Terex frowned.
“Please leave that to me. You have been an invaluable source of information and also, your visions helped save your people. Without them, we never would have come here in time to stop the Scourge from overrunning and enslaving the Earth.”
“It wasn’t just my visions,” Torri pointed out. “It was Vic. I only started making sense of the night terrors I was having when I started Dream Sharing with him.”
His frown deepened.
“It’s a most unusual case—a woman who is already mated, Dream Sharing with another male. But clearly your mate was not honoring you properly in the way a warrior should honor and cherish his bride. Also, if VIC Unit hadn’t seen your visions, he never would have known that it was the Scourge who were coming to overrun the Earth. Perhaps that is why the Goddess allowed VIC Unit to enter your dreams.”
“Perhaps,” Torri murmured. Then she burst out, “But don’t you think the fact that Vic is capable of Dream Sharing means he’s a real person—someone who ought to have the same rights as the rest of your warriors? The right to ‘call a bride’ and love her and spend the rest of his life with her?”
Terex sighed deeply, a pained look coming into his deep blue eyes.
“Forgive me, Torri—I know that VIC Unit looks like a real, organic male, but that is only because he was made with the intent of being able to mimic life seamlessly and realistically. Inside, he is over half positronic. He is simply a machine—a piece of very important and irreplaceable hardware—that the Kindred cannot do without. So I’m sorry if you’ve developed feelings for him, but you have to understand that you’ve basically given your heart to a machine.”
“That’s not true!” Torri exclaimed. “Vic is so much more than just a machine! You don’t understand.”
“Again, I am sorry.” Terex bowed his head solemnly. “But I’m afraid that now that our negotiations with Earth have begun, VIC Unit’s mission on this planet has come to an end. He will be re-entering stasis tonight, after our meeting with the World Council has concluded.”
“What? Tonight? So soon?”
Torri’s heart felt like a cold hand had closed around it. She had been fearing and dreading this moment from the second she stepped foot aboard the Mother Ship but now that it was actually here, she felt completely unprepared.
“I’m sorry,” Terex repeated. “But his mission was actually over some time ago. I have allowed him to remain active to spare your feelings but it seems to me that your attachment to him is only growing, which is really not healthy since VIC Unit cannot actually love you back. You have, essentially, fallen in love with a part of our ship and I cannot in good conscious allow such a one-sided relationship to continue. Of course, you can say goodbye to him before he goes into stasis,” he added.
Torri didn’t know whether to scream in anger or cry in frustrated rage—she wanted to do both. But she didn’t want to spend one more minute on the Kindred Commander who couldn’t understand that Vic was more than just a machine.
“You know,” she said in a trembling voice, “You act like the Kindred are so thoughtful of a woman’s thoughts and feelings, but you’re treating me the exact same way Dr. Burrows did in St. Elizabeth’s—you’re acting like I’m not competent enough to know fact from fiction—a dream from reality. Well, I know the truth, Commander Terex—the truth is that Vic is a person, even if he is half robot. He’s a person with thoughts and feelings and by denying those thoughts and feelings, you’re stripping him of his agency and reducing him to nothing but a machine, just because he’s not exactly like you.”
Commander Terex looked somewhat shaken by her words but in the end, he only shook his head.
“I am so sorry you feel that way—it was not my intention to make you feel bad. But please believe me, VIC Unit is not truly capable of returning your feelings. Even if he could, he would be unable to bond you to him.”
Torri bit her lip, not sure how to respond to this.
Terex gave her a level look.
“VIC Unit has told you as much, hasn’t he?” he asked softly. “Told you that he cannot bond you to him?”
“He’s…not sure if he could or not,” she admitted. “He doesn’t want to try because he says if he succeeds and has to go back into stasis, it will result in a broken bond and if he tries and fails, it will mean a failed bonding which is painful.”
“Extremely painful,” Terex said, nodding. “I am glad his logic circuits kept him from attempting such a bonding. But, Torri, if he was a real Kindred warrior, he would have tried,” he added. “It is every warrior’s dream and goal in life to find the right female—the one the Goddess has chosen for him—and bond with her. The fact that VIC Unit didn’t even try to bond you to him proves, above everything else, that he cannot return your emotions or become a legitimate mate to you.”
Torri supposed his words made sense in a way, but they only tore at her heart more. He kept saying that Vic couldn’t really love her, but she knew that wasn’t true! She had slept in his arms and he had kissed away her tears and loved her so tenderly—he had treated her better than any human man she’d ever been with. She couldn’t just think of him as a robot—she couldn’t.
But it was clear that nothing she said was going to change Commander Terex’s mind—there was no use speaking to him anymore.
Without saying another word, she spun on her heel and left to spend what little time she had remaining with Vic.
Fifty-Five
“I’m sorry I can’t come with you—that we can’t ‘run away together’ as you want us to,” Vic said, hugging Torri close to him. It was their last few minutes together before he was to re-enter stasis and she had been trying to convince him to leave the Mother Ship and escape with her.
“I don’t understand, though.” She looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears. “We escaped from St. Elizabeth’s together and from the Fathership too! Why can’t we escape from here and go far away, where the Kindred will never find us?”
“Because I am Kindred,” Vic said gently. “There is a loyalty protocol written into my positronic net that I cannot breach. I cannot run away with you, Torri—my place is here, with the Kindred. Someday they will need me again and I must be ready to help.”
“Commander Terex told me I had essentially fallen in love with a machine—he said you were just another part of the ship.” Torri’s voice was bitter. “I didn’t believe him until now. You said you loved me, Vic—was that a lie?”
“I would never lie about anything so serious,” he said softly. Turning her face up to his, he searched her eyes with his own. “I do love you, Torri, but I am incapable of going against my loyalty protocol. I am so sorry.”
She started to cry, soft, heartfelt sobs that tore at Vic’s own heart.
“Gods, sweetheart—please don’t cry!” he begged, pulling her close.
He wished for the first time that his organic side had never taken over, that he had never learned to have emotions in the first place. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be feeling this terrible pain now—a feeling of anguish so deep it was worse than death—knowing that he would be parted from Torri forever.