We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

  She shook her head. “He’s in a medically induced coma. Chanur said that he ultimately should recover, but he might have some facial tics.”

  Surreptitiously she waited for his response: disgust at Boone, alarm at the situation. But Fulbreech only said, sucking the air between his teeth: “Why’d they shoot him?”

  Park looked at him closely. Now was the time to find out how much he really knew. “It was down in the utility rooms,” she said. “Holt was . . . sleepwalking. In a trance. He tried to go through a door down there, and Boone shot him to prevent him from getting through.”

  Fulbreech was shaking his head. “Idiot,” he breathed to himself. “No point to that.”

  The back of Park’s neck prickled. “What do you mean?”

  He caught her watching him, hesitated, then shook his head again. “It’s nothing. Look—Boone is crazy, we all know that. He’s an ass at the best of times, a tyrant at the worst. It sounds like he got trigger-happy. He’s probably used to throwing his weight around on Mars.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Park insisted, frowning. “He’s hiding something down there. And it’s important enough that he would try to kill Holt to avoid compromising it.” She met his eye. “Don’t you think?”

  Fulbreech paused for the briefest moment, and in that moment a dozen micro-expressions flashed over his face. Fear, uncertainty, guilt, doubt. That alone told Park what she needed to know. He knew what was down there. Maybe they all did—except her.

  “Fulbreech,” she heard herself say. “What’s in the utility rooms?”

  He averted his gaze. “Nothing, Park,” he murmured. “Really, nothing.”

  Liar! Park felt as if he had struck her, slapped her open-palmed across the face. She felt the sudden urge to get away from him. “I’m going down there,” she announced, turning back to the door.

  Fulbreech looked alarmed. “Wait,” he said, putting a hand out. “Park—what if Boone catches you down there? What if he does the same thing to you as he did to Holt?”

  She looked back at him over her shoulder, almost sneering. “Why would he, if there really is nothing down there?”

  Fulbreech stared at her. Finally he said unhappily: “There are things you don’t need to know, Park. Things you shouldn’t know. But it’s for your own good. Your own protection.”

  “Is that how you justify it?” she demanded. “You’re hiding things from me—lying to me—so you can protect me?”

  No one asked you to do that, she wanted to add, viciously. I don’t want or need your protection.

  Fulbreech spread his hands. “Just trust me,” he said, his blue eyes so earnest they ignited a kind of fury in Park’s heart. “Forget about all this. Go to bed. Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”

  She turned to unlock the door, taking care not to slam it behind her—to not let him see how much he had incensed her. She would not allow him to think his actions had any emotional effect on her whatsoever. “Good night, Fulbreech,” she gritted out.

  The door swung shut between them with a distant little click. Park stalked off into the dark, fuming; Fulbreech didn’t follow. Park didn’t know if she was even more annoyed by this or relieved. He spoke to her as if she were a child! And she’d thought that she could still trust him—could still appeal to him for help. But all he had for her were platitudes, meaningless deflections. Go to bed? Forget about this? Who did he think she was? And what did he think their relationship was, that he could give her a proverbial pat on the head and send her on her way without outright insulting her intelligence?

  What good are his promises? Park asked herself. Her scalp seemed to crackle with the heat of her anger. She couldn’t rely on him for anything. One moment he was cozying up to her, interrogating her about this and that, inviting her along on secret and forbidden excursions. The next, he was rebuking her for asking too many questions, withdrawing his support, or worse—actively working to deter her from finding out anything for herself. All under the pretense that he was concerned for her wellbeing. No, his promises were no good. She couldn’t trust him, just like she couldn’t trust Sagara or Boone. Actually, Fulbreech was even more dangerous, the most frightening of the three: he concealed his allegiances behind a smile.

  Nothing in the utility rooms, hell, she thought as she skulked down the corridor that eventually led to the Deck C ladder. She kept to the shadows, what little there were—but there was no one, human or android, who had been stationed to get in her way. She still couldn’t believe that he would lie to her, so bald-faced. What exactly did he think she needed protection from? Did he think her that fragile, that she couldn’t stomach whatever ugly truth was down there?

  She looked forward to proving him wrong; to cracking open that mysterious door and unveiling whatever it was they were all concealing. If Boone was down there, she’d lunge for the door, if she had to. If it was Wick or Sagara, she’d talk her way past them. And in the end she would point at the thing and say, “Is this what you call nothing? Is that the thing worth killing for?”

  She couldn’t conceive of what it could be. She only knew that if she didn’t find out, she’d be stuck in this hamster wheel of fear and uncertainty for the rest of the journey home.

  If we ever make it home, came her dark and unbidden thought, then.

  She walked for a long time with nothing but shadows to accompany her. It was a little strange that they hadn’t put a guard on something that even Fulbreech was eager to keep hidden—but Park told herself that she ought to feel grateful. And humans had to sleep, too. Even the androids were inactive for longer periods of time now, without Reimi—to slow their eventual deterioration.

  But as time went on, she began to wish for a little company, something to direct her irritation and energy towards. For some sign of other life on the ship. It was too quiet—she could barely even hear her own footfalls. And as she made the descent down the hatch to Deck C, the corridor to the utility rooms suddenly seemed unfamiliar to her. She hadn’t paid enough attention when Jimex was in the lead. Thankfully, it was not as dark as the first time she had made the trip, but the hall’s turns and angles made Park feel like she was being led up, not down. The path stretched ahead of her like a long, gray snake.

  This isn’t the way, Park thought, confused. I made a wrong turn somewhere.

  But she forced herself to go on. She was sometimes easily disoriented, especially when the artificial gravity was on. Even now she felt the wave of nausea, the stomach-lurching dizziness. She was Earth-born; her senses were unused to helping her navigate the dense warrens that formed the innards of spaceships. She told herself that if she kept following the corridor, she would eventually reach a part of the Deucalion that she recognized.

  Onward she climbed. Gradually Park’s sense of unease—and her conviction that she was in the wrong part of the deck—grew. The air here was humid, warm, almost stale—and she remembered how cold and lightless the trek had been the first time. She had the eerie feeling that the floor and walls were moving around her. Not rotating, as some parts of the ship did, but . . . heaving?

  A trick of the light, she told herself, ignoring her damp palms. A consequence of not having Reimi around to conduct maintenance on the lighting modules. The flickering panels cast shadows on the walls that made it look like they were shifting. Respiring. It didn’t help that the air was so muggy and damp, as if she were walking into the gullet of something alive.

  Something darted at the corner of Park’s eye. Her head snapped around—but there was nothing there.

  Don’t run, she told herself, aware of the irrationality of the thought. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was following her.

  She crept onward, now shuffling a little in the lambent gray light. Park’s heart was rapping quickly in her chest; she strained to hear the sounds of the others, of proof that there were still people on the ship. That she hadn
’t suddenly been cut off from the world of the living.

  The tunnel crooked left, then right, then left again. She was going in a zigzag—no, a circle. Park’s internal compass spun crazily, and soon she lost all sense of familiarity or direction. She looked around for some landmark, some way to steady herself; when she tried to pull up the ship’s map on her inlays, METIS, the ship’s computer, informed her that it was an experiencing an error. No directions could be offered—and no one else could be reached.

  The air grew warmer and wetter. Park’s sense that the walls were breathing persisted: the floor felt a little spongy under her feet, and the gray walls had a sheen like old meat, the pipes and panels that traced them like viscera. Her stomach lurched a little; she imagined the taste of blood was in her throat.

  Down the hall, there was a scuttling.

  Park turned and looked back in the direction she had come. “Hello?” she said. She was aware of how feeble her voice sounded; how uncertain and pleading it was. But at this point she would have taken any answer, as long as it was someone she knew. Even the appearance of Boone, with his burliness and electrolaser gun, would have been preferable to being alone and lost for a moment longer.

  But there was no answer. Only more scuttling, like the tapping of spider feet, closer and louder. Even though there was nothing there.

  Park turned and began to run.

  The scuttling sound followed her, seemingly right on her heels, along with an acute sense of pursuit—as if someone’s regard, full of intent, was arrowing down the corridor after her. Park had to keep herself from screaming. She was, suddenly, too afraid to look behind her.

  She sprinted around a corner and found herself colliding forehead-first with something warm and solid. Park automatically lashed out, but whoever it was caught her wrists.

  “Park!” a familiar voice exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

  She looked up and, to her shock and knee-buckling relief, found Fulbreech standing in the light in front of her. She nearly threw her arms around him, despite her earlier anger; instead she stepped away from him and said, “What are you doing down here?”

  He looked at her, bemused. “I didn’t like where we left off. And I wanted to make sure that you didn’t have any nasty run-ins.”

  She felt a little chill at the base of her spine. “Nasty run-ins?”

  “With Boone,” Fulbreech said. His eyes had that earnest look in them again. “You know—an encounter that would end with you in the freezer.”

  “Right,” Park said. “Of course.” She shook her head; he was thinking about her protection, again. But she didn’t quite have it in her to be annoyed with him this time.

  Then she realized something. “How did you get down here before me?” Park asked, bewildered. She glanced behind her, at the empty corridor. “You didn’t pass me on the way.”

  Fulbreech blinked. “You took a long time. I must have gotten here first.”

  “But I went straight here from your room.”

  Fulbreech spread his hands. “I don’t know, then. I assumed you stopped off somewhere.”

  Park had to bite her lip to keep from questioning him further; her mind buzzed, questing and examining her fuzzy idea of the geographical improbabilities of his claim. As far as she knew, there was only one ladder down to Deck C, and that was the one she had taken. But there were a few different routes to get to it from Fulbreech’s bunk; could he have possibly taken another path after she’d left, arriving at the hatch far before her? Or was there some other secret entryway to Deck C that she wasn’t aware of?

  “Did you . . . notice anything unusual, on your way down here?” Park asked finally.

  Fulbreech looked blank. “No,” he said—and he was honest, as far as she could tell. “Did you?”

  Park didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to say anything—she was afraid of giving herself away. The way she had taken was not the way she had gone the first time. She was sure of that. And the feeling that she was being followed . . . She hadn’t imagined that, had she?

  But what other explanation was there? Was her memory that faulty? Or was her troubled mind playing tricks on her?

  The possibility frightened her deeply. She was stressed, yes, but she had never experienced delusions from her stress before. Or felt such a preternatural feeling of fear. Is this how it starts? she asked herself. What if I’m experiencing the first symptoms?

  What if this is what Holt and Ma felt?

  She shook herself and blinked. I’m tired, she thought. She hadn’t slept since before Holt was shot. And she was no longer sure what time it was—it was so hard to tell without checking the computer, here on this ship without windows. The tired human brain created illusions, misfired the wrong hormones and chemicals after a long enough period without rest. She knew this. That’s all there is to it, Park told herself, shivering. I’m tired. That’s the only thing that’s wrong with me.

  “Park?” Fulbreech was giving her a concerned look.

  “It’s nothing,” Park said. She stepped past him to look at the trio of doors. “Let’s just get this over with. Are you going to help me look?”

  Fulbreech sighed. “Yes,” he said heavily. “Only to keep you out of trouble. But there’s nothing there.”

  “We’ll see,” Park said.

  So they proceeded with their search. The doors Park had seen Boone guarding were plain things, innocuous-looking enough: they were made of the same dingy-gray plate metal that enclosed any other supply closet or cargo hold on the ship. Each door had its own separate palm lock, a simple biometric guard that scanned the faces and fingerprints of authorized crewmembers. For a simple utility room, every member should have access—if there was nothing inside to hide.

  Fulbreech reached for the left door, but Park, remembering that Boone had stood in front of the middle, said, “No. The center one.”

  Fulbreech cast her a sidelong glance before laying his palm against the middle lock. Park tensed, half-expecting some alarm to go off, or a booby-trap—but almost immediately she heard the grating and tumbling of the door’s mechanism unlocking. The door slid open, and Fulbreech ducked inside.

  Park waited, staring into the darkness of the closet. It seemed impossibly small, hardly bigger than a broom closet. Fulbreech’s shoulders nearly touched both walls. “You see,” he said, turning to look at her in a resigned way. “Nothing.”

  Park immediately suspected foul play. He knew there was something in that room; she knew it, too. Boone had been guarding something.

  She squeezed herself in with him, then regretted it immediately; the tininess of the space forced her to cram herself up against his chest. She looked away, ignoring the heat coming off his decksuit, and felt around, stroking the walls, running her hands along the shelves. But there was nothing. The room was bare, aside from a few common tools and cleaning devices. Fulbreech even clicked on the cranky, unflattering light to help her search.

  Nothing.

  Eventually Park squirmed her way out of the little room. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would Boone shoot Holt for this?”

  Fulbreech squeezed out after her. “I told you,” he said. “It’s not about the room. Boone was just trigger-happy—or scared of Holt. His gut reaction was to shoot first, ask questions later.”

  She glared again into the barren little closet, refusing to believe it. There was fraud going on here, some kind of petty deceit, but her thoughts were too jumbled to clearly perceive what it was. Could she be mistaken? There was no way. “Then why was Boone standing down here in the first place?”

  “I don’t know,” Fulbreech said. “You’ll have to ask him that.”

  She had the absurd urge to push him, as if they were squabbling on a playground and she could win something by asserting her physical dominance where logic had failed. But instead she channeled that energy into searching the othe
r two utility rooms. Again, there was no resistance, no lock to stand against her—and inside she found nothing but a small cleaning unit, a rolled-up mat. Some toolboxes. She went as far as sorting through each plasma cutter and rivet gun on every shelf, hoping for a hidden lever or button. Fulbreech watched in silence as she rummaged, Park growing more and more frustrated.

  Finally she flung the last auto-wrench into its box and rounded on him. “You moved it,” she accused. “That’s why you came down here ahead of me. It wasn’t to keep me safe—you headed me off to hide it.”

  Fulbreech’s face wasn’t smug, or gloating, or relieved. Instead he only looked sad and a little pitying. “Believe what you want,” he said, shrugging in a resigned way. “But that’s not what happened. I’m sorry, Park.”

  “There was something down here,” she repeated, but even to her own ears the proclamation sounded hollow. Her feelings were a riot of confusion and alarm and righteous anger; how could this be? Where was this thing they were all hiding?

  She wished she had come down alone, after all. Even if Fulbreech was orchestrating some deception against her, she couldn’t help but feel a little humiliated in front of him; and when he gave her that sympathetic look, she wanted to scream. No doubt he thought she was a little frenzied, a little unbalanced. She wanted to run away from him; the dim walls of the corridor contracted around her like a vein.

  “I’m sorry,” Fulbreech said again. “You should just let it go.”

  You’re lying to me! Park thought—but her shoulders slumped. No point in hurling accusations when she had no proof to back them up. And such a display of emotion would only render her more vulnerable—more discreditable—than she already was.

  She began walking away from him, without looking back. Fulbreech followed, like a patient guardian following a child who had to ride out a tantrum, and after a moment he said, “You said you were born in New Diego.”

  Park wasn’t in the mood to make small talk with him anymore. “What of it?”