We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

  “Why did you make me do that?” she asked.

  “Because,” Sally answered serenely, “it’s the only way you’ll learn.”

  * * *

  —

  Holt had not been found by morning. Vincent Sagara sent out a curt announcement about it over the neural inlay system, his low and fricative voice speaking directly into Park’s ear and jolting her awake. He spoke one sparse sentence detailing Holt’s “absconding” and another about holding a ship-wide meeting later in the afternoon, after the day’s expeditions were over. He rounded off with a promise to find Holt by the end of the day and said that, to the best of his knowledge, everyone on board was still safe.

  Then, abruptly, he stopped talking, leaving an eerie silence throbbing in Park’s skull.

  Although he sounded as calm as ever, the news sparked a fervor in the rest of the crew. At breakfast, Park found everyone gathered in the mess hall in intense little groups, swapping theories about what was going on with Holt and why he would have chosen to vanish. Thankfully, no one seemed to mention anything about his having nightmares, or connected him to the case of Elly Ma—who Chanur said suffered from a panic attack, no doubt under orders from Sagara to keep hysteria from spreading.

  Park wondered if she, too, was expected to take an active role in the campaign to soothe the nervous minds aboard the ship. Common sense said that she, now the expedition’s head psychologist, ought to take the lead; but neither Wick nor Sagara had said anything to her about it. And fear had an unusual way of actually improving the crew’s relations with each other. Holt’s absence unified everybody: it set aside the usual frictions and backbiting, making the crewmembers eager and clingy and conspiratorial with each other.

  They also became unusually accommodating when it came to authority, and being given orders. Scientists and security were typically a combustible mix: the researchers of the expedition were academics, heads of their own departments back home, and used to drawing their own conclusions. They did not respond well to being told what to do, and there was often tension between them and the likes of Sagara, Hunter, Boone, and even Wick. But today, contrarily—vexingly—they were all as docile and compliant as cows in a meadow. Park was not needed to tame the mob.

  Not that she could have, anyway, she thought gratefully as she gulped down her orange juice. No one usually listened to her, even—or especially—while under duress.

  She decided to join the search for Holt herself. Keller was still busy somewhere with her “project,” and with Fulbreech and the others sent out onto the ice, she thought that Sagara and Boone needed all the help they could get.

  And she took Jimex with her. She was still nervous about leaving him alone; about Boone running into him while armed with that deadly electrolaser gun. Besides, the androids of the ship would be better at ferreting out Holt than the humans would; they were more intimately familiar with the Deucalion and its inner workings. They would not be frightened away by moving shadows or strange sounds.

  Then Jimex informed her that it was actually an android who had lost Holt.

  “He was being monitored,” the custodian told her bluntly. “By Ellenex. Dr. Chanur sedated Dr. Holt and then told Ellenex to keep watch.”

  “Then how did he escape?” Park asked. Briefly she felt a flicker of guilty awareness: she really did use Jimex as a source of information. As a spy.

  Jimex hesitated. “I am not sure,” he admitted. “Ellenex did not explain well. Dr. Chanur wants to have her decommissioned, since Officer Kisaragi is not available to diagnose her.”

  “Is Ellenex damaged?”

  “She is now.” He said it, as always, without emotion. “Dr. Chanur was very angry when she discovered Dr. Holt’s absence. She . . .” He seemed to know to cut himself off. “The other synthetics are trying to think of ways to repair her without breaching our protocols. And again, Officer Kisaragi is not available to help.”

  Park sighed. It was typical. The crewmembers were discouraged from purposefully damaging the robots—obviously—but only on the grounds that they were the property of ISF. There was no punishment for taking out your frustration on an android. To some it was like aiming a kick at a trash can, shaking an uncooperative vending machine. Of course Ellenex had been blamed for Holt’s disappearance. It would surprise no one if Chanur had “decommissioned” her right then and there.

  She mused on it a while. She had noticed that some androids seemed to prefer the word “synthetic” when referring to themselves, though in the past she couldn’t understand why. It emphasized their difference, their artifice. “Android” at least implied some semblance of humanity: and- for man, oid meaning in the likeness of.

  But maybe that was the point, she thought. Maybe they didn’t want to be like man at all.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said eventually. “I hope Ellenex is all right. Do you know how Elly Ma is?”

  Jimex opened his hands a little. “She is stable,” he said. “Sedated. Still in the ward. There are now many others guarding her.”

  “I see.” Park flicked through the numerous streams of data on her inlays: METIS, the ship’s computer, told her there were now four androids assigned with guard duty over Ma. “I suppose that’s something, at least.” Then she paused for a moment, evaluating the numerous bits and pieces of information that seemed largely indecipherable to her. METIS told her that she didn’t have the clearance to access most of these cryptic streams. “How many video cameras are there on the ship?”

  “Twelve,” Jimex answered blandly.

  “Where are they?”

  “Placed in key areas of operation.”

  “Such as?”

  “Most of the exits. A few of the labs. Places where footage would need to be reviewed. But there are many other places that are not under that sort of surveillance.”

  “Is it true that that’s because of Privacy Wars nonsense, or are we just underfunded?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing. Who has access to these cameras?”

  “Only Captain Sagara, Sergeant Boone, and Commander Wick.” He hesitated. “There are also . . .”

  “What?”

  Jimex averted his eyes. “Captain Sagara instructed me not to say.”

  That gave her a chill. But if Jimex had direct orders from a higher-ranking crewmember not to tell her something, it was a fruitless endeavor to try and weasel it out of him. Android logic meant that she would have to go through hours of loopholes and verbal puzzles to try to get even the smallest detail of use. So she shrugged and told him to lead her to whatever area he thought needed searching. She herself did not know what places the others had searched, what their method for combing the ship was. But she trusted that Jimex—either through that network of information all the androids seemed to share, or through some strange instinct of his own—could guide her to where she needed to be.

  The ship swayed beneath them as they walked. They were still hiding in the lee of Eos’s bulk, to avoid the proton storm bombarding its light side. Park’s efforts to resend her messages to ISF Corvus had, once again, failed. Before breakfast she had also recorded a memo to send out to the crew, offering counseling if anyone had concerns about the events of the night before. She’d prepared a script in case anyone happened to inquire about the cause of Holt and Ma’s behavior. “Standard emotional distress,” she’d say. “Normal for colony missions. Let’s talk about you.”

  But no one came to see her.

  She passed a few crewmembers on her walk with Jimex, earning curious looks and even—in the case of Natalya Severov—surly glares. She even ran into Commander Wick, who looked tired, hassled. He didn’t question her about where she was going with their android janitor. He did say, “Park. Thanks for handling all that with Ma last night.”

  “Of course,” Park said. She wanted to ask him about h
ow his search was going, but sensed that it would only lead to more awkwardness, stone-walling—as in the case of Fulbreech. So she said, “Are you aware that Boone has an EL gun on this ship?”

  Wick looked at her, surprised. “Why shouldn’t he?” he asked. “He’s in charge of military operations. He’s here to provide protection.”

  “He keeps it in your room,” Park said, a little flustered by his non-reaction. “While you’re sleeping. It should be in an armory of some kind. There should be accountability. You don’t think so?”

  “I think,” Wick said, “that I trust everyone on this ship to do their job. You should, too.”

  She was met everywhere with those kinds of dead ends. Most of the crewmembers were preoccupied with scuttling around, whispering to each other, looking uneasily at the ends of the long corridors. The ones she could stop and talk to were always in a hurry to get to someplace else. There was a heavy, simmering feeling in the air, as if rainclouds were about to move in.

  Jimex eventually led her to Deck C, the underbelly of the ship and the floor that held most of the storage rooms and utility closets. He didn’t offer any reasoning for why he would take her there, but Park saw the logic in it: there were so many unoccupied little cubbyholes that Holt could easily be squirreled away in one of them.

  They descended together into the gut of the ship—down the humid, winding passageways that Park imagined were its intestines. Far off there was the faint rattling of chains, the groaning of metal as it expanded and contracted with the changes in heat. It sounded like the movements of ghosts. Park felt as if she were going underground, as if the light was receding—and it was already dim enough as it was. Her arms prickled; she felt as if she were being watched by something behind her, at the end of the corridor. She had to stop herself from turning around.

  She put her hand on Jimex’s arm, briefly, to assure herself of his solidity. His presence. Jimex said, without judgment: “You are frightened.”

  “No,” Park corrected. “Just—getting my bearings. I’ve never been to this part of the ship before. There was never a reason for me to come down here.”

  “I am down here very often,” Jimex remarked, almost mournfully. “It’s the part of the ship that needs the most cleaning.”

  “And you think Holt might be somewhere here?”

  “It would be where I would hide.”

  It was funny, Park thought, how she could miss the passenger areas so quickly, when just the day before she had lamented their crowdedness, their claustrophobic warmth. Deck C felt remarkably murky; the ceiling was oppressively low. More than that, the absence of life in the alien tunnels did frighten her—but she didn’t want Jimex to know that. He had to spend every day down here, alone. No wonder he was so insistent on tagging along with her afterward. Machines, too, probably hated to be lonely.

  She rounded the corner with him, half-groping her way in the cold light. Jimex seemed to be leading her toward a trio of doors, stamped into a recess in the wall. She had to squint through the gloom to pick them out. They seemed as nondescript as any of the other doors on the deck, just as gray and inert and unmarked. They looked as if they might hold something as mundane as tissue paper, or dehydrated cheese.

  Then she noticed that there was a figure slouching against the middle door.

  “Holt?” Park called.

  The figure stirred, straightening. There was a crackling green light at its hip. Boone, Park thought, with an electrifying surge of nerves. And his EL gun. She stopped several yards away.

  “Park,” Boone said. His face was in deep shadow. “What are you doing down here?”

  She expected more snark, bawdy threats like the night before—but his tone was flat and quiet. She surprised herself by retorting, “What are you doing down here?”

  “Nothing,” Boone said, without inflection. Then: “You can’t be down here. Go back to Deck A.”

  “I’m looking for Holt,” Park said. “Jimex thought he might be down here.”

  “He isn’t,” Boone said. “I’ve been down here all night. I would know.” Then, casting a glance at Jimex, who looked at Boone as impassively as if he were a stranger, he said again: “You can’t be down here. I’m serious.”

  “You’ve been down here all night?” Park repeated. “Shouldn’t you be helping Sagara and Wick?”

  “I am helping.”

  “Do they know you’ve been down here?” She looked at the door behind him; strained to hear any sound behind it. What was Boone doing, hanging around? Was he sneaking some supplies from the maintenance closets? Did he have another cache of guns hidden away somewhere? Or—more sinisterly—she had the brief idea that Holt was behind the door, that Park would hear his muffled screams and open the door to find him trussed up like a holiday bird. Boone saw her looking at the door and said, “Goodbye, Park.”

  Just then they both heard footsteps from down the hall. Boone called in reinforcements, thought Park, turning. To shuffle her off. He really meant to keep her away. She felt her hands loosening, the way she’d seen martial artists sliding into stances before combat. Ridiculous, she thought. Boone has his gun. No use in putting up a fight.

  But it wasn’t Hunter, Boone’s second, or even Wick or Sagara. Park squinted at the thin, swaying form that was drawing closer to them through the gloom. A man. Tall. Not Fulbreech or Wan Xu. Who was it?

  “It is Dr. Eric Holt,” Jimex declared, as tonelessly as if he were announcing the time.

  Holt, Park thought, with a prickle of recognition. He really had been down here, after all. Or was he meeting secretly with Boone?

  “Where have you been, Holt?” Boone asked then, with a tone of warning.

  Holt didn’t answer. He strode closer, his movements jerky and mechanical, and when his face came into the partial light Park saw that his eyes were fixed mindlessly ahead. There was a strange glaze to them; his blue irises seemed glassy, almost milky—as if he had gone blind. His face was devoid of affect.

  “Holt!” Boone barked again. “Stay where you are.”

  “Escape,” Holt said, in a strange, flat, dry voice. “Escape and exit. Is this it?”

  “You’re looking for the escape pod?” Park asked, turning so that she was perpendicular to the two of them; she watched both out of her peripheries like a referee at a fight. Why the escape pod? she was wondering. Did Holt mean to leave the ship for good? Or was he expecting to make some illicit rendezvous there, too?

  Holt didn’t look at her. “I’ve been given my orders,” he said dully. “Soon we’ll be free. Is this it?”

  Boone looked at Park, uneasy. “What’s going on?” he demanded—as if Park had orchestrated the whole affair. “What’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know, but something’s wrong,” Park said. “His affect—”

  She stopped as Holt brushed past her, completely ignoring her existence. Boone squared up to him and thrust his arm out, hitting Holt lightly in the chest with his palm. The physicist stopped and stared slackly ahead.

  “You can’t go in there,” Boone growled. “You know that.”

  “I have to,” Holt murmured. “Have to.”

  “Boone,” Park interjected. “Look at him. Something’s going on. He’s experiencing some kind of—trance.” Her heart was thrumming so quickly now that she could barely feel it. Holt’s face told her that he wasn’t registering his surroundings, that he was addressing presences that were half-felt and barely-seen—like a sleepwalker. Parasomnia, she thought then. God help us. Was he trapped in some kind of unending nightmare? Was that what had been driving him all along? Had he gotten up and escaped the medical ward in the throes of a dream, some kind of hypnotized reverie?

  “Eric,” she said, moving so that she was speaking directly into his right ear. “Can you hear me? Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  No response. Holt was still leaning forward agains
t Boone’s outstretched hand, as if he were walking into a strong wind. His arms reached out to the door behind Boone, grasping feebly. Boone said, with a note of slight trepidation: “What do we do?”

  “Don’t shake him,” Park said. Frantically her mind ran over cases of somnambulism, sleep disorders. “He might react violently if he’s woken too abruptly. Help me lead him back to the medical bay.”

  “I can’t,” Boone said.

  “What? Why not?”

  He looked at the door behind him. At that moment Holt jerked away from his hand and began lurching once more for the utility room, arms extended like a zombie from an old filmstream. Boone gave a low shout of alarm and said, “Holt! You can’t go in there!”

  For God’s sake, Park thought. He really was hiding something—something he didn’t want anyone to find. Could it be drugs? His behavior was certainly erratic enough.

  “Let him be,” she began. “I can—”

  Holt was reaching for the center door’s palm lock. Boone drew his EL gun and yelled, “Get away from that door right now!”

  Idiot! Park thought. Can’t you see he’s not himself? “Boone, stop!” she shouted. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

  The utility closet’s lock flashed to green. It was open. Park heard the tumble of pneumatic locks turning, the hiss of escaping air. Holt let out a noise: something between a cry of joy and a sob. Park said, lunging forward to grab his shoulder, “We need to get him—”

  Boone fired his gun.

  There was an eye-searing burst of green light. Park felt the lightning current surge through Holt’s flesh, buzzing against her fingertips. Someone’s hand—Jimex’s—clamped over her shoulder and jerked her fiercely back; she let go just as the physicist folded to the ground like a wet paper bag. Something thick and damp slapped against Park’s face; to her horror, she tasted blood. No, it was her own blood, she realized. She’d bitten her lip.

  Boone’s gun swung around to point at her. He said something, shaking, but his voice was a muffled, silly sound, as if he were talking from underwater. There was a charred smell in the air.