Victoria Sorofia’s Point of View
It had been a difficult few days.
The news hit me out of nowhere: my family was ordering me to establish a colony on a newly discovered world, in a remote sector, and they’d appoint me planetary governor while they were at it.
It sounded like an honor.
I knew exactly what it really was.
They were getting rid of me, shipping me off to the farthest corner of the galaxy they could find.
As the designated heir of the Sorofia family, I tried to refuse.
The council of elders insisted it was “a test,” a way to see whether I was up to the position.
A lie, of course.
I knew perfectly well they preferred my older brother, no matter how many achievements I racked up.
My father didn’t even bother discussing it with me: he just told me to pack my things and leave immediately.
With no other choice, I obeyed.
That was how I ended up on Kazande, a trade world, gathering the resources I’d need for the journey, walking its streets with my family and my escort.
I carried a holographic tablet in my hand, crossing items off my list one by one.
All I was missing was the most important thing: labor.
I could manufacture my own automatons using the STCs, the Standard Template Constructs, but that meant resources, and resources meant time and money, two things we were in no way flush with.
Buying them ready-made was the most reasonable option.
I’d been considering the new models that had become all the rage across the federation: excellent performance at any task, true feats of engineering.
Also, of course, extremely expensive ones.
I was massaging my temples when my husband spoke to me.
“You should take it easy,” Marcus said.
“You’re going to make yourself sick with all this stress.”
“I know,” I replied, “but with the budget they gave us we can barely cover the basic expenses.
I’m going to have to put in my own capital to close the gap.”
“I know, darling.
But stress isn’t good for anyone.”
“All right, I’ll try to relax.”
“Look, there’s an automaton sale over there,” he pointed.
“Looks like they’re marked down, and there are a lot of them.
Why don’t we take a look?”
As we walked in that direction, I couldn’t help frowning.
Those automatons were more than fifty years old; they were in no way comparable to what was on the market today.
But Marcus was right about one thing: the price was unbeatable.
Even so, I didn’t want to buy them.
I didn’t want word getting out that House Sorofia had acquired third-rate automatons.
The problem was that the price fit exactly what we could afford.
I went over their specifications: basic models, processing cores with nothing remarkable about them.
The more I read, the more I wanted to turn around and look somewhere else.
“Well, darling?” Marcus asked.
“The specs aren’t that bad.”
“I’m not convinced.
They’re too old.”
The salesman, who had been hovering nearby until then, came over immediately.
“My lady Victoria, if you decide to buy them right now, I can offer you a sixty percent discount.
No, better yet: seventy.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
You could tell from a mile away that he was desperate to get rid of them, and I couldn’t blame him.
They were far too old; nobody in the federation would spend a single credit on something like that, not when there were better options just around the corner.
“Well, thank you very much for your time, but we’ll be going,” I announced, considering the matter closed.
“Wait, my lady,” the salesman pleaded, almost stumbling.
“If you buy them today, I can go as high as an eighty percent discount.”
I could see his intentions perfectly well, but my mind was already made up.
“I’m sorry, but that’s my final answer.”
Before I’d even finished the sentence, I noticed my daughter was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Charlotte?
Where is she?”
“She was right here a moment ago,” Marcus said, turning around.
“Guard, where’s my daughter?”
“The young miss was looking at the automatons out there,” the guard replied, pointing.
It was a relief to hear it.
I walked over to fetch her, and before I even got there I could hear her laughing.
When I finally found her, the scene I saw is one I’ll never forget.
Charlotte was riding on the shoulders of one of the automatons, laughing her head off.
When she saw me, she pointed at me and signaled the robot to come closer, and the automaton, without hesitation, walked toward me.
“Sweetheart, what are you doing?
I told you not to wander off so far.”
“Sorry, Mom, but my balloon got loose and got stuck in a tree.
Mister Robot helped me get it back,” she said, hugging the automaton’s metal head as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Really?
Is that true?” I asked the robot directly.
“Those were her orders, my lady,” it replied, in a perfectly neutral voice.
At first I hadn’t wanted to buy any of these automatons.
But seeing how attached my daughter had gotten to this one in particular, I decided to reconsider the offer.
Before I could say anything else, the salesman was already back at my side.
“My lady, if you decide to buy them now, I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Hmm.
You said eighty percent off, didn’t you?”
The man hesitated for barely a second, but one look from me was enough to keep him from trying to back out of his own offer.
“Yes, my lady.
Eighty percent off.”
“Good.
Send them to my ship.”
Samuel’s Point of View
Apparently, the woman called Victoria Sorofia had just bought all of us.
They moved us to the starport’s cargo bay, and I have to admit the ship was colossal: about ten kilometers long, maybe more.
“Look, that’s the ship that’s going to take us to our new home,” Charlotte said, with the kind of pride only a kid can have for something she hasn’t even seen yet.
From the moment we were bought, she insisted I carry her on my shoulders everywhere.
They loaded us inside the ship along with the rest of the cargo, and shortly after, the whole fleet left the starport.
The crew slipped into an almost festive mood; the trip, they told us, would take several months.
Before they put me into hibernation, I noticed something that left me uneasy.
As soon as we crossed through the warp portal, I began to hear whispers.
Faint, barely perceptible, but there, without a doubt.
The rest of the crew seemed completely calm, oblivious to them.
They induced hibernation soon after, and I fell back into a deep sleep with that feeling still lingering.
When they finally woke us up, what felt like decades later, the whole staff was bustling with activity.
And there, through the window, I saw the most beautiful planet I’d ever seen in my life.
It was our new home.