Free When We Were Real (Author's Preferred Edition) by William Barton Page A

cyborg, part of a manufacturing cycle initiated in the Piazzi Belt back in the late twenty-first century.”
    A long time ago. “Human?”
    “No. My nervous system was genengineered from preserved DNA stock, from several lines of extinct pongidae.” It wiggled one leg, making itself rock back and forth gently. “Muscle structure’s from reverse-engineered reptiloavian stock. Very tough.”
    “How old are you, Dûmnahn?”
    “Me? Don’t know. I guess this carapace might be about forty standard, but...”
    I remembered then that these sorts of cyborg were cloned rather than bred like modern robots, realized that Dûmnahn would have been budded from some earlier version of itself, going all the way back to some original laboratory stock, all those long centuries ago.
    It said, “I’ve got some fragmentary memories of the Piazzi, of working on the original Thetis structure. That’s all.”
    A woman’s voice, contralto, said, “ Athena 7 .”
    I turned. Gaped.
    Picture a naked woman.
    Well, no. Not a naked woman. Picture a woman dressed up in a tight fur costume. Fluffy, red-violet fur. Picture a woman with a fox’s face. Slanting, foxy yellow eyes. Pointed ears midway between terrier and pixy. Picture a naked furry woman with a long, bushy tail, powder blue bag slung over one shoulder by a long sash spangled with campaign badges.
    She said, “Hullo, Dûmnahn. Told you I’d get us the same ship again.” Then the eyes looked me up and down, very slowly. “You must be Murphy, then.”
    “Um. I guess I’m the only one hasn’t read someone else’s file.”
    She grinned, showing fine white teeth not at all human. “Newbies don’t know how. You’ll learn.”
    Newbie.
    She stuck out her hand, a human hand for all the fur, and said, “My name’s Violet...”
    “No shit.”
    I heard Dûmnahn cough behind me.
     She cocked her head to one side and looked me in the eye. “Violet. Standard ARM Optimod 4044-XVII. Command Pilot.”
    “Optimod...?” I tried to swallow the word before it came out, but failed, seeing a little sizzle start up in those yellow eyes. Orb knows what she may have been made of—human genes for sure, but what else? Dog, squirrel, bits of extinct wolf, fox, fragments of apes and whatnot... Offhand, I couldn’t recall ever seeing an animal that color though, not in any bestiary on any damned datatrack.
    Seeming exasperated, she said, “ Ruricolae .”
    “Uh. Sorry. I just... hell, I guess you must be my boss.”
    “Correct.”
    She swept past me, past Dûmnahn, went on up the ladder with swift efficiency while I watched, half mesmerized by her sleek form and wonderfully fluid movements.
    Dûmnahn said, “Well. Let’s go.”
    “I guess I’ve gotten off to a bad start, huh?”
    He laughed that nice warm laugh again, and said, “Maybe not. We’ll see.”
    And so we flew, cyborg Dûmnahn, optimod Violet, backward, human little me, Athena 7 lifting in a splash of blue fury, lifting with her DSRV squadron, lifting sedately through the eutropic atmosphere shield, then making formation, tearing away from Telemachus Major and its little green moon, down into the starry deep.
    Somehow, when I lay my hands on the machines, felt the subtle pulse of their cybernetic hearts, felt the energies gather at my fingertips, I felt all my fears subside, fade away as if they’d never been. Violet flying the ship with her hands and mind, Dûmnahn lurking in his medical lair, monitoring us now, seeing that we were up to our task, and I... down in my own dark hole, making sure all the pieces worked together, as one.
    I knew it. I knew it all along.
    All those years of pointless study, of learning all those things a robot technician on Audumla wouldn’t need to know. All the things a husband wouldn’t need to know. I knew, someday, somehow...
    Memory of my father, looking over my shoulder as I went through the school catalog, pointing out this course and that one, suggesting, Hey, let’s learn this stuff.