The Greatship

by Robert Reed

  * * *

  “How long?”

  “Not so long. Seven months, almost.”

  Seven months. Quee Lee tried to blink and couldn’t, couldn’t shut the lids of her eyes. Then she tried touching her face, lifting a heavy hand and setting the palm on her faceplate before she finally remembered the suit. “Is it done?” she said with a sloppy, slow voice. A stranger’s voice. “Am I finished now?”

  “You’re never done,” Orleans said. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”

  She saw a figure, blurred but familiar.

  “How do you feel, Quee Lee?”

  Strange. Through and through, she felt very strange.

  “That’s normal enough,” he said. “Another two months, and you’ll be perfect. Have patience.”

  She was a patient person, she remembered, eyes closing of their own volition. Then her mind was sleeping again. But this time she dreamed. She was with Perri and Orleans at a beach. Her husband was naked, sunning himself on the bright white sands, and the Remora seemed to be doing the same, odd as that looked. She even felt the heat of the false sun, felt it baking her bones, and then she touched herself, not even a little surprised to feel the invulnerable skin of hyperfiber under her fingertips.

  She woke and said, “Orleans.”

  “Here I am.”

  Her vision was improved now. The wrong-shaped mouth could breathe normally, but each word was a slurring, frustrating struggle that her suit turned into coherent noise.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  Orleans was the only other person in the room. He smiled down at her and said, “You are gorgeous.”

  His face was blue-black, or it was something else. Sitting up, looking at the plain gray room, she realized how the colors had shifted. Her new eyes perceived the world differently, sensitive to the same spectrum but in novel ways.

  Climbing slowly to her feet, she asked, “How long?”

  “Nine months, fourteen days.”

  No, she wasn’t finished. But the transformation had reached a stable plateau, and it was wonderful to be mobile again. A few tentative steps didn’t end in disaster. She found the date on her nexuses but little else; her presence here was heavily shielded, keeping her out of view from friends and captains alike. Making clumsy fists with her too-thick hands, she lifted the hands and gazed at the hyperfiber gloves and imagined the strange new fingers inside.

  “You should see yourself,” Orleans said.

  Now? Was she ready?

  Her friend’s tusks glinted in the room’s weak light. He offered a large mirror, and she bent closer until her face came into focus. She saw a sloppy mouth full of mirror-colored teeth and a pair of hairy pits for eyes. She took one deep breath and shivered. Her skin was lovely, golden with the texture of fine leather. Hard white lumps of tissue formed patterns on her cheeks, and her nose was a slender beak. She wished she could touch herself, hands stroking her faceplate. But Remoras could only touch themselves by stripping away the suits that made them Remoras in the first place.

  “If you feel strong enough, you can go with me,” Orleans said. “My crew and I are going on a patching mission, out to the bow.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Right away.” He lowered the mirror. “The others are waiting in the shuttle. Stay here for a couple more days, or follow me.”

  “I’ll follow.”

  “Good.” He nodded. “They’re eager to meet you. They want to see what sort of person becomes a Remora.”

  A person who doesn’t want to be locked away inside a bland gray room, she thought, all those bright mirrored teeth smiling now.

  6

  They had all kinds of faces, unique myriad eyes and twisting mouths and oddly drawn noses and openings that had no clear function, all wrapped inside flesh of every color. Quee Lee counted fifteen Remoras, plus Orleans, and she worked to learn names and acquire some feel for her new friends. The shuttle ride was like a party, an informal party of strangers that she had wandered into by chance, and she had never met happier people, listening to Remoran jokes and how they teased one another, and how they gently teased her. They were also curious, asking about her apartment—how big; how fancy; worth how much—and they wanted stories about her long life. Was it as boring as it sounded? Quee Lee laughed at herself, nodding and saying, “No, nothing changes often or goes far. The centuries bleed into one another, sure.”

  One Remora with an operatic masculine voice and a contorted blue face shouted at the others, “People pay fortunes to ride the Ship, and then they do everything in their power to hide deep inside it. But the joy of the ride is out here, out where the eyes and mind can see where we are going.”

  The cabin erupted in laughter, the complaint an obvious favorite.

  “Immortals are cowards,” said the woman beside Quee Lee.

  “Foolish cowards,” said the woman with the comma-shaped eyes. And then glancing at their guest, she said, “With a few exceptions, of course.”

  Quee Lee felt uneasy, but not for long. Looking through a filthy window, she watched the smooth landscape and glowing sky, one constant while the other never stopped changing. That view soothed her. Eventually she closed her new eyes and slept, waking when the pilot announced their arrival.

  The shuttle was dropping and slowing. Looking at her friends, Quee Lee saw smiles meant for her. The Remoras beside her took her hands, and everyone prayed, “No comets today but plenty tomorrow, because we want the overtime.”

  They hovered and fell and then settled.

  Orleans joined Quee Lee, touching his faceplate to hers. “Stay close,” he said, “yet don’t get in our way, either.”

  The hyperfiber was older than the earth and deeper than most oceans, and at least in this one place the hull was covered with a soft faint dust that was kicked up easily, clinging to the machinery and lifesuits. High above, the aurora and flashes of laser light dwarfed the brilliance of three nearby stars. Quee Lee followed the others, listening to their radio chatter. She ate Remoran soup—her first conscious meal in months—and she tried to map her new architecture, feeling the meal slipping down her throat. Her stomach seemed unchanged, but did she have two hearts? The beats were wrong, unless two hearts were nestled side by side, working in rhythm. Orleans was three bodies ahead. She approached him and said, “I wish I could look at myself, just once. Slip of the suit to take in all of me.”

  He glanced her way and then looked ahead. “No.”

  “I realize—“

  “Remoras never remove their suits.”

  His anger was followed by a deep chilling silence from everywhere. Quee Lee looked about and swallowed before saying, “But I’m not a Remora.”

  Silence persisted, quick looks exchanged.

  “I will climb out of this contraption eventually,” she said.

  Orleans stopped walking. Then a softer, more tempered voice said, “Maybe we seem too rough and wild, but we do have taboos.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “These lifesuits are as much a part of our bodies as our guts and eyes, and being a Remora, a true Remora, is the one sacred pledge that you take for your entire life.”

  Every face was stern, stolid.

  The comma-eyed woman stepped up. “The one sacrilege is removing your suit, no matter the reason.”

  “Unthinkable,” said the opera voice.

  Yet everyone was thinking about nothing else.

  Then Orleans made a show of touching her, his hands warm and comforting through the suit. The next smile felt summoned, and the look in the eyes was guarded for some reason. Yet he said, “You are nothing but our guest, and we like you. I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t enjoy your company. But you won’t ever know us, or much less know how to return the pleasure, unless you can appreciate our beliefs.”

  “Ideals,” said the woman. “Our truths.”

  “And accept our contempt for those that we don’t like,” Orleans said. “Do you understand, Quee Lee?”


  * * *

  The crater was vast and rough along its lip and only partway patched. Giant tanks already had been towed to the site along with the largest machines. Pouring fresh liquid hyperfiber was more art than craft. There was a proper speed to make the pour, and the curing process never happened the same way twice. Each shift added another twenty meters to the smooth crater floor. Orleans explained little pieces of the job to Quee Lee. This was going to be a double shift, and she was free to watch and learn. “But stay back and stay safe,” he said again, the tone vaguely parental.

  She promised. And for the first half-day, she was happy to sit just beneath the crater’s lip, on the ridge of tortured, refrozen hyperfiber, watching labors and listening to the radio chatter while imagining the comet that must have made this mess. Not a large comet, she knew. Major impact blasted wide holes that would reach into the distance, and an army of Remoras would be scattered before her. But this wasn’t a small collision either. A room-sized bolide must have slipped past the lasers—probably a fragment of a fragment that descended as part of a swarm of comets. With that in mind, she watched the intense beams cutting through the aurora. Her new eyes captured amazing details: Every beam was invisible until it kissed dust. Then the shock waves turned to violet phosphorescence, swirls of orange and cobalt and snowy white flowing outwards. The sky was beautiful and only beautiful, but then the lasers fired faster, a spider web of beams focused on far flung targets. The radio crackled ominously. Another swarm of comets lay directly in front of the Ship, pinpointed by navigators and paranoid AIs rooted somewhere below—millions of kilometers of emptiness hiding ice and mud and rock that was closing fast.

  The lasers fired still quicker, and the aurora surged, bathing the hull in warm yellowish light.

  For no rational reason, Quee Lee bowed her head.

  One sharp impact arrived with a flash and the faint rumble dampened by the hull. The new crater wasn’t particularly close and it probably wasn’t particularly big, but it made Quee Lee’s next breaths feel special. She watched plasmas rising in a plume, gases pushed high enough to be snagged by the aurora, and each charged particle was grabbed and then concentrated and pumped inside, helping replace the volatiles that were lost every time a streakship embarked or one of the giant rockets was ignited.

  The Great Ship was an organism feeding on the galaxy. That was the familiar image, the trusted cliché, yet suddenly it seemed quite fresh, even profound. Quee Lee laughed quietly, looking out over the crater floor while turning her attentions inward. Aware of her breathing, aware of the bump-bumping of the wrong hearts, she sensed changes happening with every little motion. Her body had an odd indecipherable quality. She felt every muscle fiber, every twitch and stillness. No one could live for thousands of years and not experience this kind of excitement, yet she couldn’t recall ever feeling so alert, so self-absorbed and wondrous, and for a long while she did nothing but relish this giddy, infectious amazement.

  If she was a true Remora, then she would be a world onto herself. A world like the Ship, only tiny, its organic parts enclosed in armor and forever in flux. The passengers below were changing, and the cells in her body were changing. She was feeling her body evolving, and how did Orleans control this relentless process? How could a human re-evolve sight, gaining unique eyes and a kind of vision that had never existed before and would never become real again?

  What if she stayed with these people?

  The possibility took her by surprise.

  What if she took whatever pledge was necessary, embracing their taboos and proving that she belonged among them? Did such things happen? Could adventurous, virtuous passengers actually convert?

  The sky turned red again, lasers punching through the aurora, each beam aimed at a point directly overhead. The silent barrage was focused on a substantial mountain or lost little moon, vaporizing its surface before cracking its heart. Then the beams separated, assaulting the big pieces first and then the shrapnel. She felt helpless and glad of it. There was nothing to do but sit, exhilaration married to terror, watching the aurora turned yellow and then white. Force fields killed the momentum of the surviving grit and atomic dust. Sudden tiny impacts kicked up the dusts around her. Something struck her leg, the heat of a sun blossoming, following by dull pain. She wondered if she was dead, and then she was certain that she was badly injured. But the only mark was a tiny crater etched above her left knee, barely a blemish and the meteor shower already finished.

  Quee Lee rose to her feet, shaking and happy.

  Orleans’ commands were forgotten. She began picking her way down the crater wall, full of insights and compliments that she had to share. Twice she nearly tripped, finally reaching the work site while gasping, her air stale from her exertions. Her new body had its own taste, unfamiliar and thick and a little bit sweet.

  “Orleans,” she said.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” one man said.

  The comma-eyed woman said, “Stay there. Stay. Orleans is coming, and you do not move.”

  A lake of fresh hyperfiber was cooling and curing as stood beside it, a thin skin already forming, flat and silvery. Mirror-like. Quee Lee saw the sky reflected, and she leaned forward even when she knew that was wrong. She risked falling, endangering herself and ruining the day’s work. But she wanted to see her face again.

  The nearby Remoras watched her, saying nothing.

  She knelt and grabbed a lump of old hyperfiber, using it as a fulcrum as she leaned forward, and then the lasers flashed again, making everything obvious.

  She didn’t see her face.

  Or rather, she did. But it wasn’t the face she expected, the face from Orleans’ obedient mirror. Here was the old Quee Lee, mouth ajar, those pretty but ordinary eyes wide in amazement.

  She gasped, knowing everything. A considerable sum had been paid, nothing given in return. Nothing here had been real. An enormous and cruel joke was the goal, and now the Remoras were laughing, hands to their untouchable bellies and their awful faces twisting in new ways, ready to rip apart from the sheer brutal joy of the moment.

  7

  She talked quickly, not waiting for any response. “Your mirror wasn’t any mirror, just a synthesized image. And you drugged me, probably with an elaborate cocktail that keeps adapting to my body, fending off its attempts to make me see and feel normally again. My nexuses weren’t just compromised. I think months have passed, but I suspect it’s been a matter of days, even hours. And despite your promises, you probably didn’t even shoot me with hard radiation, did you? Did you?”

  “Would you have wanted that?”

  “One honest incident would feel refreshing, yes.” Quee Lee remained inside the lifesuit, just the two of them flying back to Port Beta. Everyone had agreed there was no point in keeping her on the bow. Orleans would see her on her way home. The rest of the crew was still working, and he would have time to return and finish his shift.

  “You owe me money,” she said.

  Orleans’ face was bluer than before. His tusks framed a calm icy smile. “Money? Whose money?”

  “I paid for a service, and you never met the terms.”

  “I don’t know about any of this,” he said, laughing.

  “I will report you,” she said, using all of her venom. “I know captains, and they know me.”

  “Then you’ll embarrass yourself even more.” He was confident, cocky. “Our transaction would be labeled illegal, not to mention disgusting. No captain will look at you as being anything but a silly rich woman, believe me.” A long laugh ended with a growl. “Besides, you can’t prove any of this. Your nexuses weren’t just befuddled, but we erased everything that we said in each other’s presence. Maybe you gave your funds to someone, but that attached AI will testify that the gift was used properly, and I promise, you don’t want people to know what that money was supposed to deliver.”

  The shame was brilliant and horrible, and Quee Lee crossed her arms while saying nothing, tryin
g to wish herself home again.

  “The drugs will wear off soon,” he said. “You’ll feel like you deserve to feel, a gentle complacent creature all over again.”

  Softly, with a breathless little voice, she asked, “How long have I been gone?”

  “Three days.”

  She felt ill to her stomach, and it still wasn’t her real stomach.

  The Remora watched her for a long while, remorse mixed into the expression. Or was she misreading those features?

  She used the best insult she could find, speaking with certainty. “You aren’t spiritual people. Your ancestors were monsters, and you couldn’t live below if you were handed the chance, and this is the best place for you, and you have to die here. Probably soon.”

  Orleans said nothing, watching her. Then he looked out the window beside Quee Lee, absorbing the endless gray landscape. “We try to follow Wune’s path. We try to be many things and maybe a little spiritual too.” The armored shoulders shrugged. “Some of us do better than others. We’re human, after all.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why do this to you?”

  She nodded.

  “Oh, Quee Lee. You haven’t been paying attention at all.” He grasped her helmet, pulling her face next to his face. She saw nothing but the eyes, each black hair moving and nameless fluids circulating through them, and the voice rolled over her like hard surf, saying, “This has never, ever been about you, Quee lee. Not for one instant.”

  * * *

  Perri was already home.

  “I was worried,” he said, sitting in the garden room, honest relief on his lovely face. “The apartment says you are going to be missing for a year or more. So I was scared for you.”

  “Well,” she said, “I’m back.”

  Her husband tried not to appear suspicious, and he worked not to ask certain questions. Quee Lee could see him holding the questions inside. She watched him decide to try charm, smiling when he said, “So you went exploring.”