• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I just meant,” Barriss continued, “that we should do our best to include him in things like this. Make him feel welcome.”

“She’s right, of course,” the Equani said. “Adolescence—particularly human adolescence—is hard to endure without support.”

“Just how old is he?” I-Five asked. “I confess that estimating age differences isn’t something I’m extensively programmed for.”

“You’d make a terrible nanny droid,” Tolk told him.

“For which I thank the maker devoutly.”

“He’s nineteen standard years,” Klo Merit said. “Something of a prodigy, I’m told. Aced all his courses, graduated with the highest honors. Interned at—”

“Big Zoo,” Jos finished. “Hey, most of us have seen Wonder Boy work. He’s very good.”

“I can vouch for that,” Barriss said. “I fold.”

“Please shift hands, ladies,” the CardShark said.

Everyone stared at the hovering droid. “Sweet Sookie,” Jos said, shaking his head. “Whoever dumped this one on Nars saw him coming.”

Den looked around. “Maybe the new droids will earn their keep,” he said. “More people in here now than I’ve seen in a while. And some of ’em I don’t even know.” He indicated a corner table, where three beings were engaged in intense discussion.

Klo Merit looked, and frowned. “I recognize two of the species, though not the individuals. The Kubaz, of course, and the Umbaran. But the other I’m not familiar with.”

“She’s a Falleen,” Jos said. “They tend to be insular; outside of some high mucky-mucks on Coruscant, you don’t see a lot of them offworld. Wonder what she’s doing here.”

“Just don’t get too close to her,” Tolk warned him with a grin.

Den looked puzzled. “Falleen exude pheromones,” Jos explained. “Strong stuff, crosses most species boundaries. Usually signaled by cromatophoric changes in pigmentation. It’s said that they can mix precursors and influence endocrine levels.”

“Thanks. It’s all clear as swamp water now.”

“They can manipulate how you feel by what they sweat,” Tolk told him.

Den blinked. “They must be real charismatic in this weather.”

I-Five dropped a chip in the sabacc pot. “Raise.”

Jos looked at his cards, frowned. “I think you’re bluffing, tin man.”

“And I think you’re sweating, puny human.”

“Who isn’t? I call.”

The players spread their cards. Jos grinned. He was holding a Commander of coins, a Mistress of sabers, and an Endurance of staves. He put the hand into the interference field broadcast by the CardShark, freezing it. “Anyone closer? No? That’s what I—”

“Unless my math module has suffered severe damage,” I-Five said, “I believe my hand beats yours.”

Jos looked down. His jaw dropped. The droid’s hand consisted of an Idiot, a three of staves, and a two of sabers. An idiot’s array. The one hand that beat all others, even pure sabacc.

“That’s not fair,” Jos said mournfully as I-Five gathered in his winnings. “What does a droid need with credits anyway?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” the droid replied. “I’m off to see the Sorcerer of Tund to buy a heart and brain.”

Jos didn’t reply. The remark had suddenly put him in mind of CT-914, the clone trooper whose life he had saved in the OT, only to learn later that the vat-grown soldier had been lost, along with his entire garrison, in a surprise Separatist attack. It had been Nine-one-four and, to a lesser degree, I-Five, who had raised Jos’s consciousness to a level including the awareness that clones, and even, under certain circumstances, droids and other artificial intelligences, should be considered self-aware sentients, and thus deserving of the same rights.

This was something he had known all along, but he’d unconsciously kept it at a lower level, not really considering all its moral implications. Clones were created to fight wars; the desire for little else was encoded in their genetic programming. They had no fear of death, a sense of fulfillment and contentment when engaged in battle, and just enough pain receptors to warn them away from actions that could result in injury or death.

Until Jos had gotten to know Nine-one-four, he’d also assumed clones were incapable