We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

  What if he was behind all of this, and this was his move to get the next crewmember of the Deucalion frozen?

  No, Park thought. His paranoia was catching. “Let’s not turn this into a witch hunt,” she forced herself to say, trying to keep her voice calm. “We don’t need to turn on each other. That won’t help. I don’t think we need to jump to sabotage, or subversion, or—or whatever it is you think. Let’s assume that this is a natural phenomenon we have to overcome, until it’s proven otherwise.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Sagara said finally, “Agreed,” and folded his arms. But he continued to watch her face with hawkish interest. “So long as you cooperate with my investigation.”

  Another flaring of hatred toward him. “My investigation, too. All of ours. I hope you don’t mean to monopolize it. That would be very dangerous, in terms of bias. Or corruption.”

  Sagara smiled to himself then, an ironic expression that used one side of his mouth. “Do you not trust me, Park?”

  “It sounds like you don’t trust me, Sagara.”

  His smile vanished. “I don’t know who you work for.”

  “What do you mean? I work for ISF, of course.” Then: “Who do you work for?”

  Sagara held her gaze. “ISF, of course.”

  They both let that hang in the air for a minute, gauging each other. Park was confused. Was Sagara implying that some third party was involved? Did he have reason to believe that someone on the ship was not employed by ISF?

  That there was someone who could actually profit from sabotaging the expedition?

  But what a form of sabotage, she thought. Implanting nightmares in people’s brains. Making them sleepwalk. Hurting themselves. How ludicrous to ascribe that to the work of a human agent. Either he had access to evidence she wasn’t aware of, or she would have to go back into his files to find some hint of extreme paranoia, instability in his past. How could he look at her and conclude that she had anything to do with this? That she had some ill intent toward the people on the ship?

  “Have you been in contact with ISF?” Park asked finally, just to break the silence. She tried not to let him see how much she needed that hope.

  The security officer gazed at her for a long, inscrutable moment. His face seemed to waver in the light before her, as if she were looking at a mirage. “No,” Sagara said finally, gravely. A capitulation. “Communications are still down.”

  “Because of the storm,” Park said, equally heavily. “The particles in the atmosphere must still be lingering—causing interference.”

  Sagara’s eyes sharpened, but otherwise his face gave nothing away. “Perhaps.”

  That annoyed her, too. What did he mean by perhaps? Did he blame her for the malfunctions on the ship as well? He couldn’t possibly think she was tampering with the systems, could he?

  “I was hoping to look to ISF for help,” she said, wanting to establish her innocence.

  Sagara looked, for a moment, like he wanted to laugh. “I’m sorry, Park,” he said, his look both amused and macabre. “I wouldn’t look to them.”

  “You wouldn’t? Why not?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve been cut off. There will be no help from that quarter. Not now, not for the foreseeable future. Even if comms were to come back online, it would take, what, over a day to even send a request for help? And we all know how much can happen in a day.” He paused again, and this time she couldn’t decide if he was threatening her or sharing her fear. His next words were slow and deliberate. “No. It’s my belief that, no matter what happens next . . .” He looked at her. “We are on our own.”

  * * *

  —

  His words echoed in her head later, while she was in her office examining Jimex for damage. On our own. On our own. No, Park thought. She was on her own. Especially if Sagara thought she was some kind of supernatural, superpowered villain. She felt as if rocks had been tied to her ankles, and she was being dragged towards a chilly waterfront. Now she had triple the worries weighing down her mind. She had to worry about helping the crewmembers as the acting psychologist of the ship. And she had to worry about investigating what Boone and Wick and Sagara were hiding from her. And what was causing these nightmares. And why Keller was frozen, and why Reimi had fallen sick.

  And how she could prove her own innocence.

  She gritted her teeth. Keller had told her once that their role on the ship was to be the Deucalion’s glue. Just as Reimi the engineer scurried around, silently repairing and jury-rigging parts of the ship that fell into disrepair, Park and Keller conducted their own kind of maintenance on the ship’s eleven other minds. When there were conflicts, relationships on the brink of collapse, sanities about to dissolve underneath the strains of the expedition’s demands—she and Keller were there to patch things up. Solder things back together. Bolster fragile supports. Keep the crew from buckling under the stress. They were the adhesive that would hold the ship together until they could ferry themselves back home.

  She had never felt it was an appropriate metaphor, though she hadn’t told Keller so at the time. Glue did bind things together, but it also so easily came undone. It was so soft and pliable. Under the right heat or pressure, it was in constant danger of falling apart.

  “I am uninjured,” Jimex said, interrupting her thoughts.

  Park blinked, sitting up. “What?”

  Jimex let his shirt fall back down. He had been showing her his torso—too-pale, straight as a board, nipple-less—with that frank lack of embarrassment all androids possessed. “As you can see, Sergeant Boone did not injure me. Would you like me to remove my pants?”

  “No,” Park said quickly. “God, no.” She shook her head. “I’m glad. I thought after you told me to run, he would destroy you.”

  “He was preoccupied with other things,” Jimex said blandly. He eyed her for a moment, then said, a little accusingly: “You seem injured.”

  Park looked down at her hands. She was sitting on the couch in her office, with the MAD propped on her knees. The door was locked, but she hadn’t decided yet whether or not to use it. “I wasn’t hurt, I don’t think.”

  “But you are agitated,” Jimex prompted. “Your heart rate is abnormal. Elevated.”

  Her mind flashed over the events of the day. You’re damn right my heart rate is elevated. Out loud she said, “They’re hiding something down in the utility rooms. Boone was down there earlier, guarding it. Do you know what it is?”

  “No,” Jimex said, shrugging a little.

  “But you clean Deck C very frequently.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you never saw anything out of the ordinary?”

  “I do not know what your definition of ordinary is.”

  Park sighed. The limitations of a primitive model, yet again. She could expect only minimal help from that quarter—but at least she knew he was concerned about her wellbeing. Otherwise he would have never asked her to run. That was comforting, at least: that someone on this ship still cared about her safety.

  Suddenly Fulbreech came to mind. He knew something, too, she thought; maybe the very something Wick and Boone and Sagara were hiding from her. He had asked her, distressed, not to press him about it when they were in the mess hall the day before. It’d had something to do with Eos. And a body.

  Could she risk going to him?

  Before she could follow that line of thinking further, someone knocked at her door. Park tensed, then looked at Jimex; she didn’t want to send him away. Didn’t want to be alone with anyone, really, after what had happened. Jimex, sensing her thoughts, retreated to the far corner of her office and seemed to enter standby mode. He was not actively listening or watching anything, but he could be reactivated at a moment’s notice. Park turned to the door and unlocked it with her inlay commands, calling, “Come in!”

  The person who entered was not any
one Park expected. It was Hunter, Boone’s lieutenant and Park’s bunkmate: she came sullen-faced, hump-shouldered. She said, shying away from the doorway like a skittish pony: “Boone told me to check on you. You didn’t come to the ship meeting.”

  Park stared at her. Hunter’s mouth twisted. “He thinks you’ll have more rapport with a woman.”

  “Oh,” Park said. She waited, but Hunter said nothing else. Whoever declines to speak first is the one who has the power, Park thought—but Hunter had the fortitude of a Greek stoic. She folded her arms and stared into the middle distance until Park said, “How is Boone?”

  “A jackass, as always,” Hunter said. “He and Sagara were having a dick-waving contest for that whole meeting. Waste of time.” Again she fell silent. Park ventured, “How are you feeling about what happened with Holt?”

  She’d listened to the meeting, a little, over the inlay system. The other crewmembers had been told that Holt had demonstrated signs of a psychological breakdown, that he had been tranquilized and frozen to prevent another episode. Reimi, Keller, and Ma were all coincidences, Chanur had said—unfortunate victims of either natural illness or the vicious proton storm that had struck the broadside of Eos the day before. In general the other crewmembers had seemed to accept this explanation; they sounded content enough to resume their daily activities, with Wick urging them to pair up and take care of one another.

  But Hunter had been one of the few called to the lower decks to help transport Holt. She’d seen the physicist’s smoking body. Had heard Wick’s staticky orders over her inlays. Park remembered how the woman had gazed upon Holt’s blackened face without emotion.

  “It was an unfortunate necessity,” Hunter drawled. Her voice curdled with sarcasm. “What happened with Holt. Hazard of the job.”

  “Are you concerned in any way about how your superior injured a fellow crewmate?”

  “Hazard of the job,” Hunter said again. Then she shot her a knowing look. “I thought you weren’t allowed to do patient sessions anymore. I don’t need to tell you anything.”

  “No,” Park said, feeling suddenly very tired. “I suppose not.”

  Hunter shifted her weight back onto one heel; then she grimaced, looking briefly regretful. “I’m sorry about Keller, anyway. Getting frozen like that. It’s too bad. She was nice.”

  “Yes,” Park said faintly. “She was.” Why were they talking about Keller in the past tense—as if she had ceased to exist? But that was how it felt, she thought, with her shuttled away in some dark box. Humans really were simple: their brains could be fooled by primate logic. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of reality.

  Hunter’s eyes flicked up to her again, as if she knew Park’s thoughts. She seemed to shrug off her quick flash of empathy, like she was discarding an outfit in a dressing room. It wasn’t a good fit, her expression seemed to say. She said brusquely, “Just tell me what I should tell Boone, so he doesn’t think you might go crazy.”

  Park interpreted this as: Boone expects you to be blubbering and distraught, so he hopes you’ll spill your womanly guts to his crony. He was probably scoping out how much she had figured out, what else she might know. Weighing how much of a threat she was. He and Sagara were probably working together on that front.

  If that was the case, Park thought, they should have sent a more amiable spy. Hunter had the warmth of a razor blade.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” Park told her. “These are the kinds of experiences I’ve been prepped to expect from a colony mission.”

  Surprise flitted across the combat specialist’s face. She unwound her tall frame from the doorway and said, “I see. Well, I’ll tell him that.” She waited, as if Park might blurt out something else; then she turned. “Bye, Park.”

  “It’s very admirable of you,” Park said then, “to handle things with such—aplomb.”

  Hunter threw a look over her shoulder: half derisive, half pitying. “It’s something you have to learn,” she said. “Not giving a shit. If you let things get to you out here, you might not make it home.”

  Then she left. For a while Park sat there in silence, letting Jimex stand inert in his corner. Something Hunter said nagged at her. Not the part about not giving a shit, which sounded like standard posturing, but the part where she’d said Park was not allowed to question her. You’re not allowed to have patient sessions anymore. How did Hunter know that—that Park’s sessions had been suspended? Had Boone told her?

  And had they taken away that power from her, not as a measure to stop the nightmares from spreading . . . but as a way to stop Park from asking questions?

  Stop, she told herself. That’s paranoid. But her heart clamored in her chest. That was a tactic she felt Sagara would employ. Insulate her—cut her off from other people. From other sources of information. If Park wasn’t allowed to hold her patient sessions, she wasn’t allowed to find out anything from anyone. And wouldn’t that be something he wanted, if they were all really intent on hiding things from her?

  Like what was down in the utility rooms.

  She stood, leaving the room with Jimex still on standby. It was clear now that Boone and Sagara and Chanur had their allies, and at best all others were oblivious or neutral parties. With Keller frozen and Jimex so—simple, Kel Fulbreech might be the only resource available to her. He had been resistant in the mess hall, Park knew that. But she thought she might be able to get past his reluctance if she really tried. He’d been willing enough to bandy words with her in her office last night. There had to be some way of getting more information out of him. And even if he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—assist her, she still might be able to get a read from his topography.

  At this point, anything was better than nothing.

  She spent the walk over reviewing strategies, tactics, methods of persuasion. Lines she might say to get him to buckle. But when she got to Fulbreech’s bunk, which he shared with Wan Xu and Holt, she quailed. The door was closed. Park thought of being alone with him in that dark and narrow space and felt sweat form a patch on the back of her decksuit.

  I shouldn’t drag him into it, she thought to herself, her knuckle resting on the cold steel of the door. If he isn’t a part of it already. He’s made it clear that he fears ISF’s retribution enough to keep quiet.

  And why am I assuming he’s safe for me, anyway, when the others are in control of everything else on the ship? Why do I think that I can trust him?

  I should go back to my office and never speak to him again.

  She knocked. She heard someone stir, then roll off their bunk with a creak. Fulbreech—alone, to her relief—opened the door and then half-shut it again in surprise. “Park?”

  “Fulbreech,” she said, trying to keep her voice as brusque and businesslike as possible. “Can I speak to you? Privately?”

  Wordlessly he opened the door. Park stepped inside, but kept her distance from him. It was clear he had just woken up: his blond hair was tousled, his eyes full of grit. And yet her chest still gave a kind of hard clutch when she looked at him. What was that feeling? Fear? Anxiety? Why did she feel as if he’d backed her into a corner, when she was the one who had come to visit him?

  “What’s this about?” Fulbreech asked. He was yawning. It was not quite yet lights-out hours, but the expedition members were on rotating shifts again, some sleeping sooner than others to go out earlier in the morning. That meant Boone or even Sagara might be sleeping now, Park realized. If they were slotted to go out tomorrow.

  “I want to talk about what happened today,” she said to Fulbreech.

  He grimaced. “You mean with Holt?”

  Park nodded. “They told you something about it at the meeting.”

  “They said he had a breakdown,” Fulbreech said slowly, “and they tranquilized him.” He looked at her in sudden sympathy. “That must be tough for you, especially with Keller gone. I hope you know it’s not your fault—
things like this happen pretty frequently on—”

  Park made an abrupt gesture and cut him off. “They didn’t tranquilize Holt,” she said. Already she was chafing at his kindness, his hand-holding. “They shot him. Boone did, I mean. Did you know he has an electrolaser gun?”

  Share information, she was thinking, and earn trust. Obligate the other person into reciprocating. Fulbreech’s eyebrows snapped down, not too quickly; that meant his reaction was honest. “No,” he said, looking troubled. “I didn’t know that. So you’re saying Wick and Sagara lied at the meeting?”

  “They don’t want to spread a panic on the ship.”

  He scratched his chin. “How do you know all this?”

  “I was there.”

  “That’s why you were running! Are you all right?”

  It only took a moment for her to decide the tone of her answer. “Frankly, no,” Park replied, straight-faced. “A lot of things are happening at once. With Keller gone, I need someone else to help me . . . process.”

  That ought to strike a chord with his altruistic side. Fulbreech stood there in the half-dark, thinking; he rubbed his hair into spikes as he thought. Park took the opportunity to assess the room, which she had never seen, but it was featureless: every bunk but Fulbreech’s was made up with military precision. There was a small book lying steepled on his pillow, but Park couldn’t read its cover in the gloom. She was surprised; she hadn’t seen a paper book since she was a child.

  “You won’t find anything incriminating,” Fulbreech said then, interrupting her thoughts. His smile was wry.

  Park looked back up. “What do you think I’m looking for?”

  “I don’t know. Something you can put in your file about me. Something that screams of repression. Maybe you think I wet the bed or suck my thumb.”

  “You’re very self-centered,” Park told him stiffly. “You seem to think I spend a lot of time thinking about you.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  Fulbreech smiled. Then his face turned grave. “Will Holt be all right?”