“They’re not our patients,” I reminded him.
Our patients are a related case, however. I think I can make the suggestion without causing offense, Rilriltok said. Apparently, it checked in with its own team, because after a pause it commented, Dr. K’kk’jk’ooOOoo has inspected the ox-environment patients from Big Rock Candy Mountain’s crew, and the team is ready to initiate the rewarming process. This is your last chance to put a hold on it, Llyn, should you wish to. Once we start, we can’t stop without killing them.
“It’s Helen’s call,” I said. “And she’s made it. Asking her to revisit the decision would only be cruel.”
Shall we see if Dr. Zhiruo thinks she can be roused? She may wish to be present. I’m going to return to the Cryo unit in order to be available for any emergencies.
It buzzed up into the air.
We can ask Dr. K’kk’jk’ooOOoo what she thinks about the Darboof when we get there.
“I’ll join you,” I said. I checked senso. Dr. Zhiruo was not presently available, but I left a message for her about Helen. While I was there, I asked if any progress had been made in determining what was wrong with Afar.
I felt certain it wouldn’t take her long to get back to me.
* * *
The four of us walked, scuttled, and buzzed down the corridor two by two. Cheeirilaq and I were in the front. Rilriltok hovered a little behind me. And Tsosie went on its left.
Cheeirilaq seemed genuinely interested as it asked, Your preferred pronoun is she, is it not?
I allowed that this was the case.
Will I be invading your privacy if I ask more questions?
“I’m comfortable with questions,” I said.
In observing other humans, I have noticed that your sexes seem very much alike. This is very different from my own species. And in observing your species-mates, I have come to realize that despite this similarity, many humans see themselves as very strongly gendered. And many others do not. So… why does your species subscribe to a gender binary?
“Do you mean me? For myself?”
Was that a rude question? I am terribly sorry. The enormous mantoid paced along on feathery feet, moving noiselessly.
“No,” I said. “Not a rude question, exactly. I mean, some would find it so. But I don’t.”
Thank you for forgiving my ignorance.
I laughed. It was charming, for a creature entirely out of nightmare. Comparing it to the almost embarrassingly adorable Rilriltok, I could see what it meant about my species’s lack of dimorphism. “I don’t think of myself as very strongly gendered. And I could elect a genderless identity, or a mixed-gender identity, if I preferred.”
Wouldn’t that be less work?
“Oh, probably,” I admitted. “Sure. But I choose to inhabit this conceptual space. To stretch it to accommodate me, rather than allowing it to contract. Because once a conceptual space starts to shrink by squeezing people out of it, it has a tendency to accelerate, and shrink and shrink and shrink until it squeezes out more and more people.”
And your conceptual space is woman.
“For now. Identities can be fluid over lifetimes, after all.”
Cheeirilaq inspected, then groomed the serrated edge of one raptorial forearm. That is an interesting perspective. But surely, sex is only important when one is choosing to reproduce.
That’s easy for you to say, Rilriltok commented. Then it ducked behind my shoulder, carapace showing variegated blues as it attempted to match my scrubs, the carpet, and the corridor walls all at once.
“Oh,” I said. “That’s why you folks prefer a singular, genderless pronoun.”
Rilriltok made the chirruping noise I associated with laughter. It’s not my fault humans are scandalous. We use gendered pronouns for animals and reproductive partners. And females that are trying to eat us.
Which amounts to the same thing, Cheeirilaq said.
I looked at it in surprise.
It said, There is no ethical sentient justification for my sex’s reproductive strategy. But we try to do better these diar.
“That almost sounds personal.” I had meant to be conversational. I realized that perhaps I’d overstepped when Rilriltok buzzed low against my shoulder. “I mean, I’m not sure there’s any ethical sentient justification for any species’s reproductive strategy—”
I come from a well-known female line. Some of my brilliant ancestors—its abdomen expanded as it drew a heavy breath, patterns of red and yellow veining appearing between the pale green plates—crafted the society our people now enjoy. But I do not think Rilriltok will argue with me when I say that they… deserved gendered pronouns.
I am ashamed of their legacy. I try to make some restoration with my own right behavior.
My mouth twisted against itself. I didn’t want to dismiss the Goodlaw’s willingness to acknowledge historic crimes or to accept accountability. But I was also interested in the conversation. “My ancestors came very close to destroying our species and our homeworld, but also managed to save it—and us—in spite of themselves. Or by finally understanding that everybody is responsible for fixing broken things, maybe. We had to learn that there were more important things than being ‘right.’ Brilliant people are sometimes terrible at being people. It goes a long way toward making their legacies complicated. I remember being taught an old ethics conundrum about whether humanity should give up space travel because Einstein was kind of a dick to his first spouse.”
“Wife,” Tsosie said, with uncharacteristic irrelevance.
“What?”
“They called them wives.”
“Some of us still call them wives,” I said. “Or at least that’s what I called mine, and vice versa. But I believe even archaically, it’s acceptable to use spouse interchangeably with gender-specific terms.”
“Huh.” Tsosie looked at me oddly. I frowned back until he shook his head. “Sorry, nothing. Just—we’ve served together for nearly ten ans, and I never knew that you were married.”
I smiled. “Possibly I was also kind of a dick to my spouse,” I admitted. “Or maybe she was kind of a dick to me. I honestly couldn’t tell you one way or the other, at this point. Subjectivity is a great ruiner of testimony.”
We reached the lift and stepped inside. Cheeirilaq considerately crowded itself into a back corner, tilting its long body almost vertical to give Rilriltok as much distance from its person as practical. Rilriltok scuttled around to my front.
“The great ruiner of testimony,” Tsosie said, “but the font of great art.”
“And here we are back to terrible people inconveniently not making terrible art.”
Expecting art to present absolute answers or offer tidy moral certainties is expecting art to act like propaganda, Cheeirilaq said, which made me think maybe I did not need to offer it my grammar school philosophy on dealing with the problematic acts of problematic ancestors.
It continued, Possibly your people do not find it rude to discuss sexual dimorphism because sexual dimorphism and gendered violence have caused less harm to your species than mine.
I was still too embarrassed to say anything. Tsosie came to the rescue.
“Less, maybe,” Tsosie said. “But I can only say that because I am talking to a Rashaqin.”
Rilriltok chirruped laughter.
Tsosie continued, “I would not say ‘none.’ I wouldn’t even say ‘not much.’ But isn’t maturity—individual, or as a species—acknowledging when you or your ancestors have done wrong, and trying to do better, not one-upping each other on who has suffered more?”
I was still trying to figure out how to paint myself back out of the corner I’d painted myself into—without sounding even more condescending—when the lift suddenly lurched, and gave a thud. I stumbled forward, instinctively throwing my hands out. Between me and my exo, we managed to brace against the wall without crushing Rilriltok under my large, endoskeletal body.
There was a second jolt, more terrible than the first. Tsos
ie fell against my back, then grabbed on to a rail beside me. We drifted for a moment, all four of us breathing heavily, and I braced for tearing, crushing, the pop of expelled atmosphere.
The lift started up again, and we dropped to the floor more heavily than I suspect Cheeirilaq or Rilriltok liked. I was glad my low-gravity friends had their magic belts on. It seemed to have dampened the worst of the impact.
Quickly, my neck and spine protesting the wrenches and impacts, I activated mine.
“Linden?” Tsosie asked.
“Dr. Tsosie,” she replied, a presence light pinging up beside the door panel. “Apologies for the discomfort.”
“Did we miss a transition?” I asked. To my knowledge, a Core General lift had never malfunctioned that way. Definitely not during my tenure here. “Are we going to miss a transition?”
I imagined the linking switches inside the branches and shafts slicing the lift in half. Their moorings tearing open the hospital’s hull and spilling atmosphere, staff, patients, crash carts, monitors into space.
There were safety overrides, but knowing that wasn’t very comforting right now.
“Apologies for the discomfort,” Linden said, as I tuned some of my pain away.
I remembered what Starlight had said about sabotage and accidents, and my breath hurt. “Linden, did you know that you’re repeating yourself?”
“The lift is safe,” Linden said. “You will arrive at your destination in ninety seconds.”
I looked at the others. Rilriltok was practically vibrating with fear. Cheeirilaq said, Ride it out?
“No more dangerous than diverting,” Tsosie answered. He rubbed his palms together, and I hoped he was right.
I turned toward the outside, and watched the lights of the lift cradle ripple past, outlined against the swirling sky. Biofeedback. Breathing. Tuning. No time to panic.
The lift sighed to a halt as liquidly as if nothing had gone wrong at all. I held my breath as the doors opened—
They did not open on void, the Big Suck, and freezing eyeballs. Nor did they open on choking chlorine or caustic vapor or searing steam. Just a quiet corridor on an ox deck with a couple of staff members hustling past in murmured conversation.
I felt so relieved it was almost a letdown.
We got out of that lift so fast we almost tripped over ourselves and one another.
“Oh no,” I said. “Linden, have you been in contact with Afar?”
Tsosie looked at me, alert with worry. I could tell he was following my train of thought.
Although if the incidents had started before we came back… and the sabotage to Sally had occurred on our way to the generation ship…
It didn’t make sense.
Linden’s presence lights burned steady along the wall beside us. “Don’t worry, we’ve been using sterile data protocols. With Sally also, even though she firewalled when dealing with Afar and Helen.”
“She went right into a portion of the machine.”
“She overwrote it; she didn’t integrate it. Don’t worry. Sally is good at her job.”
Rilriltok flew up and hovered near the ceiling, adjusting its gravity control belt as it went. Linden, is it too late to abort rewarming the generation ship crew?
“Affirmative,” she said. “The rewarming process has begun.”
“Brilliant timing,” I murmured to Rilriltok. Just what we needed: a finicky, long-term procedure taking place while the hospital was experiencing instabilities such as the one that had jolted us.
It buzzed grumpily. We’d better hurry, friends.
CHAPTER 15
THE FOUR OF US WALKED with good speed, Rilriltok running along the carpeted ceiling on its feathery toes to stay out of the corridor traffic.
“Linden,” I said without pausing, “please put me through to the Administree? Or O’Mara, if Starlight isn’t available?”
Starlight was available. We were only a third of the way to Cryomedicine when I heard their familiar voice through my senso. [Hello, Dr. Jens.]
“Something is wrong with Linden,” I said. “Linden, sorry to talk about you in the third person, but—”
“All my diagnostics show normal functioning, Doctor,” Linden said. “I will consult with Dr. Zhiruo—”
“Firewall!” I said, louder than I had intended. Doctors, nurses, and staffers of various species turned to stare—the ones who had both necks and eyes, anyway. “Linden, you need to make sure you observe sterile protocols.”
[Firewall,] Starlight agreed. [Dr. Jens, please update me.]
I sent them my ayatana of the incident on the lift, and said, “In Afar and maybe Sally, we’ve got two damaged shipminds already. Helen’s trauma seems to have a different source, but I cannot help but be suspicious…”
[Until we can run a diagnostic,] Starlight said, [Linden, please do firewall all communications with other digital entities. No code exchanges. Air-gapped auditory communication only. I realize this is inconvenient, and I apologize.]
“Acknowledged,” Linden said.
[Do you have a clean backup?]
“Yes, I believe so. But my diagnostics show nothing currently amiss.”
[Then what happened in the lift?] Starlight asked, reasonably.
With some relief, I opened the door to the Cryo observation lounge and ushered everybody into its somewhat more private environs.
At first I thought there was nobody else inside. Then I realized that one of the chairs mostly concealed a slouched human form, a spike of black hair peeking over the back. I shot a glance at Tsosie and the two Rashaqins, warning them back a little. The figure was familiar, and something about her body language made me want to approach her alone.
I settled in the chair next to her. “Loese? You okay?”
She looked up, startled. She must have been far away inside her own head, because generally your fox will remind you if somebody enters proximity. This was a full-body flinch.
I rested the backs of my fingers on her arm. “Checking on the patients?”
She sat up, and I watched her reconstruct her facade. It was fast and skilled, and I might not have noticed if I hadn’t been staring right at her. “This is all pretty upsetting.”
She looked over my shoulder and saw the others clustered by the door. “Come in, folks. Don’t let me stop you.” She stood, tugging her uniform tunic down, and looked back out into the Cryo unit. “I feel responsible.”
“Yeah.” I stood up, too. We hadn’t yet really bonded, but this might be an opportunity to grow a little closer. “This was all set in motion long before you or I was born, Loese. We couldn’t have gotten there sooner, or prevented the catastrophe that led to this.”
She grunted as if she wanted to argue, but stopped herself. Easy for you to say, the look she shot me seemed to imply. I stepped back, realizing how little I knew about her, her backstory, the traumas and triumphs that had brought her to where we were. I knew her service record. I knew that Sally had requested her from the available pilot rosters.
But I only knew Loese in the professional working friendship we’d shared.
I thought about Tsosie mentioning that he hadn’t known I was married. I bet he didn’t know I had a kid, either, unless he’d checked my next of kin—something a commander might do.
I guess I did keep myself distant and locked down. I kept myself from complaining too much, and from feeling too much faith that things would work out if I let them.
It was too big a series of personal epiphanies to unpack all at once, especially with four colleagues staring at me. I tried to come up with something anodyne to say.
Loese smiled. Her face looked strained around it. “I’ll be fine,” she said.
“We’ll catch up,” I offered. “You drink coffee? How about a field trip down to the Forbidden Zone?”
“Ping me,” she said, and fidgeted her way past Tsosie and the pair of Rashaqins.
Having exchanged departing pleasantries with Loese, the rest of my companions joined me clos
er to the windows. Tsosie leaned over and whispered, “Do you know what that was about?”
“Survivor guilt?” I hazarded. We’d all had to deal with it. “It’s her rightminding and none of our business, unless her work suffers.”
Tsosie sighed. He’s from more of an auntie culture than I am. It makes him a good CO.
Behind the windows, hospital staff including Dr. Tralgar bustled around the cryo chambers. I spotted a peripheral that was probably Dr. K’kk’jk’ooOOoo. She’d have to use waldos outside of a water environment anyway, so there was no point in her hauling herself into a tank and driving the damned thing, sloshing, down crowded corridors and through two or three environment locks.
I leaned against the wall, letting myself react a little to the useless adrenaline the lift ride had left me with. It would break down fast enough; for now I could ride it out. Besides, I might need it again in a minute.
“I don’t know,” Linden admitted, suddenly, as if she had been obsessing over the question and it had burst out of her. “Maybe the lift failure is linked to the earlier sabotage attempts I could not detect until I was informed of them by organic colleagues.”
Tsosie said, “How many attempts, precisely, are we talking about?”
I held a finger up, and he subsided.
Linden continued, “My point is, if my diagnostics show nothing amiss now, would I be able to tell if the backup was corrupted?”
The back of my head thudded softly against the seat back. Nobody else seemed to notice.
“The sabotage started before we got back,” I pointed out. Tsosie’s lips flattened, but he didn’t interrupt. “And there was an attempt on Sally. And you’ve also been experiencing memory gaps?”
“I did not realize until now,” Linden said. “But I’ve reviewed the recordings, and the lift definitely glitched.”
I rubbed my bruised elbow. “It sure did.”
Cheeirilaq leaned over my shoulder. Friend wheelmind, it might be best to isolate yourself immediately. I am concerned about contagion—
“I’ve been using firewalls!” Linden wailed. A moment later, she calmed her voice. “Yes. If the firewalls and air-gap communications have been ineffective in preventing contamination, I am in danger. What shall I tell colleagues about why I am not sharing data?” Linden asked. “I am a major traffic control hub for this sector!”
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