The Greatship

by Robert Reed

  Without instructions indeed!

  “A few hundred became the First Generation. Attrition convinced our great captains to allow children, and the Second Generation numbered in the thousands. By the Third, we were officially responsible for the Ship’s exterior and the deadliest parts of its engines. A quiet conquest had claimed a world-size realm, and today we number in the millions.”

  She had sighed and said, “I would like to meet Wune.”

  “Except there was a heroic death,” Orleans had said. “A comet swarm was approaching. A repair team was caught on the bow, their shuttle dead and useless.”

  “Why were they there if a swarm was coming?”

  “Patching a previous crater, of course. Remember. The bow can withstand most any blow, but if comets struck one on top of the other, unlikely as that sounds—”

  “Disaster,” she had said.

  “For the passengers below, yes.” A strange smile tried to cut the orange face in two. “Wune died bringing out a fresh shuttle. She was vaporized when ice and rock turned to plasmas.”

  “I’m sorry,” Quee Lee had whispered.

  “Wune was my great-great-grandmother, which makes me Fifth Generation,” said Orleans. “And no, she didn’t name us Remoras. That began as an insult, some captain happily responsible. You’re from the earth, perhaps you know this already. Remoras are ugly fish that cling to sharks and eat their scraps. Not a pleasing image, yet Wune embraced the word. To us being Remora means spiritual fulfillment, independence and a powerful sense of self.”

  She had nodded, listening to each word.

  “Do you know what I am, Quee Lee? I am a god ruling the universe that fills this suit. In ways you cannot appreciate, I am the ultimate authority over my body, over my own self.”

  Staring at him, she could not move.

  A glove and hand lifted, placing thick fingers against his faceplate. “My eyes. You’re fascinated by my eyes, aren’t you?”

  A tiny nod. “Yes.”

  “Do you know I sculpted them?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me, Quee Lee. How do you close your hand?”

  She had made a fist, as if to show him.

  “Neurons fire and muscles contract, and how can you manage something that complex without being able to describe it in full?”

  “Habit,” she had said, suddenly proud of the word.

  Orleans had used a large, engaging laugh. “And I have thousands of years of stubborn habit helping me sort through my mutations, spreading my favorite metastasized cells to where they can do the most good—as naturally as you make fists and walk across new ground.”

  Opening her hand, she had said nothing.

  “Transformation is my every day, and this is why my life is so much richer than yours,” Orleans had said. Then with a final wink, he had told her, “I cannot count the times that I have reinvented vision.”

  Again Quee Lee looked at her bedroom ceiling, at a curtain of indigo dissolving into salmon and blush.

  “You think Remoras are vile, ugly monsters,” Orleans had said. “Don’t deny it. I won’t let you deny it.”

  She hadn’t made a sound.

  “I know: When you saw me standing at your front door, all of that ordinary blood of yours drained out of your face. You were so pale, so terribly weak, Quee Lee. By any measure, horrified.”

  She couldn’t deny it. Not then or now.

  “Which of us carries the richest life, Quee Lee? And be objective. Is it you or is it me?”

  She pulled the bed sheets over herself, shaking.

  “You or me?”

  “Me,” she whispered, but with doubt in that word. Just the flavor of uncertainty. Then Perri stirred and rolled toward her with his face trying to waken. Quee Lee enjoyed a last glance at the projected sky and then had it quelched. Then Perri was grinning, blinking and reaching for her.

  “Can’t you sleep, love?”

  “No,” she said.

  Then she said, “Come here, darling.”

  “Well, well. Aren’t you in a mood?”

  Absolutely. A feverish mood, her mind leaping from subject to sensation to wild ideas, every thought intense and abrupt, Perri on top and her old-fashioned eyes gazing up at the darkened ceiling, still seeing the powerful surges of changing color that obscured the bright dusting of stars.

  * * *

  They took a honeymoon-of-renewal, Quee Lee’s treat. Halfway around the Ship was a famous resort beside a small tropical sea, and for several months they enjoyed scenery and beaches, floury sands dropping into azure waters where fancy corals and fancier fish lived. Every night brought a different sky, the Ship supplying images of nebulas and strange suns; and they made love in the oddest locations, in odd manners, strangers coming upon them on occasion, humans and various aliens sometimes pausing to watch.

  Yet she felt detached throughout the vacation, as if hovering over the scene as an observer. In the afternoon, Perri would dress in fins and gills and leave her alone on the powdery sand, allowing her to use her nexuses to do research, learning whatever she could about Remoras. But their faith and history existed only as sketches, full of holes and often self-contradictory. Sex proved to be a richer, odder subject. Coitus involved electrical stimulation through the suits, and reproduction meant pulling totipotent cells from each partner, children conceived in vitro and grown inside a hyperfiber envelope. The envelope was expanded as needed. Birth came with the first independent fusion reactor. Remoras thrived in the oddest circumstances, but then again, many human societies seemed bizarre. Some refused immortality. Some married AIs or lived in a narcotic haze. Spiritual groups and splinter factions were normal, and why was it so difficult to learn anything certain about Wune’s children?

  And the better question: Why had Quee Lee been allowed a glimpse of Orlean’s private world?

  The resort had to be a suffocating trap for an adventurer like Perri. Everything about the place was clean and predictable. Yet he remained pleasant and attentive, and if he ever said a negative word about the burdens, he saved them for when he was drifting under the sea.

  “I know this is work for you,” Quee Lee said one evening, greeting her husband as he climbed out of the surf. “But old women appreciate winks and smiles.”

  “Winks and smiles to the young lady,” Perri said, kneeling at her feet.

  They returned home soon afterward, and Quee Lee was disappointed with her apartment. It was the same as she remembered, and the sameness was depressing. Even the large garden room failed to brighten her spirits, and she found herself wondering if she had ever lived anywhere but here, the stone walls cold and closing in on her.

  “What’s the matter, love?”

  She didn’t answer her husband’s question.

  “Because something is wrong,” he said.

  “I forgot to tell you something,” she began. “A friend of yours visited…oh, it was nearly a year ago.”

  The roguish charm surfaced, reliable and nonplussed. “I have ten million friends. Which one?”

  “Orleans.”

  Perri didn’t respond at first, hearing the name but not allowing his expression to change. Was that what he was doing? He stood motionless, not quite looking at her; and Quee Lee noticed a weakness in the mouth and something glassy about the smiling eyes. Uneasy, she almost asked Perri what was wrong. Then Perri asked, “What did Orleans want?” His voice was too soft, almost a whisper. A sideways glance seemed to steal away his balance, and then he muttered, “Orleans came here?” None of these words were making sense.

  “You owed him some money,” she said.

  Perri didn’t speak, didn’t seem to hear anything.

  She said, “Darling, I paid him.”

  “But…but what happened…?”

  She told him and she didn’t. She mentioned the old seals and some other salient details, and then in the middle of her account, all at once, what was obvious and awful finally occurred to her. What if there hadn’t been any debt? S
he gasped, asking, “You did owe him the money, didn’t you?”

  “How much did you say it was?”

  She repeated the figure.

  He nodded. He swallowed and straightened his back, and with the most solemn voice that she had ever heard from him, he said, “I’ll pay you back…as soon as possible…”

  “Is there any hurry?” She took his hand, telling him, “I haven’t made noise until now, have I? Stop worrying.” Pause. “I just wonder how you could owe the man so much.”

  Perri shook his head. “I’ll give you five thousand now, or six…and I’ll raise the rest. Soon as I can, I promise.”

  She said, “Fine.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Orleans is one of your ten million friends,” she said, trying for a joking tone.

  “I’d nearly forgotten, it was so long ago.” He summoned a smile which engaged his old charm. “You should know, love. The Remoras aren’t anything like you or even like me. Be very careful with them, please.”

  She made appreciative sounds yet never mentioned her jaunt to the hull. The incident was past anyway, and why had she brought it up at all? Perri announced he was leaving immediately, needing to find some nameless creatures that owed him quite a lot. The best he could manage today was fifteen hundred hectos, admitting, “That is a very weak down payment, I know.

  Quee Lee felt a decision take hold, and the decision put her in such a fierce mood that she could tell him, “Have a good trip, and come home whenever you want. I will always be waiting.”

  Perri was the most darling man when vulnerable. “Soon,” he promised, kissing her hard before walking out the front door.

  Quee Lee was leaving an hour later, convinced she was going to the hull to confront her husband’s old friend. What was this mysterious debt? Why did it bother him so much? But the long cap-car ride diluted her resolve, and by the time she reached Port Beta, she had realized that a confrontation would accomplish nothing but further embarrass Perri, and that wasn’t what she wanted.

  “What do I want?” she whispered to herself.

  And there stood the answer, in plain view: Another walk on the hull, of course.

  5

  His flesh had turned blue, and the eyes were much larger, each filled with black hairs that shone in the light, something about the face distinctly amused. Two little tusks showed in the corners of the mouth. The cool voice said, “I suppose we could go for a stroll.” They were standing inside the same small room or one just like it; Quee Lee wasn’t sure about directions. “We could,” Orleans repeated, “but if you want to bend the rules, why stop with the little ones? Why not pick the hefty canons?”

  “What canons?” she asked.

  “Of course this will take months or maybe a few years,” he said. “But that shouldn’t scare someone with centuries to fill.”

  She waited.

  “But I think I know you. You’ve gotten curious about me, about us.” Orleans moved an arm, not so much as a hum coming from the refurbished elbow and shoulder. “We’ll make you an honorary Remora, if you’re willing. We’ll borrow a lifesuit, set you inside it, and then transform you in a hurry-up fashion.”

  “You can do that,” she said.

  “We’ll use aimed doses of radiation for a foundation, and then we’ll wrap proven mutations inside smart cancers, and they’ll migrate to the proper spots and grow.”

  She was frightened and intrigued, her heart kicking harder.

  “This won’t happen overnight, of course. And it depends on how much you want done.” The black hairs pulled together, studying her. “Of course nothing about this conversation is strictly legal. The captains have disdain for putting passengers even a little bit at risk.”

  “How much risk is there?”

  Orleans said, “The transformation is easy enough, in principle. I’ll dredge our records, making sure of the finer points.” He paused, eyes relaxing into two unkempt tangles. “We will need you to be in a shallow coma. Intravenous feedings, no nexus activity, and you’ll be perfectly safe. Lie down with one body and waken with another. The new Quee Lee will be much improved, I would like to think. How much risk? None at all, believe me.”

  She felt numb. Small and weak and numb.

  “You won’t be a true Remora. Your basic genetics won’t be touched, I promise. But an outsider looking at you will believe you to be genuine.”

  For an instant, with utter clarity, Quee Lee saw herself along on the great gray hull, walking the path of the first Remora.

  “Are you interested?”

  “Maybe. I am.”

  “You’ll need a lot more interest before we can start,” he said. “We have expenses to consider, and I’ll be putting my crew at risk. If the captains find out, it’s suspensions for everyone.”

  She said nothing.

  “Are you listening, Quee Lee?”

  “You want money.”

  Orleans gave a figure.

  But she was braced for a much larger sum. Two hundred thousand hectos was large but quite bearable. One year at any lazy, prosaic resort would cost at least that much.

  “You’ve done this before,” she said.

  “Not for a long time, no.”

  She didn’t ask what seemed obvious, that Perri and his debts had come from a similar transaction.

  “Take a year,” Orleans counseled. “Research the matter, measure your thoughts, and feel sure.”

  But she had already decided.

  Looking at the Remora, she asked, “Can I pick my own face? Can you wrap it inside a smart cancer and give it to me?”

  “Certainly.” A great fluid smile emerged, framed with tusks. “Pick and choose whatever you want.”

  “Your eyes,” she said.

  “They are yours,” he declared, offering a little wink.

  * * *

  Arrangements had to be made, and what surprised her most—what she enjoyed more than the anticipation—was the subterfuge, converting the money into the proper flavor, and then telling friends and her apartment nothing except that she would be gone for an indeterminate period, at least a year and perhaps much longer. Orleans hadn’t put a cap on her stay, and what if she enjoyed the Remoran life? Why not keep her possibilities open?

  “And what if Perri returns?” the apartment asked.

  He was to be greeted as a treasured member of the family, naturally. She thought she’d made herself clear.

  “No, miss,” the voice said. “What do I tell him about you?”

  “Explain…explain that I have gone exploring.”

  “Exploring?”

  “Tell him it’s my turn for a change,” she said, leaving without so much as a backward glance.

  * * *

  Orleans found help from the female Remora, the same one who had taken Quee Lee to him twice now. Her comma-shaped eyes hadn’t changed, but the mouth was smaller and the gray teeth had turned black as obsidian. Quee Lee lay between them as they worked, their faces smiling but the voices tight and shrill. Not for the first time, she realized that she never heard their true voices. Wet mutterings had to be translated by the lifesuits, which was why throats and mouths could change so much without having any audible effect.

  “Are you comfortable?” asked the woman. But before Quee Lee replied, she asked, “Any last questions?”

  Encased in the lifesuit, a sudden panic took hold. “When I go home, when I am done…how fast can I return to my normal self…?”

  “Cure the damage, you mean.” The woman laughed gently, her expression changing from one unreadable state to another. “There is no firm answer, dear. Do you have an autodoc in your apartment? Good. Let it excise the bad and help you grow your own organs again. Consider this a very bad accident.” She looked up. “It should take what, Orleans? Ten days to be purged and cleaned up.”

  The man said nothing, busy with the controls inside the suit’s helmet. Quee Lee could barely see his face above and behind her.

  “Ten days and you c
an walk in public again,” said the woman.

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” Quee Lee swallowed, pressure building against her chest—dread becoming panic, and terror waiting to strike. She wanted nothing now but to be home again.

  “Listen,” Orleans said, and then he said nothing.

  Finally Quee Lee said, “Tell me.”

  He knelt beside her. “You’ll be fine. I promise.”

  The confidence was missing from the voice. Perhaps he hadn’t believed she would go through with this adventure. Perhaps the offer had been a bluff, something that no sane person would find appealing, and now he was inventing an excuse to stop everything.

  But then he stood up and said, “Seals tight and ready.”

  “Tight and ready,” said the woman.

  Smiles appeared on both faces, though neither inspired confidence. Then Orleans said, “There is a very tiny chance that you’ll die on the hull, like a Remora. And there’s a somewhat greater risk of getting blistered by too much radiation, precipitating too many novel mutations, and the strangeness will get buried too deep. A thousand autodocs won’t be able to root out the damage.”

  “Vestigial organs,” the woman said. “And maybe an odd blemish or two.”

  “But nothing bad will happen,” said Orleans.

  “It won’t,” Quee Lee said.

  A feeding nipple appeared before her mouth.

  “Suck and sleep,” Orleans told her.

  She swallowed the chemical broth.

  The woman said a few muddled words, and Orleans responded with a hard, sharp curse.

  Then the woman said, “Oh, she’s asleep.”

  But Quee Lee was beyond sleep. She found herself in a dreamless, timeless void, her body being pricked with needles—little white pains marking every smart cancer—and it was as if nothing else existed but Quee Lee, floating in that perfect blackness while the universe was remade.