by Lena Nguyen
Park kneaded her knuckles into her forehead. She had always suspected that Fulbreech was attracted to her, of course. She couldn’t have missed the physical signs: she was a phenotypologist, after all. There were the usual quick, darting glances, the “casual” but strained body language. Dilated pupils. Blazing smiles that seemed like the primate baring of teeth. She’d known that he found her, on some level, sexually intriguing. The kiss itself hadn’t surprised her as much as it should have. But it was everything else—the suit, the proposed hacking, the gesture of it all. Was it all just—posturing? An attempt at currying her favor? It was so much trouble to go through. She never would have done the same.
Unless there was something more to it. She touched her lips discreetly, feeling none of the lingering warmth or tingling that she might have expected. And yet, that sudden jolt of rare contact had made her feel something. Something she’d felt just recently. But what?
“A kiss can transfer up to eighty million bacteria at once,” Jimex said, apropos of nothing. He was obsessed with things like that.
“I don’t think people generally care about that kind of thing, Jimex,” Park told him wearily. She flicked her inlays on, groping for some message from Keller or even Commander Wick to distract her from her own thoughts.
The android stared at her. “What do they care about, then?”
She couldn’t answer.
Later, when she was getting dressed for bed, shoved into her tiny room with Natalya, the surveyor, Hunter, Boone’s sergeant, and Elly Ma, the climatologist, Park suddenly remembered what Fulbreech’s kiss had reminded her of.
It had been the previous day, just before they’d landed on Eos. Park had felt the gravity shift back on as they made the approach to the new planet. Her stomach lifted as if pulled by a string; her heart seemed to swell with the sudden change, then deflate. She could feel her cells becoming heavier, like sand settling on the bottom of a lake. There was elation and excitement and a kind of painful terror inside of her, in turns.
She’d run to the bridge. There were no windows to speak of on the ship, besides the ones there on the bridge. There were many reasons for this: radiation shielding, for one. Sanity, for the other. Some crewmembers would be susceptible to the “Earth-out-of-view” phenomenon: seeing their planet as an insignificant dot rapidly vanishing from sight did strange things to the mind of an Earth-born, especially one who had never experienced the vast emptiness of space before. Sometimes there was euphoria, a sense of interconnected bliss. Other times it was madness, frothing terror as everything they knew fell away from them.
But not being able to see an undiscovered planet was a kind of madness, too. A madness of curiosity.
Luckily, everyone else had had the same idea, so no one noticed when Park slipped into the bridge and took up a position at the back of the room. Only Dylanex, the ship’s lone security android, made disconcerted noises about the presence of unauthorized personnel—but everyone ignored him. There was a clamor, shouts of excitement and amazement as Eos swung into view through the shielded windows and onto the large monitors set into the wall.
Park had stared. That was it? That was their new planet, ISF’s proposed “dawn” of the Frontier? It looked like a little white light bulb, hanging there in the darkness of space. Or a perfect snowball, carefully crafted by a meticulous child. There were two suns. Park’s eyes watered, but she told herself that it was a biological reflex; that she would not allow anyone to see her cry.
Jimex came to stand next to her, as usual. Park had turned to him, full of wonder. “We’re here?” There had been no indicator, no progress map to tell her when exactly they would reach their destination. No one had told her they were making their approach.
Jimex had not understood the question. The rotors in his head whirred. “We have always been here,” he had answered, serene.
Preparations began for the ship to make its descent. Crewmembers bustled here and there; orders were given to secure objects and bodies for the entry through Eos’s thin atmosphere. A few auxiliary staffers, Park included, lingered in the bridge for as long as possible. Before they were shooed off, Keller had come over and squeezed Park’s shoulder with one bony hand.
“What do you think?” she asked softly. “This will be your only glimpse of it before we land. It’s like looking at a blank canvas, isn’t it? All that potential, all that space!”
Park had shaken her head. “No,” she said. “It’s not like a canvas. It’s like—”
Keller had looked at her. “It’s like what?”
Then Park had smiled to herself; even she could tell it looked secretive. “It’s like looking into the face of God,” she said.
As they descended, the light wavered, as if to answer her: the pale and colorless suns watching as the ship floated down on the alien wind.
2.
The next day started on a different schedule than the one Park was used to. The term would have been “bright and early” on Earth, but there was no “bright” on a ship with no windows and the same kind of artificial lighting every moment of every day—and “early” was relative, too. But her body knew the difference; she was jittery and on edge from the moment her inlays blinked her awake.
She stayed that way all morning, off-kilter, feeling as if something was wrong. But there was work to do: now that they had landed and the expeditions were officially underway, patient sessions with the crew—which had previously only been sporadic and intermittent—were now daily and mandatory. Keller and Park would be in charge of mitigating any stress the expedition members felt as they explored the new planet.
Except Keller never turned up for their first session of the day—which raised klaxons in Park’s already-anxious mind. She dispatched Jimex to find out if her mentor had somehow overslept—or, she thought with a mental shudder, been poisoned, or fallen ill like Reimi—but he returned and said he couldn’t find her anywhere. That was even more concerning. It was a big ship, but Jimex was thorough, and Keller couldn’t have gone out with the expedition team: she was forbidden to, just as Park was.
But she couldn’t spare any more thoughts on it. Wan Xu was already in their office, downing clarity meds like breath mints. He was their exobiologist and biodome designer, a brilliant but narcissistic man; any interruptions in his perceived routines could catapult him into an outburst, trigger his neuroses. Park had to go through her first patient session with him alone, wondering all the while where the hell Keller could be.
For a while they slogged through the requisite questionnaires and checklists and evaluative worksheets together; Park read off the standard surveys that ISF had bundled together for her, feeling a little chagrined—like a student struggling to perform under the watchful eye of a teacher. Wan Xu, folding his arms, listlessly answered that everything was fine, average, five out of ten—meaning perfectly regular. But when Park asked him how the morning’s expedition had gone, he blanched a little and looked away.
“The expedition went fine,” he said. He was a little rat-faced, Park sometimes thought, with his hair gelled so tightly to his scalp it looked like he was wearing a black, shiny helmet. His beady eyes darted nervously. “Nothing noteworthy to speak of.”
Park was suspicious, but after a while she let him go. She did not feel equipped to press a patient with questions without Keller there.
Afterward, Jimex sidestepped into the room again. The ship wasn’t big enough to keep him constantly cleaning, so Park had set his secondary protocols to assisting her—since she lacked an assistant of her own, while Chanur had Ellenex and all the other specialists had their own robotic helpers. Park looked up eagerly when he came in and said, “Did you find her?”
Jimex shook his head. “I was unable to locate Dr. Keller,” he answered. He seemed a little morose, as if he were sad to disappoint her.
Park watched as he approached the holographic fish tank set into the far wall. T
he tank was Keller’s aesthetic choice, though Park had always found it distracting. She watched as a shy bumblebee goby bobbed its acknowledgement to her, then ducked behind a bloom of delicate coral. Jimex, also watching intently, remarked: “Fish are very unclean.”
“That one’s not real.”
“I know. It was a general statement.”
Park tried to suppress a smile. “I wouldn’t know if the real ones are unclean or not,” she told him. “They were all gone in my area by the time I was born. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real one alive.”
“They excrete in the same water they live in,” Jimex said. He tilted his chin up a little, in disgust, Park thought—or disdain. He at least thought himself better than a fish. “They require numerous filters to live in a contained environment, or die of their own toxicity.”
“Humans are the same,” Park joked—then realized the danger in making such a statement to him. But before she could retract it, the door to the office slung open, and Keller walked in.
Park stood up from her desk just as Jimex wisely sidled out of the room again. “Where have you been?” she demanded.
Keller didn’t answer the question. “I don’t know how you talk to that thing,” she said instead, looking back over her shoulder at Jimex—who was still within earshot. That meant something was on her mind. Keller didn’t get antsy around the robots unless she was already worried about something else. “It’s awful. When it looks into your eyes—”
“He tried to find you this morning,” Park said pointedly. Then she shook her head, unable to stop herself from being drawn into the topic. “And you were fine around the HERCULES.”
Keller shuddered and rubbed her arms as if Park had mentioned a horror story. “Yes, but HERCULES and the other robots weren’t like that. The ones I grew up around were functional, metallic. Not . . . a human imitation, like Jimex. Why would they need a janitor bot to look like a person, anyway?”
“I don’t know. I’m used to androids like that.” Park’s throat flexed as if she were holding in a cough. “Dr. Keller, where were you?”
The older woman sighed and sat down on the couch they usually had the patients sit on. Park sat down again in her usual chair, bewildered, as Keller said in a resigned way: “I’m afraid I have to tell you something, Park, and I don’t suppose you’ll be very happy about it.”
Paranoia and dread overtook Park in a moment, like a cloud suddenly darkening the sun. She said suspiciously, “What is it?”
Keller spread her hands in an expression of regret. “ISF is pulling me off regular duty for a—special project. I can’t say anything about it. But it will take up all my time, starting today.”
“That’s why you were late this morning?”
“Yes,” Keller said. “Events transpired rather quickly—” Then she broke off and shook her head, giving Park an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. It’s conscripted business. You understand.”
Park sat back sharply in her seat, feeling as if Keller had slapped her. Yes, she thought bitterly, she understood all too well the lines between the conscripted and the non-conscripted. It had been one of her biggest concerns before this mission—and her biggest complaint while on it. The ISF often conscripted its members into service in exchange for free transportation and housing in the colonies. Such a person was beholden to the ISF’s every order and command, under threat of having their home and access to space taken away, while a non-conscripted person—a person such as Park—merely had to worry about being fired. That meant the ISF entrusted the conscripted with its secrets more willingly, knowing the consequences of spilling those secrets were much more severe for someone who owed everything to the Frontier. It was why Park was not allowed to see Eos. There was the implicit fear that she might observe something, learn something—then sell the data back to the information companies on Earth.
And now Keller was saying that it was why she could not know what her mentor was up to. Because Keller was conscripted and Park was not.
Because the ISF didn’t trust her that much.
“You can’t tell me anything?” she asked, trying not to sound helpless—like a forlorn child being abandoned by a parent.
Keller grimaced at her. “No,” she said. “Nothing except that . . . I’m not to be disturbed. This project will take up all my time, all my attention. You’ll have to be acting psychologist from now on.”
Alarm surged up Park’s spine like a lightning rod; she nearly jolted out of her seat. “What?” Then she quelled the sudden rush of panic and said in a somewhat calmer tone: “You mean—I’ll be managing the patients alone?”
“I’m afraid so,” Keller said, looking resigned. “Trust me, I know it’s not an ideal situation, but—”
“Ideal?” Park didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. “I wasn’t trained for this scenario. At all. I was never meant to take on the primary role—I’m here for observation, monitoring, not diagnosis and treatment—”
Keller held up her hand, cutting Park off. “I know, Park,” she said gently. “I know, but there’s nothing that can be done about it.” Then she glanced at something on her inlays and said, “It’s nearly eight. Who’s scheduled to meet with you next?”
Park consulted the dossier on her own inlays, then felt as if the room had lurched. “Sagara,” she said, taking a breath. “Next is Captain Sagara.”
“Well, good!” Keller exclaimed, beaming in a false way. Park had not yet gotten the chance to tell her about the escape pod disaster. “I always thought you two should get to know each other better. There could be a sense of—camaraderie between the two of you, I think.”
Camaraderie? Park thought. Sagara was about as social as a praying mantis, and she didn’t know how she felt being compared to him. “Why do you think that?”
“Well, you’re very similar,” Keller said bluntly. “And considering how the others view both of you . . . I thought you might bond over your shared experience.”
Park tried not to pull a face. Keller was referring, rather tactlessly, to the fact that the other crewmates openly considered Park and Sagara’s positions to be redundant. It was why Chanur made jabs about her having nothing better to do; it was why no one knew whom to be more afraid of, Boone or Sagara. In Park’s case, Keller was already the main psychologist of the Deucalion, so the question had to be asked: What was Park’s role? Why was she there, if she wasn’t interacting directly with the patients? What was the purpose of having two psychologists on the ship?
And the conclusion that had spread around was that Keller was there primarily for the crewmates’ wellbeing: she was the one who talked with the patients, counseled them, prescribed their treatments and medications. But Park was a background presence, usually only observing, monitoring. That meant that she was not there to help the other crewmembers—but to spy on them for the ISF.
And the rumors weren’t wrong, Park thought bitterly. Their conclusions were not so far off. She would not refer to herself as a “spy” necessarily, but the ISF officially called her an “orbiter”—the differences between the two being not so clear. The term had always made Park think of a satellite, cold and mechanical, watching from afar—or, when she was feeling unusually romantic, a moon, circling the tiny world of the Deucalion.
But her crewmates would not have agreed with the depiction. It was more likely they’d have compared her to a rat: some lurking, scampering thing. Park had been hired to provide the ISF a clear window into what was happening on the Deucalion, and the others resented her for it. To them, she was a snitch, a kiss-ass, proof that the ISF didn’t trust its own operatives—to the extent that they would pay someone to watch the crew and report on them. Forget that the other twelve were leading experts in their fields, under non-disclosure agreements; forget too that the majority of them were also under the rite of conscription, meaning the ISF owned their lives, or the lives of their loved ones. Park
being on the ship meant that none of that was good enough for the ISF. They still wanted their information from as objective a source as possible. From someone specifically tasked to observe, to record, to interpret, to relay. So that whenever a crewmember reported back to ISF’s outpost, Park was there to fill in the gaps, to clarify their messages for the higher-ups: not what the shipmates were saying, but what they really meant. What was really going on—with them or the ship. She wasn’t really a psychologist, at least not in the conventional way. She was a living avatar of the Interstellar Frontier.
Or she had been, Park corrected herself. Now she didn’t know what she was—orbiter or primary psychologist or both.
She didn’t like that. Didn’t like surprises.
She wrenched her thoughts back to Sagara. Others perceived him in the same way that they perceived her. Sergeant Boone, who had joined the crew from the start, was already established as the mission’s military leader. He and his lieutenant Hunter served as the combat specialists aboard the ship, assigned to protect it from outside threat. They’d only picked up Sagara much later, at the last outpost before they left governed space, and then belatedly found out that he was to be the ship’s security officer. What was the difference? It was unclear—but again, the conclusion was that Sagara, like Park, was there to serve the interests of the ISF, not the crew. If Boone and Hunter were already there to protect the crewmembers, then Sagara must be around to protect something else. But what? No one knew. It was that mystery, coupled with his intense personality, that led the crewmembers to shun him.
“You could get him to open up,” Keller said encouragingly. “Establish a rapport.”