Science Fiction: The Year's Best (2006 Edition). Аластер Рейнольдс

he had placed on the right flank and the three animals raced toward an intersection with the assault party.

      “I need a decision,” Choy said. “I can put up a strong fight when they make contact, gain us three or four extra minutes of feeding time, and probably lose one cat. Or I can put up a weak fight, hold them off just long enough for us to get moving, and probably save all the cats.”

      Sabor scowled. The widemounts had accumulated about eight minutes of browsing time.

      “Recommendation?” Sabor said.

      “I can’t make any,” Choy said.

      “Light resistance.”

      It was a random decision. He said the first thing that popped into his head and hoped he could live with it. Choy started the widemounts moving, Choy’s cats engaged in a brief flurry of action—and a shot from a hardbody reduced one of the cats to a set of rigid, totally paralyzed muscles. They had sacrificed several minutes of feeding time and lost a cat, too.

      “Not my most brilliant decision,” Sabor said.

      “I’m sorry,” Choy said. “I thought I could save the cats.”

      “You’re working with percentages, Choy. You make your bet and accept the results.”

      He returned his primary focus to the databanks but it had become a pointless exercise. Information flowed across his brain like water washing across a stone floor. Nothing penetrated.

      They were down to five cats. The next feeding period could be the last. Choy might be able to stave off a breakthrough one more time but it was a fifty-fifty proposition—at best.

      A blinking prompt advised him Purvali’s carrier had come open. He ordered it closed and received an immediate not responding.

      “You seem to have a problem with your carrier, Purvali.”

      “You have two options, Sabor. You can give Choy permission to integrate me into his tactical schemes or you can make me fight on my own.”

      “Please remove the pillow or whatever it is you’re using to jam your carrier open. I’ve already given you my decision.”

      “And how are you going to stop me? I can drop off this animal and be lost in the trees before you or Choy can touch the ground.”

      He could give her an order, of course. But would she obey it? He asked her designers for a concubine, not a robot. He had her loyalty and her devotion. For machine-like obedience he would have to console himself with the companionship of machines.

      “Don’t do this to me, Purvali. Please.”

      “You’re rolling the dice, Sabor. That isn’t good enough. Not when your survival is at stake.”

      “I have been running simulations,” Choy said. “I have a suggestion you may find worthy of consideration, Sabor.”

      “I would be a fool if I didn’t consider your suggestions, Choy.”

      “The simulations indicate we could probably lethal two or three of their cats at the next rest stop if I employed Purvali as a surprise ambusher. The risk to her would be minimal. She would only have to expose herself for a few seconds—just long enough to fire at their cats when I told her to.”

      “Look at the simulations,” Purvali said. “Just look at the simulations.”

      “Show me the simulations, Choy.”

      A summary popped onto Sabor’s display. Choy’s program had run five hundred simulations. They had killed one cat in twenty-seven percent of the simulations, two in fifty-four percent, three in thirteen percent, and none in six percent. There had been no simulation in which Purvali had been captured or injured.

      The display zipped through a random selection of quick-play runs that included samples with all four outcomes. Choy had conscientiously included all the unknowns he and the program would have to work with during a real attack. There would be important blanks, for example, in Choy’s knowledge of the terrain. He wouldn’t know the location of every tree trunk and the sight lines it would interrupt.

      “An impartial observer might note that you’ve left out one important factor,” Sabor said. “You’re assuming Purvali will obey your orders with scrupulous precision. If you included the possibility she might dally for a few seconds before she retreated—in the hope that she might be able to kill two of their cats instead of just one, for example—the outcomes of some of those simulations might have been less acceptable.”

      “You are running out of time,” Purvali said. “You’d be running out of time even if Possessor Avaming called you right now and told you he’s kept his word. How long will it be before Possessor Makajida reacts to the news he has a hostile force threatening his borders? It could take him hours, Sabor.”

      Sabor eliminated Purvali’s face from his display. He scowled at a block of text that summarized the current financial status of the second largest mobile submarine restaurant on the lake.

      “Whatever happens,” Sabor said, “I’m obviously not going to have any peace until I let you prance around the forest. Take care of her, Choy.”

      He watched her as she made her preparations. She fired her gun at a passing tree. She recharged her armored coat. She slipped into a relaxed meditation state and gave herself a half hour nap.

      She dropped to the ground as soon as Choy brought the widemounts to a halt. Choy positioned her on the left flank and removed her symbol from the map display. Choy would track her movements with his memory. There would be no possibility the opposition could pick up a stray transmission.

      Sabor raised the side of his carrier. Cold air bit at his cheeks. He couldn’t watch Purvali’s movements on the display but Choy furnished an explosion graphic when she shot the cat that was leading the assault on the left side. Another graphic announced a hit on a second cat. Choy transmitted a command and the widemounts backed away from their food sources.

      Purvali raced out of the woods with her eyes focused on her goal. She leaped for her mounting ladder when she was a full stride away from her widemount. She pulled a pillow into position and lowered the side of the carrier as she rolled inside.

      Sabor jumped away from the tree he had been using as a cover. He grabbed the pillow and threw it at the ground. A command shot out of his brain. The lock on the carrier returned the appropriate signal.

      He ran to his own widemount without waiting for Purvali’s response. On the display, the hardbodies called off their attack and let the widemounts widen the gap once again.

      Sabor switched to the view from his rear camera. Purvali had folded her arms across her breasts. She was staring silently at the back of her widemount’s head.

      Sabor’s system pipped. Possessor Avaming’s stock welcomer replaced Sabor’s pouting paramour.

      “Possessor Avaming has asked me to inform you he has deployed thirty of his security personnel on the border he shares with Possessor Makajida. He has advised Possessor Makajida of his actions.”

      “Please convey my thanks to Possessor Avaming,” Sabor said. “Please let him know I deeply appreciate his kindness.”

      He gave his system another order and it immediately put him in contact with a more ostentatious image—the muscular, thickly robed flesh-and-blood human male who served as Possessor Dobryami’s welcomer.

      “Good afternoon, Financier Sabor. May I ask your business?”

      “I have some intelligence I would like you to convey to Possessor Dobryami. Please tell her I have reason to believe Possessor Kenzan Khan is about to lose the services of the fifty soldiers he is currently renting from Possessor Makajida.”

      Wrinkles creased the welcomer’s square, manly forehead. “Is there any way Possessor Dobryami can verify this information?”

      “I could give her the names of other people she should