safety, she crawled on her hands and knees, but stopped when she came to the largest hanger.

Agrippa pressed her hand to her mouth to stop a loud despairing moan. Row upon row of cryo units filled the cavernous space. At least fifty cyborgs prepared to go into the cryo units. How was this possible? At the most twenty had worked on the ship. How did the rest manage to get onboard.

She jammed her hand into her mouth to stop the whimper that wanted to escape.

Would Cyborg 321 kill her the way he’d killed the clone? Would he show a female any mercy?

Chapter Three

Agrippa retreated, careful not to make a sound that would alert them to her presence. Cryo sleep. She had to find a way to go into cryo sleep or she would die of old age before she could get off this ship. Where on Tundra were they going? The clones have made their moon uninhabitable. Sheer terror gripped her by the throat and even if she wanted to, she couldn’t make a sound. She was trapped, with no way off the ship with cyborgs who would kill her on sight.

She struck her head with her fist and then froze at the dull sound. Think Agrippa, you are supposed to have a brilliant mind. Clones and naturals alike want to use you because of your amazing brain. Ragged breaths escaped her and her lungs felt as if they moved without sucking in air and expelling it. Like it always did, her brain tackled the problem. Everything was on board. Tools, spare units. Her tense muscles relaxed a miniscule bit. Wait, she’d heard a clone instruct the ship to move and extra cryo unit to a small store room. But which store room? Her hands and knees were raw by the time she found a small store room with a single cryo unit propped against the wall.

She pressed the button that would open a part of the crawlspace. This was not a regular entrance or exit to the crawlspace and she’d have to jump down and pray she didn’t injure herself.

Agrippa landed safely between a thick pipe and a computer unit carelessly left on the floor.

She went to the cryo unit and then hesitated. Maybe she could contact home. If she tried the cyborgs would find her and kill her. She’d be better off to make the cryo unit work.

For how long? Maybe she could set it so that she woke the moment the cyborgs came out of it. Now that she had a plan she relaxed slightly.

For the next day she alternately observed the cyborgs and worked on the cryo unit and learned that Balthazar and Nebuchadnezzar – the two cyborgs who seemed to have emerged as leaders - had stayed awake to ensure the ship did not turn on them. They planned to go into stasis the next day. All of them would have to take the chance that the ship won’t raise the alarm or even kill them while they are in cryo. Not for the first time she wondered why the clones designed their ship with an organic mind and body interwoven with the metal. In her opinion it was just a matter of time before that organic brain became self-aware and dangerous.

Cursing the pain in her knees she crawled back to the small store room. She’d moved the rubble she could lift away and tidied the space. It took several days, according to her timer, to connect the units to a power source and to program it and test it to make sure she didn’t wake up a dried dead husk. Her hysterical giggle was an assault on her ears. If she died and became a dried husk, she wouldn’t wake up. Agrippa sobered and leaned her head on her knees. No one back home would know what had happened to her.

At last, the two cyborgs entered their own units. Never before had she felt this alone.

On one of her search expeditions in the crawlspace, she’d found the room meant for the Captain’s mistress. When she was sure there were no cyborgs around she quickly grabbed clothes and anything else that might come in handy and left it in the crawl space. She dressed in the loose white body suit she’d also found in the opulent room and put her clothes away. If everything went well, she would wake and decide what to do next, before the cyborg found her. Food, she was going to need more food. It would be better to raid the galley now, while the cyborgs were in stasis. She was used to surviving on not much sustenance and had survived these last few days on rations she found in the kitchen.

With a sigh she got back into the crawl space and went to the mess hall in an ungainly move. Her knees ached, but she couldn’t chance instructing the ship to deliver food to the store room. Up to now the ship had ignored her and she’d like to keep it that way. She suspected the ship’s attitude may be because it was used to her in the crawl space.

In the kitchen she grabbed several tubes filled with food that would last for more than a hundred years. It took several trips to get enough food and water back to the small storeroom. What if they reached a habitable planet and she had to hide herself in here for a long time. Her stomach turned at the thought and loneliness settled on her like a

Agrippa set the controls so that her cryo unit would wake her the moment the cyborgs came out of stasis. Her heart beating so loud she couldn’t hear her own footsteps, she walked up to the glass cylinder and stepped inside. Praying all the while that when she woke it wouldn’t be to find a murderous cyborg standing over her. She’d re-installed all the controls on the inside and her finger trembled so much it took several tries before she could initialize the cryo procedure. Pain, she didn’t expect the pain. It crawled through her veins like fire dipped in ice. She opened her mouth to scream but then she was drowsy and her vision blurred and she closed her eyes. Please let her get through this alive.

Chapter Four

Agrippa sighed and tried to turn onto her side. Just five minutes. She’d rest for five minutes and then get ready for work. A strange hissing sound and she tried to tense her shoulders, but she couldn’t.

It took so many tries to open her eyes, she feared they were somehow sewn shut. At last, she managed to lift her lids a sliver. Why couldn’t she move? At first, she couldn’t understand what she saw. Why was everything so hazy? Why would she be in such a large space. Her family wasn’t allocated—

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