Equinox

by Christian Cantrell

  A new thought suddenly occurred to Cam, replacing the consternation with an unexpected flare of aggression.

  “What about Haná?” Cam demanded with more hostility than he’d intended. He took a moment to breathe; to let his emotions subside; to remind himself that, having already given the Coronians what they wanted, he no longer had any leverage. “Please tell me you didn’t do this to her.”

  Cam had the sense that the girl had no trouble registering his anger, but that it simply did not concern her. “This is not something that we do,” she replied. “This is how we’ve had to adapt.”

  As he continued to breathe, Cam could feel his animosity melt into resignation. Both he and Cadie knew that there was nothing they could do about Haná now. She was probably no more capable of returning to Earth at this point than any other Coronian. Cam looked down at the still and silent figure entombed within its nutrient-rich cocoon.

  “So this is how she lives,” Cam said.

  “This is how her body is sustained,” the girl the corrected. “How she actually lives is very different. You should know that Haná is being extremely well cared for and is developing and progressing extraordinary well. I promise you that she will have a far fuller and richer life here than she could have possibly had on Earth.”

  The indignation and rage flared once again as Cam looked up at the machine, but just as quickly, he felt it subside. He was about to argue that Haná belonged with Cadie—that nobody could give the child a more loving, stimulating, and rewarding existence than her own mother—but two things occurred to him simultaneously: first, the argument was pointless; and second, it might not even be entirely true. The reality was that Cam had no idea what Earth’s future would be like once the symbiosis between the two species was permanently severed. In fact, given that Cam did not even know where he and Zaire would end up—much less what the future held for Cadie and everyone else aboard the San Francisco—it was entirely possible that Haná was better off up here. The revelation brought to mind something about the relationship between Earth and Equinox that Cam still did not fully understand. Why would the Coronians choose secession from humanity over reintegration when it was clearly much more work to leave than to figure out how to stay?

  Cam looked back down at the capsule and once again shook his head. “This doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said. He looked up at the machine. “You can fix all of this,” he told her. “You know that, right?”

  The girl regarded him with uncertainty. “Fix what?” she asked.

  “Fix . . . yourselves,” Cam said. “You have access to the inner ring. You can re-acclimate your species to gravity. Coronians could eventually return to Earth.”

  “Why would we want to return to Earth?”

  “Why?” Cam repeated. “So you don’t have to live like that. So you can have a normal life.”

  “Our lives are perfectly normal,” the girl countered. “Normal to us, just as your lives are perfectly normal to you.”

  “But how can you possibly call that normal?” Cam asked. “The human body needs gravity. That’s how millions of years of evolution designed us to work.”

  “Yet we are thriving without it,” the girl countered. “Your species has no idea what a prison gravity actually is.”

  “A prison?” Cam repeated incredulously. He pointed down at the capsule protruding from the wall between them. “That’s a prison.”

  “Your perspective surprises me,” the girl said. “Homo sapiens can only survive within a very narrow range of gravitational variance, which limits the ratio of the universe you can inhabit to an almost incalculably insignificant proportion. Conversely, Coronians will be capable of inhabiting the overwhelming majority of the solar system within two decades, and eventually, other solar systems, as well, and then other galaxies.”

  “But you can’t explore the universe from inside little bubbles,” Cam said.

  “Why not?” the girl asked.

  “Because you can’t experience anything,” Cam said. “That’s your real prison. Not these pods, or life-support modules, or whatever they are, but yourselves.”

  The machine lifted her arms, gracefully presenting her current form for Cam’s consideration. “Do I look as though I am imprisoned to you?” she asked him. “We can take whatever form we wish. Be whatever we wish, and soon, we will even be able to go wherever we wish. What you perceive as a prison, we experience as the ultimate form of liberation.”

  “But it’s not really you,” Cam countered. “It’s just an avatar, or a . . .” He searched for the right word. “A prosthetic. You’re puppets. You can’t actually feel anything.”

  “Why do you assume that we cannot feel?”

  “Because you’re a machine,” Cam asserted. “You’re completely synthetic.”

  “It is true that this manifestation of me is a machine,” the girl conceded, “but it is a machine with billions of receptors, every one of which is far more sensitive, and to a far greater range of stimuli, than any of your sensory organs. Not only can we gather several orders of magnitude more input than you, but we are constantly expanding our neurological capacities with which to actually interpret and experience it.”

  “Then why don’t you act like it?” Cam asked her with clear exasperation. “Why do you act like some old, failed, personal assistant AI?”

  The machine’s gaze sharpened. “Do not mistake the Coronian affect for a lack of feeling,” she warned. Her look assumed a level of intensity Cam hadn’t realized her facial structure was capable of conveying. “If we seem numb or placid to you, it is only because we feel far more than you could ever imagine, and as a result, have had to learn far greater restraint.”

  Cam watched the machine for a beat in silence. His next words were more measured—less incredulous and accusatory, and more neutrally inquisitive. “If you can really experience the universe remotely, then why leave? Why not just stay here and send probes? Wouldn’t that be a lot easier and safer?”

  “It would not make us any safer from you,” the machine replied. “And even if it did, the distances are far too great, even within the solar system. At its closest, Mars is approximately four light-minutes away, and at its farthest, as long as twenty-four minutes. We wish to live as much in the present as we can. For us, even four minutes can feel like an eternity.”

  Cam looked back down at the amniotic pod. His initial shock had waned significantly and he found that he was able to peer at the distorted organism suspended inside with much less aversion, and even a touch of empathy.

  “Do you worry about being too dependent on technology?” he asked. “About relying on life support, and assemblers, and whatever else you rely on?”

  “No,” the machine answered simply.

  Cam waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. “Why not?”

  “Because we’ve never known an existence without technology,” she said. “Technology is as much a part of us as our circulatory or nervous systems are.”

  “But don’t you feel like that makes you vulnerable?”

  “Vulnerable to what?”

  “I don’t know,” Cam said, shrugging in his pressure suit. “Failures. Crashes. Accidents. All the ways in which technology has a tendency to fail.”

  “No more so than you,” the girl said. “How long would you survive without life support?”

  Cam was about to object to the machine’s analogy, but he paused. After a moment of contemplation, the machine took the liberty of answering for him.

  “In low-earth orbit,” she began, “you would be unconscious in approximately ten to fifteen seconds, and almost certainly dead in less than two minutes. On Earth, you might survive for a few days—perhaps even as long as a week—but you would eventually succumb to dehydration, asphyxiation, or acute radiation poisoning. The reality is that humankind hasn’t been able to survive without advanced technology for centuries, and without primitive technology for millennia. While it is true that the price of increasingly sophisticated
intelligence and knowledge has always been a dependency on the technology it inevitably gives rise to, one should never mistake such a correlation for weakness or vulnerability.”

  Cam looked at her skeptically. “Why not?” he asked.

  “Because eventually, technology becomes the ultimate evolutionary advantage. But not because of things like food production, shelter, transportation, or communication. As crucial as all of these things have been for humanity’s advancement, they represent relatively infinitesimal stepping-stones toward what technology is now finally about to become.”

  Cam squinted at the machine standing across from him. “And what exactly is that?”

  “The power to determine our own evolutionary paths,” she said. “The ability to finally and absolutely become the architects of ourselves.”

  Cam took a moment to think about what he’d just heard. “I’m not convinced that’s entirely a good thing,” he finally said.

  “It is only a good thing for those who have come to understand their place in the universe.”

  Cam raised his eyebrows. “Oh?” he said. “And what place is that?”

  “Humanity is the only way we are aware of whereby the universe attempts to understand itself. Do you understand?”

  Cam looked up into the spotlight above them while he repeated the machine’s words to himself, then looked back into her copper eyes. “I guess so,” he said. “We’re part of the universe, and we try to understand the universe, therefore it makes sense that we’re an attempt by the universe to understand itself.”

  “Correct,” the girl said. “We believe that absolute comprehension of the universe is the ultimate enlightenment, but we also recognize that we are not yet neurologically or emotionally capable. Nor will we ever be capable if we continue to put our evolutionary energy into pointless competition, and to rely on random mutation and natural selection. But we can, and are, changing the way we evolve. The Coronians will eventually become the ultimate expression of the universe. We will be the one and only path through which the universe will finally be able to understand itself, even if it takes us millions of years. Do you see now why it is so critical that we continue to receive material from Earth until we are entirely self-sufficient? We are on the cusp of the ability to build and become whatever the universe needs us to be in order to truly and absolutely know itself, and there can be no greater calling for any form of life.”

  Cam did not immediately respond. He watched the machine, and thought about what she’d just told him. The religious undertones that Cam had detected earlier suddenly made much more sense. It wasn’t blind fanaticism that motivated the Coronians, but rather their insatiable longing for knowledge, and more importantly, the inevitable result: the desire to not just know about, but to truly comprehend, literally everything. What other definition of enlightenment could possibly evolve among an abandoned and isolated population of humanity’s bravest, brightest, and most curious members if not total comprehension of the cosmos?

  “Is that why you showed me all this?” Cam eventually asked. “So that I’ll go back to Earth and convince everyone not to abandon you again? So I’ll tell everyone how important your work is?”

  “No,” Angelia said. “We don’t expect you to respect, or even fully comprehend, our ultimate purpose.”

  Cam shook his head. “Then what do you want?”

  “The same thing as you,” the robot said. There was genuine warmth and grace in the machine’s smile. “To be remembered after we’re gone.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  SCAR TISSUE

  LUKA’S PARTY WAS THE FIRST to cycle back through the airlock and reenter the Pelikan’s cabin. The sheet of polymeth angled down from the ceiling was now in use, and the entire City Council was standing, looking up.

  The face on the screen belonged to a friend of Charlie’s known as Benthic (that was apparently some kind of a call sign; Luka couldn’t remember ever hearing his actual name). Benthic was probably one of the toughest-looking miners Luka had ever met, but paradoxically, probably also one of the kindest. He was of Filipino descent, and both of his arms (and, according to Charlie, his back and chest) were covered in the intricate symbols and patterns of Polynesian tribal tattoos. His bronze head and cheeks were perfectly smooth from daily shaving, but he left a thin film of black stubble on his delicately chiseled chin.

  “Luka,” Benthic said by way of greeting. “Councilman Two Bulls. Are you two OK?”

  “We’re fine,” Luka said. He looked at the seven members of the City Council and saw that they were all as confused as he was—perhaps slightly more so. “What’s going on?”

  The airlock and decontamination chamber cycled again, and the second party of officers entered the cabin behind Luka.

  “In short,” Benthic began, “the City Council may have succeeded in stopping a strike, but they bought themselves an uprising.”

  “Benthic,” Two Bulls said, “tell us exactly what happened.”

  Benthic’s eyes shifted to Two Bulls. “Charlie left us a note in the decompression chamber,” he said. “It explained everything. But instead of organizing a strike, we decided to organize a mutiny. We’re now in complete control of the San Francisco.”

  “This is obviously some kind of a hoax,” Khang intervened. She turned to look at the prisoners and at her officers, then looked back up at the screen. “You couldn’t possibly have taken control of the entire city.”

  Benthic’s eyebrows went up. “Three thousand of us?” he countered. “It took us less than an hour to occupy City Hall without a single shot being fired, or a single injury on either side.”

  “Prove it,” Khang challenged.

  Benthic smiled with half his mouth, then leaned to the side and showed them the interior of a bright white office with rich woodgrain accents. An interpretation of the San Francisco phoenix appeared splayed against the background of rough-hewn, wood-assembly blocks.

  “Would I be able to access your office if we didn’t have complete control of City Hall?” he asked Khang. “Would I be able to broadcast on this channel?”

  “Benthic,” Two Bulls said, “listen to me. Some decisions need to be made here very quickly.”

  “I agree.”

  “What happens to Luka and me?”

  “The interim council has granted both of you full pardons. As of now, you’re completely free men.”

  Khang took a step toward the polymeth. “You do not have that authority,” she admonished. She turned to the commander. “Commander Greer, take these prisoners outside and shoot them. Now.”

  “Commander Greer,” Benthic interjected, “ignore that order. Instead, place the entire City Council under arrest. With the exception of Councilman Two Bulls.”

  Khang squinted at the commander. “Don’t you dare,” she warned him.

  Unperturbed, the commander looked up at Benthic. “Gladly, mate,” he said. “But the real question is, what’ll we do with the lot of them?”

  “I’ll leave that up to Councilman Two Bulls,” Benthic said.

  “No,” Two Bulls said. “I’d like this to be Luka’s decision.”

  “Your call,” Benthic said. “Whatever decisions you feel you need to make out there, we will support.”

  “So, Mr. Mance,” the commander said. “What’ll it be?”

  Luka watched the commander for a moment, then turned to look at the City Council. He found the sudden shift in the situation’s dynamics—and more importantly, the new distribution of power—unexpectedly intoxicating. Where only moments ago there had been nothing but apathy and resignation, a calm and quiet rage now smoldered. Some part of Luka wanted to see every single member of the council executed. He thought about the faceless and cowardly and horribly painful way in which Charlie was murdered, and then he thought about having Khang and the rest of them lined up against the hull and shot through the backs of their heads; blood and brains and slivers of skull and matted clumps of hair dripping and rolling down the curved surface; sl
ick pools of thickening red, and boot tracks overlapping the sparkling black grip tape.

  While Luka truly believed, at that moment, some part of him could have taken pleasure in ordering a massacre, he couldn’t help but think about what Charlie would have him do. And, although the memory was less fresh and buried much deeper, what Val would want him to do, as well. There was no question that both of them would demand justice, but justice tempered by empathy and humanity and restraint. Justice by objective consensus. He could hear each of them whispering to him that murdering Khang and her followers would not bring either of them back, or change anyone’s past, or reunite Luka with his parents. It would only open more wounds that he would one day have to work hard to close, and result in still more layers of tough, sinewy scar tissue that would leave him even more emotionally disfigured than he already was.

  But although Luka could hear their voices, and even see the compassion in their conjured expressions, he knew that it was ultimately his own voice and his own consciousness talking to him, clearly terrified of the power he now wielded, and of the decision he was being asked to make. He knew he could not allow the City Council to return to the San Francisco any more than the City Council could have allowed his own return, or the return of Two Bulls. Luka realized that he was being called upon to lead, and that being a true leader was not about doing what was easy or popular, or even necessarily what was humane. Being a true leader meant having to make the right decisions in circumstances where—no matter how you tried to take them apart and put them back together—there simply were none, and then having to live with the consequences, and with yourself, for the rest of your life.

  Luka looked back at the commander.

  “Do we have any more membrane suits?”

  “Yes, sir,” the commander said with an approving nod.

  “How many?”

  “Plenty,” the man said, then shrugged. “Give or take.”