We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

Chanur wheeled on her then, eyes flashing with disapproval. “It doesn’t have an opinion, Park,” she said tightly. “Being a machine.”

  There was a little silent beat as Park waited for Jimex to respond to that. But the custodial android said nothing to dispute the claim; he only stood there, looking at them placidly. Park could suddenly feel the chill emanating from the walls. Finally Chanur turned away again and said, “Now, if you don’t have any questions regarding your own health, I’ll ask you to leave, Park. You’re fine, and some of us have actual work to do.”

  And go to hell to you, too, Park thought after, hurrying down the corridor a few minutes later with Jimex trailing her steps. She was eager to get away from the medical bay, eager to be alone with her thoughts—but just a few steps in, she slowed and put a hand out to his sleeve. “Take me to the service tunnel, please,” Park whispered, hunching her shoulders a little in the dark. The tunnel between the medical bay and the ship’s private quarters opened up before her like a throat. Normally she relied on the map in her neural inlays to guide her through the ship, but there was that swaying feeling in her head, a remnant of the tranquilizer tabs and her recent illness. Jimex nodded and began to lead her down the corridor, marching strangely like an executioner leading his victim to the gallows.

  Park had to grit her teeth and force herself to forge onward, clinging to his sleeve. The Deucalion was structured like a rabbit’s warren, the ship itself a gray oblong disc whirling through space, its innards three decks’ worth of cramped and crooked passageways that twined around each other in dimly lit confusion. No straight lines here, Park often thought. No straightforward direction, no clear-cut compass. The way the corridors twisted around each other—coupled with the way the ship spun—meant you could never really tell what direction you were moving in. Whether you were going down or up. The reasons for this were backed by physics—streamlined shell for acceleration; spread-out channels to distribute mass; rotating sections of the ship to create gravity—but it didn’t make navigating the damn thing any less unnerving. It was like following the root system of a giant tree, shuffling blindly along in the half-dark. Or climbing through the arteries of a mechanical heart. What would be found, deep down in the core of things? You could never be quite sure.

  Park suppressed a shudder. She often felt a feeling of erasure, being trapped aboard the ship: as if everything within the great vessel was bent towards annihilating her presence. Even the state-of-the-art filtration systems eliminated all odor, all animal smell and musk. There was no sense or proof of presence; it was as if the humans on board were being sterilized out of existence. And she could never get used to the way her soft deckboots made no sound on the red-veined tile—a kind of hellish-looking carbon composite meant to protect them from the heat of reentry. The silence of her own footfalls disconcerted her. She felt always as if she might be swallowed whole by the ship.

  Finally she found the bright circle in the wall that indicated the service tunnel she wanted and stumbled toward it. The actual everyday sections of the ship were well-lit, but the passageways between them and the storage rooms operated at half-luminescence, to conserve power. She stopped when they were tucked safely away into the bend and turned to Jimex.

  “Who works in the cafeteria?”

  His head whirred again. After he’d checked his databases he replied: “Philex works in the cafeteria on most days. Megex on others.”

  “Speak to them, please, and find out which crewmember could have had access to my food when I wasn’t looking. From last night’s meal as well as lunch. And speak to Ellenex as well—I want to verify Chanur’s story.” For all I know, she could have been the one who poisoned me, she thought but didn’t say.

  Jimex cranked his head to the side; in a human it would have been akin to a tilt of curiosity, but in him it simply looked as if his head were askew. “Dr. Chanur’s story,” he repeated.

  Park stared at him. “I want to hear from Ellenex what I was sick with, when I was found. Whether the stockroom has really been untouched. Those sorts of things. Chanur won’t allow her to speak to me, but she won’t stop you.” The robots all had a silent way of communicating with each other, though she suspected she was the only one who knew this—besides maybe Reimi. After a moment she added: “And I’d like to hear from her about Reimi—Officer Kisaragi—too. About what really happened with her. If Dr. Chanur’s version of events are true.”

  Something wasn’t right, she thought as Jimex nodded and thunked dutifully away. The nearest ISF outpost was five weeks away: it took eighteen hours or more to send a message there, the same amount of time to receive a response back. How had they obtained permission to freeze Reimi so quickly, when she’d fallen sick only yesterday afternoon? And why in such secrecy? For what purpose?

  No, something wasn’t right.

  Thinking of this, she pulled up her datagrabs of Chanur’s face and examined them, rifling through the snapshots on her neural inlays. Privacy War skirmishes were still erupting on the outer rings of the system, rebels and ISF agents battling it out on colonies like Halla and Blest, and confidentiality was on everyone’s minds. Current privacy laws dictated Park had up to one hour to view any images for “personal use” before they were deleted; she used that opportunity now to scrutinize Chanur’s features. Yes, there was definitely something there: secrecy, annoyance, hidden anger and laughter in turns. But laughter at whom? Park? And anger at what?

  No wonder she turned her back, Park thought—even though such a gesture was considered offensive in Chanur’s native Martian system, where face-to-face contact was scarce enough. There was a gamut of feeling roiling beneath the physician’s surface, and she’d hidden her face knowing—as everyone knew—that Park would sniff her out, given long enough. That meant she had something to hide.

  She stood there for a while in the dark, trying to puzzle out Chanur’s state of mind. Park had her degrees in phenotypology: the kind of training that asked psychologists to analyze and interpret the feelings of their patients through facial tics, body language, topography. Words could lie, but the body often knew the truth of things, and would broadcast it to the most attentive phenotypologist. Park could deduce emotional stability in conversational pauses, anxiety or calculation in the twitch of a brow. Every look was a data point. It was the kind of skill that androids used to interpret the myriad expressions of human beings, and overall a good niche for Park: it meant she didn’t have to talk much.

  “You’re the monitor,” Keller would often say. “The one who’s behind the scenes, watching. Figuring out what’s going on below the surface. I’m just here as the bait, coaxing everything out for you to examine.”

  Flattery, Park had decided at the time—or, more uncommonly, genuine kindness. Most in the psych field disregarded phenotype analysis as simple data collation, research: it didn’t help anybody. Apparently Chanur thought so, with her venomous implication that Park had little work to do besides fussing after the robots. Worse, she thought Park’s ability was some kind of probe she had to protect herself from. An intrusion. But an intrusion on what?

  She heard a tapping from down the hall, suddenly. Someone with a light tread, moving in soft deckboots—not an android, then, or Jimex coming back already because he’d misunderstood her commands. She half-turned, expecting Keller, who should have come looking for her by now; but instead she was surprised to find the tall, lanky form of Kel Fulbreech looming up out of the dark.

  “Fulbreech,” Park said, trying not to sound startled. More likely than not, he was startled to find her lurking alone in a maintenance tunnel.

  “Park,” Fulbreech answered, easily enough. “I was just looking for you.”

  “For me?” She tried to think of what Fulbreech would want with her. He was the cartographer for the expedition, tasked with mapping out the new planet. She couldn’t imagine he was approaching her for psychological help, down here. In its usual way her mind went
to the worst-case scenarios: Had a fight broken out between crewmembers? Was there a malfunction somewhere on the ship, and they were preparing to evacuate?

  But Fulbreech said, a little bashfully: “I heard you’d gotten sick and I was coming to visit you. Are you feeling better?”

  Park pressed her lips together; so news had already spread around the ship. Did anyone suspect that she’d been slipped something? Were they all in on it? Out loud she said, “I’m fine.”

  Then, belatedly: “Thank you.”

  If he found her rude, Fulbreech gave her no indication of it. He was one of those people who could hide very little from her, with his friendly, guileless face, his clear blue eyes and strong chin. He began, “Do you—”

  Then he seemed to lose his nerve, perhaps sensing she didn’t want to discuss it, and said instead: “I was, ah, wondering if you were free in an hour or so.”

  She checked the time on her inlays. “I’m scheduled to have lunch at two.” The ISF kept them on rigid timeslots and rotations, something Park didn’t agree with: their schedule helped to maintain a sense of routine for crewmembers who had no sense of conventional time on Eos, with its two alien suns—but the lack of freedom and community also tended to breed resentment on the ship.

  “I am, too,” Fulbreech said, his words a little too quick. As if he was trying to preempt some response from her. “And I was wondering—well. I have a surprise I’d like to show you. To help you feel better. I think you’ll like it. Will you join me after your meal?”

  Park’s stomach jerked. She didn’t like that. Didn’t like surprises, not knowing what might be waiting for her. She’d had enough of the unexpected today, anyway. But because she had to know, she said warily: “What is it?”

  Even in the dark, she could see Fulbreech’s grin. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it?”

  “I still would prefer to know.”

  He laughed: the sound was rich and warm, and seemed to reverberate through the tunnel. Park’s stomach squirmed. “Just eat quickly, and come see me on Deck B afterward, all right? I’ll tell you then.”

  Then he turned and walked off down the tunnel, back in the direction he came. Fulbreech had the odd habit of whistling while he walked, which often made others stare. Few of the space-born knew how to do that anymore. They didn’t need to; sound carried so differently, away from Earth. Things like a whistle got distorted in the star-screaming void of space.

  Park stared after him as he vanished down one of the vertical hatches, which opened like a pit into the floor. What on Earth was the cartographer up to?

  And what surprise could he have in store for her?

  Apprehension filled her as she turned toward the long dark gullet that lay between her and the office she shared with Keller. In her experience, there was always some kind of underlying motive for gifts, or favors, or surprises. Some sort of price that was expected to be paid. For some reason she found herself thinking of poor Reimi, now stuck in her cryogenic pod. As horrible as it sounded, there was always the chance that being frozen would be a blissful experience for her—like waking up from the longest, most refreshing nap of her life. Maybe she would emerge from her pod feeling younger and stronger than she ever had before. Her skin all taut and dewy. Her eyes cleared by months of sleep. Maybe being frozen was like a rejuvenation—or a much-needed escape into oblivion.

  Or maybe it was like waking up in a coffin, Park thought, bleakly. Not quite dead, but wishing that you were. Maybe Reimi was still awake when the freezing began, cognizant enough to feel the agony of her arteries shriveling, her body deflating inch by painful inch. Organs locking up, tissue gluing itself to tissue, the blood turning syrupy and slow with cryoprotectants. Maybe being frozen was its own kind of trauma.

  The latter seemed more likely, didn’t it?

  Space supported her line of thinking. Space was all about entropy. If a star wanted to grow, it had to feed off the energy of another star. If a ship wanted to propel itself into the next galaxy, it had to sacrifice mass, straight lines. Being frozen or being surprised by a crewmate should be no different. There were no free rides. No spontaneous gifts. Things out here came with a price—whether you asked for them in the first place or not.

  * * *

  —

  “What a cynical way of thinking,” Keller exclaimed when Park brought it up with her later. “I’m sure he’s saved you a cake ration, or something.”

  “But why?” Park asked. “What’s the motive?”

  “He likes you,” Keller said, rolling her eyes. “It’s a courtship thing.”

  “No,” Park said flatly. “That can’t be it. He doesn’t even know me.”

  “He’s the only person on the ship who talks to you, other than me and the janitor bot. No offense. You don’t think he’s gotten to know you over these last ten months?”

  No, Park thought. ISF had them separated on regimented shifts, some teams taking turns sleeping while others maintained the ship or prepared for planetfall or gathered data; the idea was that they had to be used to operating as independently as possible, in the event that something happened to the other crewmembers. As impossible as it seemed, after nearly a year, she still hadn’t interacted with her own crewmates much—except in patient sessions. And even then, she wasn’t the one who spoke. “I don’t know much about him, other than what’s in his file.”

  “That’s not his fault.”

  “I didn’t say it was.”

  “Then why punish him by denying him the chance to get closer to you?”

  “Fraternization is forbidden between crewmembers.”

  “My dear . . .”

  They were sitting together in their shared office: a grim little space, but one of the few truly private rooms aboard the Deucalion. If Park had had her way, she would have convinced ISF Earth to cough up the bits to convert the office into a more welcoming space: better lighting, warmer colors to the gray walls, maybe a plant to alleviate the ambient chill. Curtains to simulate security, privacy. But Dr. Keller was the primary psychologist, and she was utilitarian, machine-based. She’d brought a MAD—a Mood-Altering Device that shot soothing gamma rays into a patient’s eyes—and told Park that it was enough.

  “Can we get back to the topic at hand?” Park asked. “I’m concerned about Reimi’s absence impacting the mission. And as to whoever poisoned me—”

  “I wouldn’t call it poison—”

  “Legally, it’s poison. I’m aware that the likelihood of anyone confessing to the act to either of us is very small. But if the androids uncover anything—”

  “I really wish you hadn’t done that, my dear, you know how the crew distrusts the bots already—”

  “—I would like to know our course of action. Shouldn’t we inform Commander Wick?”

  She waited, watching her mentor’s face. At fifty-nine, Keller was by far the oldest crewmember on the ship, but the medical reports said she was in better physical condition than even Park herself. Her head was shaven, after the Earth fashion of the elderly, but her blue eyes were bright with genetic augments. She shifted in her seat, frowning to herself, before she said, “I think we should be discreet about this for now. Now that we’ve landed, Commander Wick is preoccupied with many things . . . and if he hands this issue off to someone like Sagara or Boone, word would get out that people are meddling with each other’s food. Paranoia might foment—and that’s the one thing we can’t have, not when they’re scheduled to begin exploring the planet soon.”

  Word has probably already spread, Park thought dourly, remembering Chanur’s withering lack of sympathy. It was no secret that she had historically been the target of the crew’s little cruelties and mischiefs: they hated her for being Earth-born, for being ISF’s spy—and especially for her association with the ship’s androids, which others considered freakish. It would not surprise her if multiple people had con
spired to cause her discomfort.

  But she said: “Fine. But I’ll be making my report to ISF. And if we do learn who the culprit is, I’ll recommend disciplinary measures. Strong ones.”

  “As will I,” Keller said agreeably, patting her hand. Then she sighed and continued, “As for the issue of Reimi, there’s not much we can do. The crew’s bodily health is solely within Chanur’s purview, and if ISF agreed with her recommendation to freeze Reimi, we must abide by that decision.”

  “But what if she didn’t obtain their permission?” Park asked. “What if she never sent the message?”

  Keller waved her hand. “Impossible. There are channels set up to prevent that from happening. Even if she didn’t speak to ISF directly, she’d still have to get Boone’s permission, or Sagara’s, or both.”

  Park didn’t relax at that. Vincent Sagara was the ship’s security officer, a dark-eyed and unreadable man with a mercenary air; and Michael Boone was the head of its military team, a great hulking apish soldier whose moods were as volatile as a rioting crowd’s. She trusted neither of them with decision-making, but instead of airing this thought she said: “And what about the androids? What will happen to them? They can’t take care of themselves, or self-maintain to prevent breakdowns. If we don’t have Reimi, we have no way to repair them.”

  All thanks to the riots on Earth, she thought with sour impatience. People had felt uneasy about giving androids the ability to sustain themselves—to self-modify. The Accords of Yokohama had decreed that all artificial intelligence had to be built with a dependence on human maintenance, so that units would break down after a long enough period without the presence of organic life. This would prevent a robot uprising, most thought. Ridiculous, in Park’s opinion—and horribly inconvenient, even life-threatening. Especially in situations like this.

  “The most sophisticated ones won’t break down for a long time,” Keller mused aloud. “And even if they were to all stop functioning tomorrow, the mission is designed so that all crewmembers can still succeed in their jobs. The robots are only here for support and backup—not as an integral part of the expedition.” She gave Park a smile, and then another motherly, reassuring pat on the hand. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll all be fine.”