We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “No.”

  Boone broke in: “He can’t take my gun away. Right?”

  Park whirled on him. What a child, she was thinking, furiously. He was like a kid who couldn’t wait for the adults to stop talking before butting in with some ridiculous non sequitur. Wick, hesitating as Boone stared at him, answered: “I don’t think that’s important right now.”

  Boone in turn whirled on Sagara, who merely looked impatient. “That’s bullshit! You can’t do that!”

  “I haven’t,” Sagara drawled. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “But ISF says you could? If you wanted to?”

  Sagara gave him a cool-eyed stare. “If I determined you were a threat to the ship.”

  He is, Park thought emphatically—but even her anger wasn’t hot enough to propel her into the middle of this particular power struggle. Boone, looking like he wanted to spit, turned and stormed out of the room.

  “You see,” Park said, turning back to Sagara and Wick. “You see he’s volatile. Unstable. He should have never been given something like an EL gun in the first place.”

  “I didn’t give it to him,” Wick said, raising his eyebrows.

  “Neither did I,” Sagara said.

  “But you can take it away from him.”

  The security officer gazed at her inscrutably. Even in the bright room, his dark hair and black uniform made him look like some kind of living shadow; like a lean and stalking predator, circling even when he didn’t move. “I’m in the process of reviewing the current protocols,” he said. “But Boone wasn’t necessarily out of order in doing what he did. He’s authorized to use his gun in compliance with his directives.”

  “But what are his directives?” Park felt an unprofessional urge to raise her voice; the fierce golden glow of the solarium was starting to give her a headache. “His duties state that he’s—what, allowed to shoot anybody on the ship if he wants to?”

  “Now, Park,” Wick said, using a soothing, patronizing kind of tone that spiked her blood pressure.

  “I don’t know if his duties are any of your business,” Sagara finished, without sympathy.

  She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that they were all siding with Boone—after they had seen Holt submerged in that healing pod, comatose, while liquid nanobots grafted his frayed nerve endings back together! She’d been sure that, once she explained the situation to them, Boone would be considered just as much a madman as his victim. That he would be the one who was punished—not her.

  They were hiding something, she realized. All of them. They knew whatever it was Boone had been down in Deck C for; whatever it was he’d been protecting. Boone really wasn’t just some soldier, some hired muscle for a simple colony expedition. Certainly he wasn’t there to run interference between volatile personalities on the ship. If anything, she felt less secure with him in the mix. So what was he around for, if not security? Park didn’t know, but it was clear the others did.

  “If you’re really that concerned about Boone,” Wick continued, “rest assured that Sagara will take care of him if he ever steps too far out of line.”

  “And how will Sagara do that?” Park asked, without looking at the security officer.

  He didn’t look at her either. “I’m trained to deal with people like Boone,” he said. “And EL guns, too.”

  Which meant, she thought with dismay, that Sagara also had weapons on this ship. Ones deadlier than an electrolaser. What did he have in his arsenal? A quantum blade? A railgun? And more importantly—if he thought they could rely on him to keep Boone in check—who had the power to keep Sagara in check?

  “I’d like to talk to Holt,” she said then. It was clear to her now that she could hardly trust anyone on the Deucalion, not without knowing the bigger picture. Holt, if he was conscious and lucid, might have information that she could use.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Wick told her, absently touching the stubble that had grown on his face over the events of the last day. He looked haggard, like he hadn’t slept. “Holt’s in a medically induced coma now. He’ll be frozen once he’s stable.”

  “And if he wakes up before that,” Sagara added coldly, “I’ll be the one who talks to him.”

  Park wanted to hit him. “I am the only one trained for this,” she said, fighting so tightly to keep her voice calm that it quavered. “I’ll talk to him.”

  They glared at each other for a moment in breathlessly icy silence. Then Wick said, coughing: “First I’d like to establish exactly how this all happened. First Holt started suffering—what, hallucinations?”

  “That’s not proven,” Park said, finally breaking eye contact with Sagara. It was hard, staring at those flinty black eyes, like a shark’s. Even harder for her to back down. But she said to Wick, trying to maintain some semblance of professionalism: “I would label them—vivid nightmares, at least. That’s how Holt described them. He said he was taking a nap when he first experienced them.” She cast a wary glance over at Sagara; she didn’t know how much of this next part he knew. “And in his nightmare, he claimed to feel—not in control of himself. And also as if he were dead.”

  “Great,” Wick said, rubbing his face. “And then Elly Ma had a nightmare that same night—of the same thing?”

  “In essence. She described similar sensations, the same kind of paralysis. The same sensation of not being in control.”

  “Didn’t she also injure herself?” Sagara asked.

  “Yes. That’s not terribly uncommon, but the context is . . . alarming. She might have scratched herself in her sleep in an attempt to wake up—like pinching yourself in a dream. But that’s only a hypothesis.”

  “And now Chanur’s put her on ice, too, scared that she’ll go the same way as Holt,” Wick finished, resigned. “And Keller . . . ?”

  “Chanur said she was having nightmares, too.” Park kept her voice and expression steady, despite her dry-ice anger, her hatred of the doctor. “She also gave me the impression that it was none of my damn business.”

  To her gratification, even Sagara looked a little disconcerted by that. “She didn’t say if Keller engaged in any odd behavior? Just that she had nightmares?”

  She shrugged. “She claimed confidentiality issues before I could ask any more.”

  He cocked his head. “And did Keller say anything about it to you beforehand? Did she indicate that anything was out of the ordinary?”

  “No,” Park answered, “but I hadn’t seen her in over a day. She’d been away, working on this mysterious project. Only Chanur claims to know what happened to her next.”

  “That warrants looking into,” Sagara said with a grim look.

  “My thoughts exactly.” She was reluctant to share even a moment of alliance with him—but at least he wasn’t denying that something was fishy about the whole thing. But Wick said, looking uneasy: “Keller’s project had nothing to do with it. She was just helping with research for the expedition, as we all are. Nothing more, nothing less.” Then he shook his head. “Plus, she’s almost sixty. And there was the radiation storm. That could have had an effect.”

  “An effect on all of them?” Park asked. “Even Holt, who had his nightmares before the storm ever hit?”

  Another pause as they all processed it: the very deep pit they’d suddenly found themselves in. When Wick didn’t offer any other solutions, Park added, forgetting whom she was talking to—“You realize that this means that one-third of our crew is out of commission, don’t you? Reimi, Holt, Ma, Keller—you’re not concerned about this pattern forming?”

  “It’s not necessarily a pattern,” Wick told her, shaking his head. “Just misfortune. Possibly. Things like this happen on missions of this nature. It’s why we come equipped with the cryogenic pods in the first place: because we know incidents like this might occur.”
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  Bullshit, Park wanted to say—but they all knew she lacked the experience to truly refute him. Sagara said, “Let’s assume that Reimi doesn’t play into it; that, as an outlier, she was truly sick. We have no evidence to indicate she suffered from any nightmares.”

  “A dangerous assumption,” Park muttered.

  He ignored her. “But even if that’s true, that means all of this started when we landed on the planet. And it leaves three other crewmembers who exhibited the same symptoms and behaviors—before engaging in self-destructive acts.”

  “I wouldn’t say that going down to the utility rooms was inherently self-destructive,” Park interrupted. “Holt couldn’t have known that Boone would attack him like that. No one could.”

  Sagara responded to her provocation with a frown. “I am agreeing with you, Park,” he said in a gritty voice, distinctly as if he were mentally adding the words you imbecile after it. “I would also say that three makes a pattern. I’m loath to dismiss this as coincidence.”

  Before she could feel embarrassed—or worse, grateful—Wick made a humming sound and ran his fingers over his graying mustache. “Then I suppose we need to investigate what caused the pattern,” he said heavily, as if giving in to something he had been trying to avoid. He sighed. “And we need to see if there are ways of identifying the affected. Fast.”

  Park looked between them both. “And how exactly do you propose to do that?”

  Wick and Sagara exchanged looks, Sagara glaring as if Wick had let something slip. “That’s not your concern,” the security officer said finally, in a hard voice that brooked no argument. Park, refusing to let him see that he was annoying her, said, “And prevention? Aside from your little investigation, which I assume will take a while, how will we minimize the risk of this happening again? Do we put everyone in quarantine? Freeze them all?”

  Wick shook his head. “We can’t stop operations now,” he said. “We’re at a crucial point in our mission. If we put a halt to any of it, we’re in danger of failing.”

  “Stopping the patient sessions will help,” Sagara threw in, before Park could point out that they were already in danger of failing. That they were already courting catastrophe. “And I think we should space out meals and other communal activities even further, reducing how many people are in the same room at once. Crewmembers should be distanced from each other as much as possible.”

  “I don’t know if I agree,” Wick said then. “I think this seems to happen when people are left alone. Ma was mostly a loner, and Holt wasn’t watched by anybody human when he first escaped. And Keller was working largely alone. We should implement a buddy system. Have everyone keep an eye on each other, until we can figure out true preventative measures.”

  Sagara was silent for a moment. “You are commander,” he said finally, cryptically. Then he inclined his head a little, to show that he would defer to Wick—but he looked unhappy.

  “What about the androids?” Park asked then. “We could use them, too. Ask them to keep a closer eye on things. We can tell them to monitor crewmates for signs of—whatever Sagara finds in his investigation.”

  “I’ll already be doing that,” Sagara said, but again he didn’t bother to explain to Park what he meant. “And in case you haven’t noticed, the androids are not exactly the most reliable sources of help right now. They’ve been dysfunctional.”

  “That’s an exaggerated word to use,” Park answered. “Just because Reimi hasn’t been around to maintain them—but they’ve been performing their functions perfectly well. If you’re talking about the one in the cafeteria who swears like a sailor—”

  “It’s not just that,” Sagara said. “The medical droid was in charge of watching Holt, and it failed to do that. And there are odd mannerisms all over the ship—Severov saw one of them crying, or pretending to cry—”

  “Natalya has made her dislike of androids very clear, so I would take everything she says with a grain of salt.”

  “I take everything anyone says with a grain of salt,” Sagara said in a hard voice. “But there is no denying that the robots have been off.”

  “Everything on the ship has been off.”

  They stared at each other again; the blood in Park’s heart clamored. Wick said belatedly: “Let’s . . . be calm. Not that we’re not calm. But we’re all on the same team, remember.”

  Sagara looked at Park and grunted; there was a skeptical air to the grunt. Then he made a gesture of relenting, or concession. “The most important thing is that we don’t tell anybody what’s going on,” he said, foregoing the topic of the androids altogether. “Not yet. We can’t eliminate the possibility that even the very knowledge of these nightmares causes them to manifest. Everyone is in a delicate state of mind right now. So for now, nothing—disagreements, plans, theories—nothing leaves this room.”

  He looked at her pointedly, but despite the insult of the implication, Park couldn’t help but feel grudgingly impressed that he had drawn that conclusion, with no psychological background. She nodded her assent, and Wick said, sighing, “I’ll go talk to them, then. There’s a crew meeting in the mess hall. We’ll have to think of something pretty to say. Invent a good story for it all.”

  “I’ll be down with you in a moment,” Sagara said, and Wick exited, leaving Park with the distinct impression that even if the security officer said out loud that Wick was commander, it was really Sagara himself who was in charge. He turned and leveled Park with another dark-smoldering stare. “Don’t leave yet. I want to talk to you.”

  “What is it?” She was a little shocked by her own rudeness—it wasn’t like her to be so aggressive with another person—but the stresses of the day had levied a great emotional toll against her. And she hated being alone with Sagara. Hated his cold, unreadable face, his scalding scrutiny. His suspicion. The fact was, she was more afraid of him than she was of Boone. Boone was like a wild animal, or a raging fire. Violent, unpredictable. But she could outsmart him. She wasn’t sure she could do that with Sagara, as composed and in control as he was. As an opponent, he was the greater threat.

  He was watching her, as she was watching him. “Tell me, in your own words, what really happened with Holt and Boone.”

  Park almost snorted. “Do you even care about my side of the story?” Would you even believe me over your little crony Boone? It’s clear whose side you’re on, if you didn’t take away his gun.

  Sagara’s face was impassive. “It’s my duty to collect information from as many sources as possible,” he said. “That way I can compose a more objective version of the events.”

  She hesitated, wary of some ulterior motive—of incriminating herself somehow—but finally gave him a halting recreation of what had happened, starting with her stumbling on Boone with his gun the night before. She tried to keep emotion out of it, imagining that she was submitting a report to ISF—eliminating bias or interpretation as much as she could. Sagara listened silently, intently; his focus was spear-like. At the end of her story Park said, “You can verify my version of events with Jimex, if you want. He was there for almost all of it.”

  Sagara smiled then, thinly. “An android doesn’t sound like the most reliable source.”

  “On the contrary,” Park rebutted. “He’s the most reliable. His memory recall is perfect, and he doesn’t have any reason to be biased.”

  Sagara gave her a strange look. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said. But he didn’t elaborate any further.

  Park stared at him. “Boone’s the one who shot Holt,” she told him, despite herself. “I did nothing wrong. And yet I always get the feeling you’re interrogating me. Treating me like I’m a culprit. Why do I have to prove my innocence to you?”

  Sagara looked at her. Park had thought the room was hot before, the sun panels in the walls pulsing golden-strong at her back—but now it felt as if the air between them was burning. As if he might set her afl
ame just with his eyes. “Can you blame me?” he asked quietly.

  Park recoiled a little. “What are you talking about?”

  Sagara shook his head. “I keep finding you involved in this mess in the most bizarre ways,” he said. “First you’re sending your robot out to spy on crewmembers. Then Holt is afflicted—just after you treated him. Then Elly Ma, your bunkmate, catches the same affliction. Then you just so happen to be down in the utility rooms, where you’d never gone before, just as Holt arrives down there, too? Then your own superior is frozen, supposedly with the thrice-same affliction as the others you came into contact with?” He pinned her with his dark-eyed glare. “And now you’re fighting me on dropping your patient sessions, when I was under the impression you had not been prepared to take them on at all.”

  His paranoia left her breathless. “You think I’m causing all of this?” she asked him, aghast. It took every effort not to let her jaw hang open. “For what purpose? What reason would I have to hurt anybody on the ship?”

  “I don’t know,” Sagara told her, as calmly as if they were discussing a movie. “But you have to admit you would be suspicious of you, too, if you were in my shoes.”

  “No,” Park said, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t.” The idea that he suspected her—that he thought she had anything to do with these disasters—made her heart thrum faster; the blood thumped hard in her throat. Her mind whirred. If Sagara was suspicious of her, it would take his attention off of the real culprit. If there even was one. She blurted out, “I swear that I have nothing to do with any of this. I’m just like you—trying to figure it all out.”

  Sagara said nothing, but she took that to mean that he didn’t believe her. Suddenly she felt a flaring of uncharacteristic anger, of rage, even. It wasn’t fair. She was toiling the best she could under the demands of this fucking mission, and now she was being blamed for things entirely out of her own control. When there was Boone to scrutinize, after shooting a man. When there was Chanur the android-abuser and—and—Sagara himself. What if he had some kind of motive for pinning the blame on her?