Engineer Hank saw us as Kael, under my arm, burst out laughing. As we opened the gigantic door of the window and threw ourselves inside, Hank was busy sipping tea at a cozy table with his engineer friends.
"Ladies..." I greeted the female engineers. I was planning to sit next to the women, but they stood up and left the table. I could see Engineer Hank clenching his jaw in anger. Kael hesitated to sit, looking at Hank. I had to grab his arm and pull him to make him sit.
We were sitting at a table beneath the tail of a spaceship. On the table were half-finished teacups and a plate with only biscuit crumbs remaining. Hank took a sip of tea with a tired expression from waiting and asked:
"That was a long conversation, wasn't it, Master Aldoux?"
"Ah... Was it that long?" I glanced at Kael. Kael didn't seem too happy about what was to come. "I had to take Kael with me and make a comparison between the ideas in my head."
"So, what's the conclusion?"
I leaned toward the table. As I leaned, I glanced around. The moment Hank noticed me leaning, he also leaned in and approached me. At the same time, I grabbed Kael's head with my hand and pulled him toward the table. I started speaking in a whisper:
"Dear Hank... I went back and forth on whether to tell you a secret. However, following Kael's insistence, I want to share this secret, trusting the colony."
"What kind of secret?"
"I told you I escaped from the Republic Network, remember?"
"Yes..."
"The thing I stole while escaping the Republic Network was a Pioneer Nexus."
"A Pioneer Nexus?" Hank leaned back, chuckling. "You're out of your mind..." He shook his head, looking disbelieving. Then, noticing the seriousness on my face, he suddenly leaned forward and said, pressing his index finger onto the table: "Don't tell me you managed to steal a PN from the Republic and are still alive! The Republic doesn't easily let go of a PN. Come on, tell me? How did you pull it off?"
"You must know that a resource gathering facility is settled on a nearby planet."
"I ran into a few of their test subjects. Yes... I know."
"My team and I attacked and hijacked one of the spaceships coming to that resource gathering facility. None of my team survived, but the corporate vessel landed on this planet with me."
"So, the Republic could arrive at any moment, is that right?"
"Yes!"
"Damn it!" he said, striking his foot against the table. "You should have told me this from the start! We should have prepared! We can't stay on this planet any longer. Even if you leave, they will eventually find this colony. We need to relocate, but how are we going to do it? It took us centuries just to establish this damned colony."
"Actually, establishing your new colony might not take that long?"
"What do you mean?"
"With a Pioneer Nexus, establishing a colony like this won't take more than a week."
He looked at me sidelong. "Are you saying you'll give us the thing you risked your life for?"
"I won't give it to you. I'll sell it..."
"In exchange for what?"
"Look, Mr. Hank... May I call you Mr. Hank?"
"I prefer you call me Engineer Hank."
"Hank, I want to tell you this. You know I'm a space pirate. Even if you have a team, even if you are constantly among people, you feel a certain loneliness. Loneliness in a crowd..." I said, hugging myself with my arms to convey the emotion to the man across from me. "As loneliness swirls around you like a curse, a chill grips your soul the moment you look up at the ceiling before resting your head on the pillow one night!" I spoke like a preacher giving a sermon to transmit the feeling. "After this chill, you ask yourself: Why am I alone? Am I the only lonely man in this universe?"
"So, what is your point?"
"I want to come with you when your colony relocates. Furthermore, I want a title, like Sheriff, and that beautiful woman who used to be a prostitute over there."
"I can't give you the woman!" Hank said, frowning. "I mean, we don't make those kinds of commercial deals. Women cannot be sold!"
"Have you ever made a commercial deal on behalf of your colony, then?"
"Absolutely not..." Hank said.
"It shows..."
"I can hear you readers asking, 'What is the Pioneer Nexus?"
Pioneer Nexus means Pioneer Central Robot. Instead of calling it the Pioneer Nexus Robot, we recommend calling it Pioneer Nexus or even PN for brevity. This robot began development by Evoke Systems and Terraforming Solutions after the Interstellar Expansion Regulation was published.
As you can see from the television commercials made in the early days of space expansion, there was a retro-futuristic dream of a future where even a family could establish small colonies for themselves in space. The human population wasn't as large as it is now, of course... Actually, it's not very large now either. There aren't many births since everyone is cybernetic or enhanced... Anyway, what was I saying? Yes...
At that time, there were many companies and institutions that thought it was necessary to increase the number of colonists. Because space was so vast that the Republic and its corporations couldn't keep up with exploring it. So, they did everything they could to encourage people to go into space. People would spread out into space, discover planets, establish colonies on the useful ones, and the Republic would thus be informed.
But for those people's colonies to be beneficial to humanity, they had to stop being mere humans and receive superior education and be visionary. And there had to be a system that would register the planet where they established a colony and notify the Republic with the planet's information.
Therefore, a robot assistant was designed to make it easier for people to establish colonies. This robot would be a robot possessing most of humanity's engineering, medical, and mathematical knowledge. People who wanted to establish a colony could buy it for a certain amount and take it with them. These robots would assist the colonists in finding water, construction, gathering oxygen, and many other things. In fact, these robots even decided whether the colony should be established on the planet.
These robots were used for a long time, and the Age of Expansion thus began. By the way, I'm not the only one who calls that era the Age of Expansion. Anyway... What was I saying? After the Incompatibles arrived and the war with the colonies began, the production of those robots was halted. Terraforming Solutions, a company that profited from establishing colonies, went bankrupt after the establishment of colonies came under scrutiny and a company called Endarken suddenly boomed. It reopened a few years later, but its manager had changed. This is economic information, so it doesn't concern us...
These colony-establishing robots are called Pioneer Nexus, or PN for short, and they became even more valuable after Terraforming Solutions stopped producing them. It is said that the robot is smart enough to establish a civilization even for a monkey... So, it was normal for my colonist friend to freeze with his mouth open.
And why did I tell them I had this robot, which doesn't actually exist, in my spaceship? This is where the second phase of the plan comes into play!
I was sitting in a chair in the corner of the Engineers' Room, sipping the tea given to me. I glanced at Kael. He was having a heated conversation with Engineer Hank. Engineer Hank told him something and hugged him tightly. Then Kael slowly walked over to me.
"What's the situation?"
"They're congratulating me."
"For what?"
"For convincing you to trust them..."
"Fantastic... They swallowed the bait then."
"Yes..."
"So, what are they going to do?"
"Just as you thought... They're going to knock you out, go to your ship, and steal the PN. Then they'll interrogate you a bit more and kill you."
"All this just to avoid giving a Sheriff title and a woman, huh..." I said sarcastically. "So, how are they going to knock me out?"
"That's why I came!" Kael said, clenching his fists. He subtly pointed to the tea.
"Ah... They were going to knock me out with tea?"
"They put narcotics in the tea and are waiting for you to pass out. That's why they sent me here. To ask how you were feeling..."
"Damn it, Kael! Why didn't you tell me sooner? Did you forget I'm an expensive enhanced? My cursed body is immune to many poisons!" I took a deep breath and let it out. "Go tell them I feel terrible..."
"And what will you do?"
"I'll put on my show..."
As Kael walked away with heavy steps, I coughed and cleared my throat. Then I took a big gulp of tea and finished it. "I was wondering why the tea tasted like shit," I muttered. Then I slowly stood up. I walked with a slight limp and cough, and Hank ran over to me with feigned urgency.
"What happened, Mr. Aldoux?"
"I don't feel well at all," I said, coughing repeatedly. I made sure my voice sounded strained as I spoke. "I think... I think I'm very tired! Cough... Cough!" I said, sticking out my tongue. Then I tried to take two more steps and dropped onto the floor on my back.
"Did he pass out?" asked one of the engineers.
Hank bent down and pressed his ear to my mouth. "He's breathing... The damned man hasn't slept so much I thought he was poisoned in the end."
"Doesn't this drug normally make you sleep peacefully? How did this man get up coughing?"
"I don't know. Maybe he has an allergy or something..."
"This man is an enhanced... Is it possible for him to have an allergy?"
"An enhanced? What's that?"
"What's an enhanced?" Hank asked his friend in surprise: "Almenra is also an enhanced... Enhanced means a Republic citizen. They're normal people, but their bodies are mechanical."
"Almenra? The one who used to be a prostitute in the Republic? She looks like a normal person, though..."
"I think that was her, my friend."
"Enhanced people are normal people, you idiots! The man just said they only have mechanical parts inside!"
"Hey! Silence!" Hank said, pushing the engineers around him aside. He pulled out that primitive knife from his pocket once more. "We need to check how deep his sleep is." He plunged the knife right into my hand. I barely managed to stop myself from slicing that son of a b*tch in half right then and there. If I didn't have a body accustomed to enduring pain from torture, I probably would have jumped up in fear right where I lay.
Hank pulled the blood-covered knife out of my hand and smoothed his hair. "Take him out of here!" Then he pointed to Kael. "And you, show us the location of the spaceship!"