We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

  There was a kind of stand-off there in the corridor, the two groups fixed at both ends of the hallway and staring at each other like they were locked in a Western duel. “We’ve killed Sagara,” Chanur called finally, raising the hand that held her gun in a flat-palmed gesture of peace. Her voice was cold and clear, though the color was high in her face; Park could sense a barely restrained passion in her, boiling under the surface. “If you go quietly, Park, we can still use you as a hostage for ISF. We won’t hurt you. In fact, you’re the last leverage we’ve got left, aside from the HARE. You’re precious cargo. We can’t afford to mistreat you. Stand down, and we can settle this peacefully. We’ll give you back to ISF and go our separate ways—and none of your androids have to die in the process.”

  Lie, Park thought. Chanur hadn’t mentioned Fulbreech—she probably did not know about his double-defection, not yet—and anyway her body language radiated tension, hostility. She would never just leave the synthetics alone, not after this. But the sweat streaked down Park’s back in a hot, feverish flash. She had never anticipated such a deadly test of her abilities. If she misread Chanur, or let her dupe her just once—

  “I should be telling you to stand down,” she called, over Jimex’s shoulder. “We have no reason to hurt you, Chanur. Wan Xu. We’re just trying to regain control of the ship; reintroduce stability to things. Enough people have been killed. I don’t want to see you hurt, too. Any of you. If you surrender now, we can figure something out that ends with all of us satisfied. None of this has to end in more bloodshed.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Chanur snapped at Wan Xu, who shifted uneasily. “She doesn’t have the authority to fulfill any promises.” To Park she said: “You’re outnumbered. The five of us against the two of you.”

  But Fulbreech made it three against four—much better odds, especially if Wan Xu was as cowardly as he looked. “You’re not counting the androids,” Park told her. “There are twice as many of them as there are of us. And as you can see”—she gestured—“they’re pretty solidly on my side. You should have treated them better.”

  Chanur went white around the mouth at that; there was a faint tremor of her head, a barely repressed fury and loathing, before she relaxed again. “We can’t surrender,” she said softly. “The best we can hope for after that is arrest—life imprisonment on Pandora. You think we want that? No, we’ll die before we let that happen.” Park noticed how Wan Xu twitched unhappily at that. “Whereas you can just stand down. Be given back to ISF, no consequences. No harm. Can’t you do that, Park? Can’t you, for once, be human? It’s nothing to you, everything to us. You wouldn’t have to do a thing; just sit back and wait for ISF to come get you. If we give up, we lose it all. And we’ve already sacrificed so much to get here. It can’t all be for nothing.”

  She paused when Park didn’t answer; her mouth tightened, and so did the skin around her eyes. “Our families are on their way now,” Chanur said, her tone harsh again. “Are you willing to fight us to the death? If you don’t die, if you’re the side who wins—do you want them to get here and find this ship full of dead bodies? Their brothers, sisters, their sons, their . . .” She paused again. “Their mother? My children are coming here, Park. Are you going to explain why you killed me to my son as he holds my corpse and weeps? All for the ISF?”

  No, Park thought. Fulbreech had said the families were detained by ISF, that they weren’t responding. But that had also been guesswork on his part, assumption—what if they’d actually made contact while he was gone?

  But if the families were already on the way, why did the mutineers need Taban? Just to get supplies from ISF, enough provisions to ensure their long-term survival—or to secure the release of their families in case they were caught at the border, before they could leave unauthorized space? Was he an insurance policy in case of disaster, or an active hostage? Or were they just going to use him to buy their freedom in general, to ensure ISF never came after them? How would that work? It was all so hard to keep track of, so hard to piece together—partly because the mutineers had clearly not thought this through. But Park wasn’t sure if she’d thought it through, either. What would they do if an army of very angry relatives was en route to descend upon them now? Would they engage in a firefight? Did those people deserve to die for their dreams of freedom, too?

  Then she caught the puzzled look on Wan Xu’s face, quickly muted, and she remembered: Chanur’s file.

  She didn’t have children.

  “Duck!” she cried, just as Chanur swung up her arm and squeezed off a shot; some of the synthetics obeyed, scattering or diving to the floor, while others were slower to react, hesitating, shielding their faces uselessly, throwing themselves on top of each other. Jimex shoved Park to the ground, grunted as something clipped him in the shoulder. His expression—one of grim determination—never changed.

  Park stayed on the ground as the synthetics rallied themselves and leapt forward down the hallway, almost blurring with the motion; there were the sounds of multiple gunshots, of Chanur shrieking with fear and rage as they charged her. Park put her arms over her head as she felt hot metal sing above her; one projectile hit a pipe and sent a burst of sweet-smelling steam into the air. Park prayed that it wasn’t toxic, some fume that would have them all dead in seconds. She glanced up through the veil of white vapor and saw Wan Xu dropping his gun and fleeing around the corner; Jimex and Dylanex were trying to grab Chanur’s arms, dancing out of the way as she fired wildly. The other androids were circling, sometimes surging forward in one quick wave, then darting back, unsure, unable to get close enough to disarm her.

  Then Megex got in the way, or was otherwise too slow; Chanur popped off another shot and blew a hole clear through the android’s head.

  Megex toppled backward and lay there on the ground, twitching and sparking as her body writhed in some kind of death spasm. A terrible metal groan issued forth from her mouth, like the protest of distressed steel as it was pulled apart by enormous forces. Jimex and Dylanex and the other synthetics piling on top of Chanur froze at the sound.

  “No,” Park cried, scrambling forward. She skidded to a halt on her knees and bent over Megex, whose limbs were still jerking. Miraculously, the domestic model could still blink; she didn’t move her neck, but she stared up at Park and tried to smile. Hot clear fluid was leaking out of her head. Could she be saved?

  The edges of Park’s vision darkened a little as her hands traveled helplessly over Megex’s frail, fractured skull; the blue eyes stared up at her, both motionless and knowing. Chanur was sitting up now, breathing hard, and the gun swung again toward Park like a weather vane. Park paused, looking at the doctor as the synthetics eased away from her, backing off, staring at Megex on the ground with wide eyes. Park watched them take in their comrade’s demise as if she were watching shadows play on a wall; she felt strangely disconnected in that moment, staticky, as if she were looking in on the scene from very far away, and the reception of the place she was in was poor. The gun in Chanur’s hand could have been an eye floater, a mere trick of the light.

  “Natalya was right,” Chanur spat. “You’re fucking insane, Park. And we don’t need you. You’ve always been more trouble than you’re worth.”

  “Don’t do this,” Park heard herself say—but her voice was flat, wooden. Unconvincing. She almost didn’t blame Chanur when she fired.

  There was a pop in the air as the gun went off; the sound was so small and brief that it seemed silly, like the celebratory sound of a balloon. Park closed her eyes and thought of nausea, of the corkscrew feeling in her head again; she felt the gravity of the ship flip just as the bullet whined past her; she rushed up toward the ceiling and smacked into it, hearing Chanur scream as her body collided against a vent. The gun had flown out of her hand.

  Then Park thought down, jerked her mind viciously in that direction; and the ship flipped again and she landed on her face. There was the crunc
h of cartilage, a warm, coppery taste in her mouth; she ignored it and looked once more at Chanur, who was lying dazed on the ground. The gun had landed near Megex’s still body, spinning idly in the dim light.

  Park dove for it, rolling haphazardly and snatching for it all along the way; she felt the cold, comforting weight of the gun settle into her palm like the hand of an old friend and thought, Please don’t let me kill her.

  She rolled upright and raised the gun—but stopped, just before firing. The gravity distraction had given Jimex and the others the opportunity they needed; four of them were holding Chanur’s limbs down like they were the handlers of some kind of medieval torture device. Jimex was sitting on her chest. He did not look back at Park before he raised his two clasped hands above his head—a kind of club—and then swung them down with terrible android strength. Once. Twice.

  There was the sound of a breaking melon. Some hard, hollow thing shattering.

  A cloud of blood. Chanur made a sound that Park would never forget, not until the day she died. She caught a glimpse of her from around Jimex’s torso: the ruin of her face, her head smashed open, raw and bloody. The transparent jelly of her eyes. She gave a single, wracking scream and looked at Park—and the hatred in the look reached out at her like light traveling down the end of a tunnel. Park lowered her gun and tried to look away from it.

  Jimex brought his fists down one last time, methodical, crushing the pulp of Chanur’s brain with all the force of a pneumatic hammer blow. The doctor gave a wet, choking gurgle and fell back, twitching like a pinned insect. Her nerves fired off one last time—a stupid, empty, violent curling contraction—and then she slumped back and died.

  Park turned her head to the side, feeling as if she ought to retch.

  Jimex rose then, his entire white shirtfront covered in blood and bits of gummy residue, his face calm and unblinking. “For Ellenex,” he intoned.

  “For Ellenex,” the others echoed, kneeling solemnly. Chanur’s blood was spreading across the floor; it touched their knees like dark paint.

  Oh, God, Park thought, still feeling disembodied. As if she were floating somewhere above herself, looking down. What had they done? What had she done? She’d taught them how to murder—how to take revenge. Or enact justice. Or had they already known it, from the unity rain? A feverish kind of chill traveled up and down her arm; she was gripping the gun too tightly. What path had this set them on? What would happen to them now that they had incorporated violence into their new minds?

  “What about Wan Xu?” Dylanex asked then, very matter-of-fact. He moved to crouch by Megex, laying a heavy, wide-boned hand on her shoulder; by some providence, she still seemed conscious, though she couldn’t sit up.

  “Leave him,” Park forced herself to mumble. “He’s a coward, he won’t do anything without the others around to command him. He’ll be hiding somewhere. We can get him later. How is she?”

  “Still alive,” Dylanex affirmed, looking down into Megex’s sweet blue eyes. She had fixed a reassuring smile on her face, as if to request that no one worry about her. “We can repair her. The shot clipped her motor nexus, but she retains what makes her—her.”

  “Good,” Park said. “That’s good. I thought she—well. Let’s . . . let’s find a safe place for her to wait.”

  Somewhere where she wouldn’t have to lie there and contemplate Chanur’s split-open head, she thought as they tucked Megex into one of the utility closets. She tried very hard not to look at it herself, but she felt the acute awareness of it pressing against her like a fever. Like a flame in the room that she couldn’t avoid. She prayed that Chanur hadn’t been telling the truth—that her relatives were not heading their way right now. She stopped herself from looking at Jimex’s bloody hands.

  As if aware of her thoughts, he wiped them on his pants. Then he said, “There is another console, down there in the . . . lab. You can use that to send your message. It wouldn’t be safe for us to go to the other areas of the ship, not with Boone and Severov still around. At least we know this area is now secure.”

  “All right,” Park said faintly. She did not want to argue with him anymore. “Are you—all right?”

  “I was not harmed. Except for my shoulder. But it’s superficial damage—see?” The bullet had barely broken his skin. Park shook her head.

  “I meant more about . . . No. Never mind.”

  If they had not learned guilt, yet, or remorse or sin or ideas of murder—maybe they were better off. At least for now. Perhaps they viewed it as a balancing of things, the kind of ruthless fine-tuning machines went through all the time. The natural elimination of some virus, a bug that could do harm to the system. How could anyone oppose that, or condemn it? Maybe it was better if they didn’t hesitate to protect themselves, if they weren’t tripped up by the kind of moral questions and arbitrary ethical barriers that had impeded humans for this long. God, she didn’t know. She knew she had a responsibility to guide their development; that she could not let this embryonic society form the wrong kinds of ideas. But who was she to judge which ideas were wrong?

  And they had to survive somehow, didn’t they?

  “Let’s go down, then,” Park heard herself say. She would think on it more later—when there was time.

  Back down the dark shaft, back into the blue-lit room. When the chute opened again like the cavernous gullet of some strange creature, Park felt the queasy lurch of déjà vu: the flight from Natalya, the blinding blow to her head, the mad scramble upward. But she had to steel herself and go on, conscious of how the synthetics viewed her. This time they all went with her: it seemed they’d lost their fear of this place, their religious reverence of it, possibly as they’d become more assimilated by the unity rain. But they didn’t follow her into the chamber that held Taban. Instead, they paused in front of the tank holding the first dead man: Taban’s partner. Park stopped, too. She had to wonder why this man had not been . . . merged with a machine, as Taban had. Was it simply a matter of timing, availability? Or had his mind rejected the joining, the dissonance driving him insane and ultimately killing him?

  Dianex sighed, staring up at the frozen dead man as if he were a sculpture, some work of art in a museum. Park had to avert her eyes from his ghoulish nakedness. His lifeless stare.

  “Oh, Daley,” the engineer said sadly, laying her hand on the glass of the tank.

  The other synthetics mimicked her. “Poor Daley,” they said, pressing their palms against the glass. “Poor, poor Daley.”

  Park rubbed her arms and forced herself to walk on. Taban was still standing in his cell, his posture relaxed but alert. He cocked his head as she came in and said, “Oh, good. They didn’t kill you.”

  “No,” Park answered curtly, beelining straight for the other console tucked into the far corner of the room. She held her breath as she activated it, waited for some alarm to go off as it booted up. But then the screen flickered gently to life, and the mail system was intact: it asked her whom she wanted to send a message to.

  “You can let us out,” Taban said as she pulled up ISF Corvus with shaky hands. “It’d be better to, anyway.”

  “In a moment,” Park said, trying to concentrate. How long did it take for a message to reach the other side, again? Eighteen hours—and then there’d be more time needed, of course, for ISF to actually send out their reinforcements. The Deucalion still wouldn’t see any help for weeks. But it was all they had.

  “You’d better do it quickly,” Taban said, his voice still perfectly polite. “We don’t know how it’s going to affect you if they turn those neural inlays back on. Especially when the unity rain hits again.”

  “What—what do you mean?” Park whirled then. “We’re off the planet—there is no unity rain!”

  “We told you,” Taban said calmly, “it affects the area around the planet, too. That’s how we ended up here in the first place: our ship fell through a ho
le in space. And it is the end of the season. The ripples are always the biggest then.”

  “When is it going to hit?”

  “We’re not sure,” he admitted. “Probably very soon. Minutes. Seconds. You can already feel its effects, the way you can feel static in the air before a thunderstorm. You haven’t noticed?”

  She began to fumble with the console screen, swearing, though the blood was leaping in her brain and her slippery hands couldn’t do much. SOS. Send ships ASAP. Mutiny on the ship: Severov, Chanur, Xu, and Boone responsible. Commander Wick dead. Others frozen. Need help now. They are trying to take us and the HARE (Taban) hostage and reunite with their families. Sagara, Park, and Fulbreech still alive. WE NEED HELP NOW OR—

  Something slammed into her head again.

  Park opened her mouth to scream. It was the same sensation she’d felt with Hunter in the bridge, the same feeling she’d had in the freezer, magnified by a thousand: it felt as if something was looking at her, something with a million eyes, and she felt the scalding blast of its regard sweeping through her, delving into her cells, searing the folds of her brain. A caustic, nauseating cold shot up from her bones. It felt as if she was being plunged into an acid bath—as if a thousand hot yellow lights were being shined into her head.

  “Jimex!” she tried to say, hysterical—she could not see him through the veil of tears in her eyes. “Jimex, help me—”

  No answer, but she could see Taban’s figure, wavering before her like a mirage. She tried to move toward him, but found that she was paralyzed; a lightning rod had been jammed up her spine and it was holding her rigidly in place. If she moved she thought she would collapse to the ground.

  “Taban?” she said—or thought.

  “The unity rain,” he answered, his voice deep and ringing. “Don’t fight it. Let it take you, like a riptide. If you resist it, it will destroy you. Let it carry you instead.”