Astro felt rather small as he sat on one side of the vast table, facing a half dozen suits in a large, dimly-lit meeting room. General Devan sat beside him, checking information on his phone/computer.
One of the suits leaned forward and said, "Astro Tenma, welcome, and thank you for coming. To begin with, I would appreciate it if you would inform the panel of your military background."
"Sure," he said, standing up, though it didn't help him feel much taller. "I served in the civil war against Leader Orkan under then Colonel Devan."
"Did you actually engage the enemy?"
"Yes, sir; four times. I lost my first battle against those large manned robots that Leader had created, but, having figured out their weaknesses, I beat them the next time, capturing two of the robots and their pilots. The third time, Leader spread his forces out quite a bit, trying to weaken my effectiveness, but I was able to take advantage of that and defeat them again, mostly using their own weapons against them."
"And then you faced Orkan himself. I understand that you defeated him single-handedly."
"Not exactly: My wife and son helped." That stirred up considerable discussion among the suits.
"Astro," said one of the other men finally, "you are a robot, are you not?"
"I prefer 'android' because we're more than robots, but yes, sir."
"'Android', then. Kindly explain your relationships with your, um, wife and son."
"We're robotic beings, with free will, who can reproduce. I'm married to Luna, and Ran-tan is our son."
General Devan stood up at that point. "Gentlemen. Although a discussion of Astro's nature would no doubt be very informative, it is not relevant to the matter at hand. What he has revealed to you, however, is sufficient to make clear that he can make a unique contribution to our work here regarding the Mellanine organization. He is quite capable of making effective decisions in the field without any intervention on our parts when things turn out differently from our expectations."
"But can they not destroy him as they have done to our operatives up to now?" asked a third suit.
Devan leaned over to pick up his briefcase, and whispered to Astro, "Sorry, Astro. Please trust me." Laying the case on the table, he opened it and pulled out a large-calibre semi-automatic pistol which he pointed at Astro's chest.
The shot threw Astro across the room, and the suits all stood up in horror, but he quickly scrambled to his feet, obviously unharmed.
"As you can see," said the general, returning the pistol to his briefcase, "he cannot be hurt by conventional weapons."
"That's not quite true, sir," said Astro, laying the spent bullet on the table. "That hurt a lot; it just didn't do any damage."
Devan winced slightly. "I stand corrected, but this is my point: he is hard to kill."
"Point taken," said the first suit. "Astro, this would not be a combat mission. What we are looking for is what is colloquially referred to as a spy: we need you to locate and infiltrate the Mellanine headquarters in Al-ferq'a, the capital of Suenisia in northern Africa. Once there, you would be expected to dig up whatever information you can find on the organization and feed it back to us."
"Sounds simple enough," Astro said as he returned to his chair.
"Are you willing to take this on?"
"Sure. When do you want me to start?"
"General Devan will brief you on the intelligence that we've already obtained, and provide you with such necessities as local clothing and whatever else you may need to appear native. Any other questions?"
"You got any?" Astro linked to Luna.
"Nope," she replied. "Seems pretty straight-forward to me."
"No sir," he answered the suit.
"Good. General Devan: he's all yours."
"Sorry about the bullet to the chest," said Devan as they strolled down one of the long corridors in the labyrinthine building. "I needed to make the point in a hurry."
"No problem, sir."
"Now, how hard would it be to colour your skin?"
Astro grinned and turned a bright purple. "What colour would you like?"
The general stared for a moment. "Um, yeah. A dark Mediterranean skin tone would be fine. Is your hair black."
"Yes, sir," he said as he reset his skin colour.
"Good." He stopped and carded a door open. "In here please."
The room had the bright sterile look of a laboratory, and several people in white coats turned to see who had entered.
"People," said General Devan. "This is Astro Tenma. He's an android, and he will be leaving soon on a mission for us to Al-ferq'a. Please get him ready."
An hour later, he was dressed for Northern Africa in light-coloured, loose-fitting clothes, his skin was the right colour, and they'd spent a little time working on his hair to get those two licks to lie down.
"I wish we could do something about his facial structure," said Emmy, one of the female staff. "It looks too round for a Suenisian."
"I wonder," linked Luna. "See if you can command changes in your skin."
"Sure," he replied, then said to Emmy, "Do you have some pictures of Suenisian kids I could use for reference?"
"Just a moment," she said, and pulled out her computer. A display appeared in front of him with a selection of dark faces. "See anything you like?"
He tried some commands as he watched himself in the mirror, and finally found something that worked.
"Cool," linked Luna. "I wouldn't recognize you if I met you in the street."
"This okay?" he said to Emmy.
She gasped, then said, "That is absolutely perfect!" She spun him around to face the general and said, "He's ready, sir."
General Devan studied him for a moment, then said, "Better than I'd hoped. Thank you, everyone." He headed to the door. "Come on, Astro—or should I say, Berq'an? Time for your briefing."
"Where'd you get the name Berq'an from?" Astro asked as they sat down in an office ten floors up in the CDA building.
"It means 'little star' in Suenisian," General Devan said with a smile.
Astro laughed. "Astro, in other words."
"Exactly. Now, I've got a fair bit of information to give to you. How would you like to get it?"
"Wireless upload is easiest for me."
"Alright." He made several entries on his computer, then pressed the corner of its screen.
Astro felt the access, and directed the data to its own folder for later compiling.
"Most of this is simply local knowledge to help you get around the city," said Devan. "Maps of various sorts, language files I pulled from robots in the region, things a boy of your apparent age would be expected to know, and so on."
"Hmm," said Astro, scanning the files. "No reviews of mannerisms."
"Pardon me?"
"I've studied human behaviour so I can blend into a crowd of people: you know, scratching my head or running my fingers through my hair when I'm supposed to be thinking, stretching when bored, that kind of stuff. I expect those people would probably have some of their own."
"Oh, I see. I must admit that I never thought of that. As a human myself, I suppose I take it for granted. I'm confident that you'll figure out for yourself what you need quite quickly once you're there."
"Sure. Do you have any videos of people actually speaking Suenisian? I want to get the accent right, and see how they move when they talk."
Devan quickly consulted his computer. "I think so. Let's see. ... I'll contact Emmy and see if she knows." After a couple of moments, he said, "Ah, there we go. You can watch them here." He called up a screen.
The CDA provided Astro with special diplomatic documentation so that his robotic nature wouldn't be an issue with the various airport security agencies along the way. A week later, as part of his cover, he took a flight with an operative who was to play Azera, his supposed father while they were in Suenisia. They landed in London, then caught a plane to Rome. The final leg of the journey took them to Al-ferq'a. To pass the time, he and Luna joined Ran-tan and Evan-sa for a couple of Beethoven's symphonies over the link whenever Luna wasn't busy.
As the plane finally taxied toward the Al-ferq'a airport terminal, Luna linked, "Fifteen thousand kilometres, and our link doesn't even have any static."
"Yeah," Astro responded. "How far does it go?" Suddenly he got a brainwave. "Luna! Here's General Devan's contact info. I want you to set it up so you can be there with him when I track down this Mellanine place so that he'll see right away through our link whatever I find." Just in case something goes wrong ...
"Got it," she replied. It won't go wrong.
"Come, Berq'an," said Azera as they stood together outside their hotel in the intense summer heat. "We will visit the bazaar now, and I will see if my friends have learned anything of these strangers."
"Yes, Father," Astro answered in the somewhat formal Suenisian. "And I myself will search for any sign of them as we go along."
"Would they leave any sign, do you think?"
"They shouldn't if they are clever. I can only hope that they are not."
Azera sighed. "Yes, this will indeed be difficult."
While Azera chatted a few minutes later with one of his contacts who ostensibly sold hand-woven carpets, Astro browsed a display of jewelry, and found that the Ouroboros was a common image here, especially in bracelets: it wouldn't serve as a very useful clue. The goat's head was another matter: there wasn't one in the entire collection.
What could he do?
The idea of radio scanning came in the subtext over the link, and he rolled his eyes. He'd been so busy with the symbol, he'd overlooked the obvious.
"Ah, Father," Astro said when Azera joined him shortly after. "I have good news."
"Indeed, my son? Come, let us sit by the fountain, and you can tell me about it." He led the way to a pretty multi-level stone structure where clear water splashed loudly into a small pool in the base.
Astro lowered his voice so that it would be just audible to Azera and said, "I am getting a radio signal from over to the northwest that I would think is highly irregular in a country with such a simple lifestyle."
He nodded. "Such a thing has been noted by previous operatives, usually a short time before they died."
"These Mellanine guys probably saw them coming," Luna linked. "Their own spies must be pretty good."
"For sure," Astro replied. "But I wonder if they're expecting someone my age."
"Just don't make any assumptions."
"I hear you."