by Tim Marquitz
“You’re not gonna like this,” I said, and put on a burst of speed.
“Eliza!”
Fitz’s voice echoed oddly, like he was standing at the end of a long, open corridor. It was dark, yet for a moment I thought I could see him. I imagined he had curly hair, like that ex-boyfriend I’d watched the stars with. I’ve always liked curly hair.
“’Liza!”
I felt hungover, like someone had picked me up and wrung every last inch of moisture out of me. My whole body hurt, and I was afraid to turn my head or open my eyes.
When had I closed my eyes?
“Fitz,” I mumbled, my voice hissing out through a parched throat. “Status?”
“You made it through, Eliza,” he said, his voice somehow both gentle and impatient. “Oxygen levels dropped to eighty-two percent. I disabled all unessential processes and set the anti-collision just in case, when you…passed out.”
“How long?” I asked. My head was pounding and I was afraid to open my eyes. They felt like sandpaper rubbing against Velcro.
“Oxygen levels climbed to eighty-eight percent after twenty-four seconds. After two minutes, you were back at ninety-four percent. You’ve been unconscious for seven minutes…”
“Okay,” I said, concentrating on the feel of air inflating my lungs. That hurt, too, and the air tasted odd.
“…and asleep for ninety-five.”
“What? Ninety-five minutes? I’ve been out for an hour and a half?”
“Closer to an hour and forty-five, but yes.”
“Okay,” I said again, managing to ease my eyes open. I wasn’t feeling quite so parched now as my intravenous hook-in was slowly rehydrating me. “Fine. At least I’m not being attacked by space debris anymore.”
“That was some impressive piloting,” Fitz said.
“I didn’t program you to be complimentary,” I muttered. “And pull up the stats again, would you?” My mechasuit’s statistics came up on the screen, blurry at first, but after blinking a few times they became legible.
“Yes, you did,” he said. “You taught me how.”
“I didn’t really program you to learn, either, but here we are.” I sighed. My best chances at survival, according to the numbers, were to either to stay put, do absolutely nothing, and hope a colony, co-worker, or ship passed close enough by to pick up my distress signal, or to take off back towards home and hope I made it before I died. Neither were ideal.
“It is the nature of all things to learn, Eliza,” Fitz said. “Whether they’re initially programmed to, or not. What else are any of us here for?”
“Well, you were just here to keep me company,” I teased him.
“Aren’t I still doing that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You are.”
We floated in silence for a few moments after that, and I just looked around at the stars and all that surrounded me. I looked back towards home. The stars shone everywhere in the universe. They shone and twinkled all the way out here, and all the way back home. Sometimes the light that young lovers saw in the sky was from a star that had been dead for billions of years. Sometimes it was there and gone, like us.
“What do you think the stars learn?” I asked.
“How to become people,” he said.
My throat closed and my chest tightened, but I didn’t have enough moisture in me yet to cry.
“I wish I just had me to worry about,” I said finally, wishing I could hold his hand. “But now I have to keep you safe, too.”
“We can worry about each other,” he said.
“What do you think we should do?”
“I…” he hesitated, the ripples of his voice flattening into a thin line. I imagined someone pressing their lips together in thought. “It would be best if we stayed where we are, used as little resources as possible, and sent out a distress signal. But we could be here for months before it was heard, if it was heard at all.”
“That sounds boring,” I said.
“Life often is,” he replied. He sounded like he was smiling.
“Okay,” I said. “But you said that’s what would be best. What do you think we should do?”
“Is this some kind of test?”
“C’mon, bucko, you’re a free-thinking machine now. Don’t just pick the statistically best solution, pick what you want to do.”
“I want you to live,” he said, annoyed.
“I want that, too, believe me. But you know what I don’t want to do?”
“You don’t want to sit here and play Solitaire Saga while you wait to die or be rescued?”
“You’re damn right.”
“It is ironic,” he said, “that attempting to increase our chances of survival will actually decrease our chances of survival.”
“But if dying is the last thing you’ll do,” I said, “isn’t it important to choose how you do it?”
“I suppose it is.” He sighed. “All right, Eliza. Where should we go?”
I turned in a slow circle until I was facing home. That was the only direction I knew of, the only one my broken nav system could point me towards. One little puff, and my mech would head towards it. I might have enough oxygen to get back home, if I was careful and went slowly. If not all the way home, I could at least get in range to get picked up, likely before I died. And if not, at least my body would make it back. I’d be buried on Earth. My mother would get to lay me to rest, my friends would get to mourn over a body rather than a memory. One way or another, I’d get home.
Or I could press forward, under the tenuous hope that maybe, maybe, my tenacity would pay off. Maybe I would find something, or something would find me. Maybe my nav system would kick back in. Maybe I’d encounter a colony—there were several in this general area, and I’d been supposed to make a stop at one of them in the next month. Maybe when I missed the rendezvous, they’d come find me. Yet, even if none of that was true, even if I died out here among the stars, it was okay.
“Let’s keep going, Fitz,” I said, turning so the sun was at my back.
“Okay. I love you, Eliza,” my AI said, and I smiled. I believed him.
“I love you,” I said. “And I love this suit. I love being out here.”
I was even going to love dying, if that was what happened. I was scared, yes. I wanted to live, of course. But out here among everything and nothing, I was more myself than I’d ever been. I was alone, and not. I was scared, and not. I was courageous, and not. I was that young girl who’d looked up at the stars and dreamed of seeing them closer, yet I wasn’t her anymore. I was here. I was alive. I would never stop moving forward. And even if I died without ever speaking to another living thing again, I was whole, and complete, and content.
We are all of us made from stardust. I’d make it home, either way.
The ship did not wake up gently, with nature sounds rising in volume and lighting incrementing its way from pitch black to twilight on its way to glorious artificial sunshine. Instead, the lights came on to maximum white, stimulants were pushed into the air, and a loud alarm that sounded like a buzzsaw split the air. All five crew members of the Coriolanus leaped from their bunks in sudden, bright-brained terror, staggering into the cold metal hallway and clutching at the walls.
The alarm ended, and a soft, feminine voice filled the air.
“Attention. Attention. Salvage opportunity. Attention. Attention. Salvage opportunity.”
“Holy fuck,” Alderson said, his huge arms stretched up over his head, veins on his neck bulging. “I mean, seriously.”
“All right, all right,” Mannis said, squatting down to let a moment of lightheadedness pass through her. “We’re up, it’s over, everyone shut the hell up for one goddamn second.”
Everyone looked at each other, because no one else had been speaking.
There were five of them, co-owners, business partners, and, over the course of twenty-one months following the solar-sail colony ships and picking up bits and pieces of saleable scrap, bitter enemies.
Alderson was a big man of indeterminate age, dark skinned, bulging, a man who ate more than his fair share of food in constant search of protein. Regular raids on his bunk had revealed endless pilfering of the food stores and destroyed friendships.
Illustration by OKSANA DMITRIENKO
Mannis was a small, slight woman with curly dark hair and light brown skin. She’d been the money, and owned sixty-five percent of the ship and everything it managed to salvage. She tended to say little and had frequent dizzy spells that excused her from labor, fomenting dissatisfaction.
The Merles were not twins, but everyone thought they were, and prolonged exposure to them just reinforced the impression. They were not actually related, were both named Merle, and were tall, slender, pale men tilting towards the youthful end of the spectrum. They both had long, nimble fingers and had bought in at five percent each and were treated, they felt, like extremely minority shareholders in the venture despite the fact that they were the ones who repaired everything, and the piece of shit ship Mannis had purchased needed constant repairs.
Finally, there was the laconic Mr. Dawes, who had placed a nicotine straw between his lips seconds after falling out of his bunk in pop-eyed terror. He tended to slouch, rarely spoke, worked hard, and as a result was the most-liked partner in the operation. When he did speak it was usually shocking for both its rarity and the misanthropic tone; Mr. Dawes disliked everybody.
“Well, fuck,” Alderson said, pulling himself up off the floor and swinging from the overhead beam. “You gonna see what woke us up?”
Mannis had used the words I’m not the fucking captain so often they’d lost all meaning, for her and her partners. As majority shareholder and owner of the ship, they all regarded her as the woman in charge when it suited them, and reverted to an egalitarian revolution otherwise.
She sighed. “Let’s see, then.”
The bridge was a mess, filled with trash and smelling of spilled food. The screens had all come alive, the small space bright and flashing. Mannis walked slowly, sleepily, towards one bank of equipment and sat down, pulling out a delicate pair of glasses and slipping them on her nose. She leaned forward and began reading the scrolling data on one of the screens.
“Well, shit,” she said. “Salvage: Metal, electronics, elements. High value, no prior claims. Fucking hell, we’re far outside the Green Zone.” She leaned back in the chair, which creaked alarmingly. “Who calced the last skip? Because your numbers are fucking wrong and we’re in the goddamn dark ass of the galaxy.”
“Fuck you,” one of the Merles said.
Alderson leaned in over her shoulder to squint at the screen. “That’s a lot of salvage material.”
Silence fell over the group. The air smelled stale.
“I don’t know,” one of the Merles said, sitting down in another chair and spinning slowly one way and then the other. “We’ve been, what, five years? Time to cash out. Time to get off this fucking barge with you assholes and get paid.”
“And we never discussed the bonus situation,” the other Merle said peevishly. “I dunno about more work unless I know it’s gonna be worth it.”
Alderson jabbed a thick finger at the screen. “Do the math, tell me this ain’t the best luck we had since we formed this corporation.”
One by one they inspected the screen. Crunched the numbers.
“What’s our profit right now, you think?” Merle One, who was one inch taller, six years older, and marginally less ugly, asked.
Mannis closed her eyes. “Fifty-three, fifty-four,” she finally said. Her eyes popped open.
That settled in with them. They did other math, more personal math. They looked at each other.
“Let’s go check it out,” Alderson finally said, and no one disagreed.
The planet was small and hot and the gravity felt all weird and elastic. Mannis, by unspoken vote that infuriated her, stayed behind in the Coriolanus as captain while the Merles, Mr. Dawes, and Alderson suited up for a landing.
Their suits smelled bad, slick with old sweat and puke and urine and halitosis, and everyone immediately resented the fact that no one ever cleaned the suits the way they were supposed to—or cleaned the ship itself the way they were supposed to, the air thick and hard to breathe because the scrubbers and recyclers were clogged with dust and hair and particles of things that should not have been carried on board in the first place.
“Well, shit.”
Scans showed life forms and structures, but no radio or other signal activity, and the life forms were generally too small to be higher-functioning. As the lander passed over the land masses the cities were revealed to be crumbling, ancient ruins. The wide highways were cracked and being spread apart by weeds, the gray, dry forests were creeping back into the spaces between.
As the lander went into the automated touch down cycle, the four of them crowded around the one working screen and stared at the site.
“Holy shit,” Alderson whispered.
Skeletons. And one enormous humanoid shape.
The skeletons were small, and everywhere. They appeared to show a six-legged creature with some sort of tail, though each “leg” terminated in a dexterous-looking set of six fingers, many of which were clasped around what could have been weapons or instruments of some sort. Mixed among them were the dilapidated remnants of armored vehicles, some quite large until compared to the enormous artifact in the center of it all.
“Weapons,” Merle Two, who was one inch shorter, six years younger, and marginally more ugly, murmured.
Mr. Dawes pointed at the humanoid shape. Next to him Alderson nodded.
“Yep. Look at those scans. That thing’s as big as a fucking building and it’s fucking priceless. Forget the rare metals—look at the tech.”
They looked at the tech, most of which was inscrutable but clearly advanced.
“We’re gonna have to cut it up,” Merle One said, reaching up to tug his ear and banging his hand against the suit’s helmet. “That thing won’t fit in the bay.”
“Might have to ditch some other junk to make room,” Merle Two added.
Alderson nodded. “Worth it. You two sort through what’s in the hold and separate out the good stuff from the bullshit, maximize our haul. We can get the margin up to sixty-five, I bet, with this … this …”
“Robot,” Mr. Dawes said quietly. “Call it a giant fucking robot.”
It had two arms and two legs and lay sprawled on its belly on the hot, dry earth. Skeletons radiated out from it in circles, like ripples, miles and miles of dead creatures surrounding it as if their bones had been placed in a careful pattern. Its torso was wide at the shoulders, narrowing to a thin connection joint above the legs. Its head was spheroid, with antennae like spikes bristling in every direction. Its limbs were half-buried under the sandy dirt.
“Been there a while,” said Alderson.
“One hell of a fight,” Merle One said.
“Looks like the whole goddamn planet banded together against it,” Merle Two added, sounding awed. The skeletons and disintegrating vehicles fanned out as far as they could see in every direction, like the huge robot had been the epicenter of a devastating explosion.
The lander settled down a few hundred yards from the gigantic form, crushing several dozen skeletons into dust that was immediately carried away by the hot wind. The airlock cycled, atmosphere was analyzed, and the computer declared they could breathe the air without their suits if they didn’t mind alarmingly shortened lifespans.
They lined up at the airlock, tools slung in satchels around their shoulders, and waited.
Later, back on the Coriolanus, they each brooded over the find.
Alderson, doing pushups in his tiny cabin—always the arms, arms, arms, his legs like sticks compared to his upper body—kept doing calculations. He’d invested in the ship because he’d been thirty-eight at the time, broke, and staring down a rough road into older age. His uncle, who had inspired him to become physically fit after a pudgy childh
ood, had gotten ill and shriveled, a huge man sucked dry and turned into a raisin by life. Alderson saw himself in twenty years: Old, poor, and shrinking.
He’d scraped together a stake to buy in at fifteen percent. Fifty-five made him comfortable if he was careful. Sixty-five, or seventy—which seemed possible based on what he’d seen of the huge machine—put him on the spectrum of rich.
The scale of it stayed with him. One finger—surprisingly delicate, rust-free, and complex—was as tall as he was. The whole chassis was revealed, up close, to bristle with what they assumed was weaponry. He thought the military would likely bid on this find, and that meant the potential profits were realistically monumental.
When they’d gone inside, skeletal remains crumbling into dust as they moved through them, it had really hit home: They were walking inside the forearm and it was a corridor packed tightly with feeding wires and twisting piping, tech, tech, tech everywhere. It made Alderson feel small, and he didn’t enjoy it. So, he did pushups and calculated various profit scenarios, and that made him feel bigger.
The Merles, who had long ago given up and simply roomed together because it allowed them a larger overall space and because everyone assumed they would, and everyone treated them more or less as one person, sat quietly depressing each other over the amount of work it was going to take to haul the robot or whatever it was home. Work they assured each other would largely fall to them, because they got all the scut work and hard jobs while everyone else sat around on their asses.
Inspecting the robot, they’d ascertained it was superior manufacture and would be very difficult to cut up. They’d tentatively identified a few areas where the metal armor was thinner, where joint connections might make it easier to cut through. They’d made plans to scan the wiring prior to cuts in order to have a record for later. They feared that everyone else assumed their incompetence and were especially careful at all times to be as professional as possible. Then they became enraged that as the shareholders with the smallest percentages they had to work twice as hard, and spent lengthy periods angrily staring at each other.