“Yet you expect that I will?”

“Yes. You are…” The android paused.

“I am what?”

“Please, Captain, this is unseemly. I must return with you in my company. This is urgent, most urgent. You cannot conceive of the honor I am doing you.”

Maddox decided he would receive no useful information from the android. He didn’t know how he could capture it in his present state. He needed a communicator. He needed Sergeant Riker. A neural net would surely do the trick. How to get his hands on one before the android left was the question.

“I’m leaving,” Maddox said. “If you wait here, I’ll return shortly.”

“You are coming with me. We must go down to the…”

“Yes?”

The android cocked its head as if hearing an internal dialogue.

Abruptly, the android’s mouth opened a trifle wider than seemed natural.

That made Maddox uneasy. He removed the pistol from his throat and moved even farther away.

A sonic blast erupted from the android’s mouth. The horrible noise staggered Maddox, almost rendering him unconscious. The creature leaped, no doubt trying to catch him unawares.

Maddox was a pistol marksman and able to think faster than others in such a situation. The creature was made of pseudo-flesh with titanium sheathing underneath. Maddox neither had the time to pump enough bullets into the thing nor they the penetrating power to smash the android into harmless smithereens. That meant he had only one option—the eyes. They were logically a weaker portal straight to the AI. But the leaps and bounds the thing made jiggled the eyes, making them a difficult target.

These thoughts flashed though Maddox’s brain in less than a second of intuitive insight. Then, he pulled the trigger. A spark against the bridge of the nose told him he’d missed. Another shot ricocheted off the forehead, leaving a smear of what some might have mistaken for blood. The next bullet entered the eye, smashing its way into the delicate braincase. A second and third shot followed, doing even more damage.

The android lost its coordination. The eyelids fluttered madly while the body sailed limply, propelled by momentum.

Maddox tried to dodge, but he was too late. The thing crashed against the captain, hurling him against a large refrigerator. The back of his skull slammed home with terrific force.

Together, broken android and unconscious man crumpled onto the kitchen floor, the gun clattering away under a small space.

-2-

Maddox groaned as his head throbbed painfully. For a moment, he had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. Then, he remembered the android and their strange conversation.

The captain unglued his eyes and found the construct on top of his chest. Maddox tried to push it off. That made his head throb even more painfully. For a second, his overloaded senses threatened to render him unconscious again.

Maddox quit pushing, letting himself relax. There were faint voices coming from somewhere. Did people hurry here because they’d heard shots? That seemed likely. That would mean he hadn’t been unconscious long.