by J J Perry
Knowing it would hurt, she activated a very specific holo-reproduction. Within seconds, it smelled like Cyrus. He appeared, whispering. “Hey, babe. Sorry to meet a girl like you in a joint like this. Not too funny, I guess. I’m trying to keep it light.” He looked like he did at the first of their journey. A fire in his eyes, clean-shaven, washed, and groomed. He looked good, like the man she once loved. She reached out her hand. He looked down and took her hand in his, brought it to his lips, and kissed. She felt it.
“I miss the Cyrus I fell in love with.”
“I am sorry I cannot be with you.”
She stood and got close enough to hug him. At close range, the image pixelated and became slightly transparent. She closed her eyes and put her arms around him. She could feel him breathing. He squeezed her in return, but the sensation was false. She reached his chin with one hand and tilted his head and kissed his lips. She felt it, but it was transparent, even with her eyes closed.
“You changed at the end, Cy. Why?”
“I don’t know. I could speculate.”
“Do it.”
“Experiences of our early childhood are indelible. Those around us change our course. It was said anciently that ‘the fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Perhaps I was not completely truthful with you about my youth. Possibly something from my past, my parents, or family changed me.” The words were not exactly what Cyrus would have used, but the program was good at taking the feelings and experiences of the subject and creating a dialogue and motion to express responses. The real truth was hidden even from this dialogue construction.
“Did you love me?”
“I did from the first moment I saw you in Paris at the European Space Agency. I saw you speaking to a geek. You had a confused look for a minute. Then it was as if a light went on. You lit up into a smile, laughed in your most coquettish style, and made him uncomfortable.”
She remembered their first date and first kiss a few weeks later. Spring, blooming roses in a trellis by her porch, moonlit night, white clouds, black sky with few washed out stars. The air was still as their lips grew slowly closer and warmer. It was a perfect moment, one of the few in life.
“Why did you hurt me?”
“The beautiful feelings can get buried in an avalanche of events and conflicting emotions. If I hurt you, I am sorry, very deeply sorry.”
Savanna smiled wistfully. “That’s what I needed to hear,” she said in a whisper. She wanted to remember this smell, this look, this attitude, and many loving moments they shared, not those that emerged at the end. She ended the program. It was good. It just wasn’t real.
10.0
BEGINNING -99 DAYS
It kicked again. This was a little annoying even if it was evidence of a joyous event to come. Savanna held the swelling in her lower abdomen as she patted the swelling in Maricia’s. “Three more months, Mar, and you’ll be a mommy,” she said.
“Three months be a mommy.”
Not exactly scintillating conversation but better than what it was a month ago. Savanna wiped drool from Maricia’s mouth and gave a small sigh. “How do you feel?”
“Good. I feel good.”
“What is your name?”
“Name.”
It was going to take a while. Savanna followed what Lola had been doing such as holding Maricia’s hand and saying, “Hand.” Maricia’s memory had been wiped. Her ability to learn was poor, worse than the forty-something brain she possessed. A question occurred to Savanna. After thirty minutes of attempted memory reconstruction, she walked over to Zhivago.
“What is the cause of the memory loss in Paulson?
“The cause is not certain, Commander.”
“You have done neurological assessments of her and me. Compare and contrast your findings.”
“You are functioning at 97 percent of your prehibernation capacity. She is at about 35 percent of her cognitive ability but improving.”
“We took different formulations of Tuphalonatide. Could this have been responsible for the difference?”
“It would be speculative to answer definitively. However, based on the hundreds of simulations performed by medic Fischer, it is entirely reasonable. The magnitude of the differences seen between the two of you is only slightly more than projected.”
“Strange mixture of good and evil.”
“I am not clear about your meaning, Commander.”
“Neither am I, Zhivago. I was just thinking about Dr. Parambi.”
“You judge him as both good and evil, a contradiction.”
“Correct.”
“For us, he had no value either way.”
“Do you play chess, Zhivago?”
“Yes. I am unbeatable.”
“What if I programmed you to play at the level of a novice? Then I could beat you.”
“True. You could also program me to lose every game, to play at the level of the challenger and make mistakes that enable the outcome.”
“I wish life were like that. Can you create original art?”
“I can paint or draw with perfect accuracy.”
“That is not art. It is reproduction. Can you invent art?”
“Anyone can, including medic Paulson in her current state.”
“The question is whether the art is pleasing.”
“That is a judgment for you to make, Commander De Clerq.”
“Can you recite Richard III for me?”
“Of course.”
“Would you recite it for me?”
“You should consider using the five-sense booth and bringing up a production far more entertaining with realism, placing you in the action, perhaps as one of the characters.”
“Then Maricia would miss it. Besides, a good reading is very pleasant. I get to use my imagination more than having all my senses assaulted and immersed as if I were there. I don’t want to be a character. I want to create how they look inside my head. Each character should have a different voice. My Richard usually has a whiny, nasal, unpleasant voice. All the actors should have a British accent. It would be best if it were from the period, but I don’t know that I would understand all the words.”
“Would you like me to do this ‘reading’ for you?”
“Yes, for both of us.” Savanna sat next to Maricia and placed a hand on her arm.
In Medical, the air rang for a couple of hours with the sound of Zhivago reciting Shakespeare. “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.” He had different voices for each character, added occasional sound effects, swords, footsteps, arrows, and such. Savanna would get up and walk around but returned to Maricia’s side for most of the recital. This particular play seemed so apropos for the moment, but she was not completely sure why until it ended.
10.1
BEGINNING -85 DAYS
Savanna moved Maricia from Medical to her suite in quarters. One of the med-bots could watch over her there as needed. Maricia was mobile, although a bit clumsy at times and no longer needed all the medical support facilities. They slowly walked down the stairs and into her room. Raul’s dulled clothing hung in the closet. There was a picture frame on the bed stand that was splintered. The space inside was blank, faded completely by time. Maricia walked over to it and looked at it from a couple of angles before tryingto pick it up. It fell apart.
“Where is the family?” she asked.
“Do you remember that picture, Maricia?”
“It was family. It was… It was… Raul.”
“Yes, it was Raul and his parents.”
“Raul.” Maricia turned, her blue eyes brimming with tears. “Where is Raul?”
“What did Raul look like?”
“Dark”—she lifted a hand and rubbed a few strands of hair together—“hair.” She made small circle
s with her index finger, searching again for the word.
“Curly?”
“Curly, dark hair.”
Savanna walked to a screen. She powered it up, but it would not work. It was the first time it had been turned on since the room had last been occupied. “Come with me, Maricia.” They walked to Savanna’s room. She tapped the keyboard a few times then spoke, “Raul Trujillo, photos.”
On screen was his individual portrait. “Next.” A picture of them together appeared, a beautiful blonde Dane and a handsome, dark Spaniard.
“Where is Raul?” Maricia looked twenty years older now but remained a beautiful woman. The tears had stopped. The look on her face was happy, as if anticipating a joyous reunion.
“He has gone.” She stopped and reached for her communicator, vibrating with a message.
The happy look on Maricia’s face was replaced by disappointment. Ivanna was at the door. The message was from her. She entered and whispered to Savanna. Maricia’s short-term memory was still impaired. If she told Maricia that Raul was dead, she might forget and have to relive the trauma over again each time she was told. Savanna nodded in acknowledgment.
“We’ll talk about him in a few days. Let’s go back to your room.”
Before leaving, she closed the photo record and spoke, “Computer, maintenance request: repair the display screen in Maricia’s room.”
11.0
BEGINNING -6 DAYS
There were a thousand tasks and one person to do or oversee them all. On the top floor, CAC, Savanna reviewed the images of their flight path and confirmed the absence of predicted collisions, at least to the extent she was able. She chose to continue computer control for now and the near future. They were still too far away to acquire adequate data on their target planet. It looked promising, helping her to suppress the morbid thought that the planet may not be habitable. She had no time or energy to dwell in the realm of that disaster scenario. Communication floor was superfluous at this point except that a log of the mission should be kept. She made a point of writing something every day, although some days were one-liners. If only they were funny, she thought. Floor five, Science, was demanding. This is where stationary robotic devices performed most of the repair and maintenance. These machines also needed the highest level of cleaning and attention. Lubricants had deteriorated over time. There was still some dust in this dust free environment. Cleaning tools were deteriorating quickly along with everything else now that oxygen had been reintroduced into the ship. She also had to fabricate a number of items on this floor. Processing images was easier here than on CAC, and a lot of image work was needed, since the lenses and mirrors were pocked and irregular. One of the four visual telescopes was useless. The upside was that she no longer tried to improve its image quality. The problem was the loss of data about the destination that was rapidly approaching.
Medical on the fourth floor needed some reconfiguration to provide a nursery and facilitate the birthing process. In the last two days, she had been able to give some tasks to Maricia. Aside from the help, it was therapeutic. Jekyll had suddenly ceased functioning at the desirable level. The problem was a couple of circuit boards for which there were no replacements. She had him reprogram himself to bypass the faulty circuits. One more failure and he would become the spare parts source for Zhivago. One floor below, quarters needed little attention. The kitchen and Recreation had a couple of devices that Savanna wanted to maintain, particularly one five-sense booth. It was the only escape from reality, one she would use daily if she could. It helped Maricia to spend time there regularly.
Engineering had been functioning almost flawlessly. Other than a fairly small amount of robot upkeep, the recycling processes were working well and required no help, so far.
Savanna was on the fifth floor, trying to correct for flaws on the lens of one of the forward-looking telescopes when her communicator buzzed. She looked at the message and let out a long, anguished sigh. She left to meet Maricia in Recreation for a task she had dreaded for months.
Maricia turned from the picture of Raul on the screen in her room and asked, “Where’s Raul?” She had tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. Her blond hair was softly curled and brushed, the gray colored over. She wore a small amount of makeup and was still very attractive. “You have avoided telling me.”
“I need to ask you a few questions first,” Lola replied. “Do you remember what you ate for dessert last evening?”
A long pause was followed by “Bread pudding.”
“That’s right. What did you do after dinner yesterday?”
“We listened to Henry V.’”
“That is also correct. How long have you been living in this room since leaving Medical?”
Maricia searched inside. “I don’t know. I don’t remember living in Medical.”
“You have been living in this room for ten days. Do you remember other plays you have heard?”
“Savanna and I listened to one, I forget the name, about fish that had hands and lived in a city under the sea, but they couldn’t build spaceships because water was too heavy to fly. Then all the water froze just after one rocket was able to take off for Earth.”
“Atlantis of Enceladus Enceladus.”
“Something like that.”
Lola had sent a message to Savanna, although Maricia could not have been aware of it, since Lola was speaking to her at the same moment. “Let’s go downstairs. We’ll meet Savanna there.”
Savanna entered Recreation, thinking it was misnamed at this particular moment. Lola’s pale green skin reminded her of the enormous passage of time. “I should change your name from Lola to Liz,” Savanna quipped. Lola tilted her head quizzically because she did not understand the comment. It struck her that robots communicated so well with nonverbal gestures that were inherited behavioral responses in humans and many other animals. “You have lizard skin.”
“It must be disturbing to you that I look like this, is it not?”
“Disturbing, no. It is just unusual. Hi, Maricia. How are you?”
“OK, I guess. I have a stomachache.”
“Where does it hurt?” Savanna asked while looking at Lola.
“She did not mention it to me,” Lola interjected.
“Here,” she said, holding a hand over the bottom of her rib cage on the right.
“When did it start?” Lola hijacked the conversation while moving to face Maricia.
“Just a minute ago, and it’s getting more… bad.” Her face had achieved an even greater pallor than before, and she bent over at the waist, seeking a position of comfort.
“Let’s go up to Medical, Maricia,” Lola said as she activated the medical response system. “Does it hurt anywhere else?”
With her right hand still over her lower ribs, she placed her left hand in a fist straight through to the back. “It’s starting to hurt in my back.”
Lola gently picked her up and walked to her room and placed her in the bed. She lifted her shirt up and pulled the waist of her pants low on her hips, resting below the gravid swelling. Lola then brought her left hand up to her mouth and put a dollop of thick slime on her wrist. She put the hand on Maricia’s abdomen and spread the slime gently around the right upper quadrant. She then moved the heel of her hand around, stopping at times and acquiring images. “Multiple gallstones,” she announced, “and dilated hepatic ducts.”
She moved her hand to the lower abdomen, adding more gel from her mouth. She soon stopped and cleaned the goo away. Maricia turned from her back to her side, curling up. Ivanna had entered the room during the ultrasound examination, bringing a stretcher. The two medics lifted her from the bed and wheeled her to Medical. She had started to moan. Savanna waddled along.
“Why would she have gallstones?”
“She has five out of six Fs,” Lola replied. “She is fair, female, family history, fertile, and fort
y, but not fat. Other than risk factors, it is difficult to determine. The diet is formulated to reduce the chance of gallstone formation, but it happened.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“We will watch her and wait, giving antibiotics and some pain control measures as needed. She might need surgery.”
“What about the fetus?”
“I checked it with ultrasound. It appears fine and about thirty-one weeks.”
“Keep me informed. I’ll be on CAC.” Savanna moved slowly up the steps, stopping at each landing for a breather. Twelve kilograms of added weight and a baby sucking her energy depleted her limited endurance. The ship was in the process of a course correction. The planet ahead had a large satellite. Within a day, they should have enough information about it to make additional corrections, using the gravity of the moon to slow them down further. The huge engine, now mostly a shell, should be jettisoned soon to avoid it finding an orbit around Yord, as Maricia had renamed K-70 EDN 7. Done with exactness, the shell would accelerate around the planet and head into the sun. The separation from the engine would provide a huge change in mass and would slow the craft dramatically and allow it to drift into a high orbit where it would circle the planet about six times a day, taking pictures and gathering data. This was one of the last critical steps in the journey, another act that required exquisite precision.