Rizzy and Daryl looked away, but Vira whispered in his ear. “They were kissing.”
“Vira! Shut your mouth.” Rizzy’s neck reddened.
Vira climbed forward on his shoulders so he could see her face beside him. “It’s true. I caught them sneaking out, and I came to check on them.”
“It’s not right being paired up like animals,” Daryl spat out, bringing Rizzy close to him. “They never consider love. To hell with the Matchmaker. She can fall into a black hole.”
“Daryl!” Vira shouted. “He’s a lieutenant. He’ll turn you in.”
Daryl held onto Rizzy as if the hull puncture could still suck her out. “I don’t care. The ship’s going to hell anyway.”
Brentwood opened his mouth to lecture the young man on the Expedition’s manifesto in the Guide, like he’d done so many times in the past: Lifers don’t have the luxury of choice. Our mission is to further the human species, and our survival depends on it. We must sacrifice our rights to provide for the next generation, to preserve the genetic code and prevent inbreeding and mutations. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Vira was proof the system didn’t always work, and he wasn’t about to mention anything about deformities in her presence. Thinking of the matchmaking system and the Seers shot a current of disquiet throughout his composure.
The Seers’ voices blared on the intercom, breaking the argument. “Comets cleared. Gravity restored.”
All four of them plunged to the floor. Vira landed on top of Brentwood, knocking the air out of his lungs. At least he had cushioned her fall.
Daryl groaned. “Aw, man. They could have given us more notice.”
Brentwood gave him a smile. “The Seers don’t consider extraneous details.”
“More like they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be human.” Daryl rubbed his knees and helped Rizzy up.
Brentwood chose to ignore him. Normally he’d call out such disloyalty, but his own misgivings about the Seers had crept into his mind. “Come on, guys, I have to get you to the safe chamber.”
He led them down the hall into the chamber below the biodome. When the portal dematerialized, colonists surged forward to take Vira. Daryl and Rizzy disappeared into the crowd. Brentwood searched the sea of fearful faces for the Matchmaker. Her heart-shaped face stood out from the crowd like a lover among strangers. She scrutinized him with a strange, knowing glance. He wanted to turn away, but he stood frozen in place, gazing back at her, memorizing the blue-gray mist of her eyes.
“Lieutenant, report to the control room immediately.” The Seers’ droning voices roused him from his reverie and he studied his lapel. Hadn’t he turned it off?
“Sorry, what was the order?”
“Report to the control room immediately.” Was there a hint of annoyance? Surely not. They were more computers than humans.
“The control room?” His skin prickled with the thought of meeting the Seers eye to eye.
“Affirmative.”
The silence weighed on his chest before he replied. With all the germs he carried, why would they sacrifice their own safety to speak to him in person? Did they want to reprimand him for disobeying orders, or did the comets damage the ship beyond repair? Either way, he’d best get up there, no matter how much their disembodied voices made him uneasy.
He pressed the communicator button. “Be there right away.”
Chapter Four
Message
Gemme froze as Brentwood’s gaze grasped hold of her, catching her staring like a child with her finger in the sugar crystallizer. Her first impulse urged her to look away, but a tantalizing curiosity arose, forcing her to confront her inner heart. What was his allure?
Brentwood glared down to his communicator. He spoke a few words and disappeared into the multitudes. Gemme resisted the urge to pursue him. Her feelings went against everything she’d ever learned, against her career, and the core of who she was. What was she thinking? Surely her irrational draw to him developed from the stressful circumstances of the comet shower. Her thoughts needed an anchor, and he climbed in, literally, at the right time.
Her logical mind kicked in. She regained her reasoning too late. He must think her some crazed, hormonal delinquent. She certainly couldn’t pair him with her now.
No one else noticed. The condition of the ship consumed their every thought. Her mind shot to her office. Deep space had ripped out a part of herself. Was it all gone? Her life’s work sprawling like cosmic dust through a black hole?
She noticed a fellow Lifer holding a miniscreen and jogged over to him, cutting her way through the throng. “Excuse me, sir. Can I have a look?”
He pressed his fingertip to the screen to shut off a personal message and handed it over. “Sure. Take a look for yourself if you want to. It’s not good.”
She’d already received a message on her locator from her parents and her brother. They were safe in a different chamber on the other side of the biodome. She brought up the schematics of the ship and dragged her finger across the screen to her quadrant.
The shaft she’d climbed down remained sealed. There were no readings on the other side, which meant decks eighty-six to ninety-two ceased to exist. There wouldn’t be a pairing program now at all. There might not even be enough ship left to save.
Gemme handed the man his miniscreen and sunk to the floor. At least she and her family were safe, but she couldn’t tell how much longer the ship would protect them with such extreme damage to the hull. Her small world had changed in minutes, and the next steps the Seers took would decide the rest of her life. For someone who’d held so many people’s destinies, her own fate lay with two fragments of human beings, and she didn’t like it one bit.
“Don’t worry, it’s gonna be okay.”
The high-pitched voice brought Gemme back from her grieving. She wiped her eyes and focused on a small girl who sat with her back against the wall and a blanket strewn across her legs. Gemme straightened as her cheeks reddened. If such a small and innocent creature could lend so much strength, she could at least mop up her tears.
“I’m fine.” Gemme replied, bearing a weak smile. The girl seemed to be alone and Gemme couldn’t imagine how scared she must be. The least she could do was keep her company. She shuffled next to her. “Where are your mom and dad?”
“They’re in the other safety chamber across the biodome.”
“Oh, that’s where my parents are as well.”
The girl smiled. “I’m glad they’re safe.”
Gemme settled back against the wall beside her. “Me too.”
“Your lifemate saved my life.”
“What?”
“He found me along with my sister and her stupid boyfriend. He led us all the way down here.”
The girl must have confused her with someone else. “I don’t have a lifemate.”
The girl’s dark eyes stared at her, insisting. A vision of Brentwood breaking through the portal leading survivors came back to mind.
“Do you mean the lieutenant?” A shot of panic ran up her spine. Did this girl know of the deletion? Impossible. She must have caught Gemme staring at him earlier on.
The girl nodded, curls bouncing.
“Lieutenant Brentwood isn’t my lifemate.” Her voice came out harsher than she’d planned.
“Oh.” The girl looked down, but a defiant spark in her eyes told Gemme she didn’t believe her.
Gemme changed the subject. “It’s okay. What’s your name?”
&nbs
p; “Vira.”
Her mind raced through the computer pairings performed by the last analyst before her. Vira…Vira Pryer. Daughter of Natalie and Jason Pryer. The anomaly. She resisted the urge to glance at the lumps under the blanket. This particular pairing had haunted her boss, the former matchmaker of the generation before her. The parents had excellent genes, no signs of deformities on either side and some special attributes not normally seen in such combinations. They were supposed to have excellent children who’d exceed the norm. Then, they’d birthed Vira. She’d never be able to walk, let alone be paired herself.
Her parents had fought for her to live despite her genetic flaws. Surprisingly, the Seers allowed it, showing a burst of their dwindling humanity. But, it was quite the scandal twelve years ago. To hear about it secondhand and see it on the screen pained her, but to meet the girl in person wrenched her stomach. Since it wasn’t her pairing, she didn’t have access to the files, but sometimes she was tempted to break into the system and have a look for herself.
Gemme wanted to tell her she was the one who was sorry. The system had failed her, but her trembling lips couldn’t form the words.
The girl put a hand on her cheek. “It’s all right, Gemme.”
Words couldn’t form, and she touched the back of the girl’s hand gently.
The portal to the control deck loomed like a stargate to another universe. Brentwood paused at the threshold, staring at the panel that hadn’t been pressed in over ninety years. A shiver crawled across his shoulders as he imagined what lay on the other side.
“Lieutenant Brentwood, reporting.”
A green light flickered on and the portal dematerialized. Cool air gushed out, smelling of chemicals, dust, and putrid rot, reminding him of the biosludge recycling all organic decay in the biodome.
“Access granted.” Their dual, chanting voices boomed louder at their doorstep than on the intercom, and it reminded Brentwood of their ultimate power. The first Lifers had built the ship around the twins’ abilities. Only someone with telepathic talents could fly it, and those specific gifts had yet to manifest in any of the generations of Lifers.
Brentwood stepped across the portal. A sight panel stretched the length of the deck, glittering with stars and cosmic swirls of golden particles. He expected the two women to stand at the helm and reminded himself they were not women any longer, but extensions of the ship.
“Over here, Lieutenant.”
He whipped around to the voices above his head and stumbled backward in shock. Two skeletal torsos hung from the ceiling like chunks of humans caught in a mechanical spider web. Wires spread where arms and fingers should have been, and thick cables shot into their waists, like the stems of flowers in an upturned vase. The woman on the right stared down at him with one, intense dark eye. Thick, white cataracts eclipsed the other. Her twin jerked her head in small twitches, her gaze leering blindly around the room as if seeking a dimension beyond reality.
Brentwood pulled himself together and bowed, resisting the urge to shudder.
The one on the right moved as she mindspoke through the intercom system. Her cracked lips were numb, unmoving slabs of flesh. “We’ve brought you here for many reasons.” Behind her, the wires writhed and coiled like snakes.
He nodded in silence. Part of him wanted to scream at them for sealing off the children and another part wanted to hear what they had to say and be done with it so he could get back into the corridor and breathe fresh air. Could these pieces of human beings really protect the Expedition?
“You saved many lives, Lieutenant. Your bravery does not go unnoticed. However, you cannot risk your own life for those lower in rank. We cannot lose you. You are far too valuable to us and our mission.”
Brentwood stiffened, riding a current of outrage. It took all his strength not to raise his voice. “You left three children to die. If I didn’t put my life on the line, they’d be adrift in space right now.”
“We understand your concern, Lieutenant.” The Seer on the right craned her head and a drip of gurgling liquid seeped into a tube connected to the base of her skull. Brentwood tried not to stare, but the freakish mix of human and machine hypnotized him, burning into his mind to manifest later in his nightmares.
“You must see the larger mission objectives. As you are aware, the Guide is the fundamental doctrine keeping this ship and its operations together. The Guide requires us to protect the mission at all costs. This means preserving the vast majority over the individual.”
“Who’s to say Vira’s not important to us, to the mission?”
“Data, Lieutenant. Statistics.”
He growled, “Screw data and statistics, she’s a little girl.”
The Seers twisted as if talking among themselves before responding. “We’re not here to argue, Lieutenant. We’ve summoned you to show you we are human like yourself. We strive to protect the human race above all else.”
Humans like me? They didn’t seem like him at all. After so many years connected to the ship, did the Seers truly have the foresight to protect them? Brentwood’s head spun. He certainly couldn’t steer the ship himself. The Seers were the only hope they had.
They continued as if they sensed his doubts, “Our intentions are virtuous. We did approve her parents’ request to keep her despite the rare anomaly in the pairings system.”
He crossed his arms. He had his doubts about the pairing system as well. “Go on.”
“Instead of focusing on those that perished, we must now face our uncertain future. The ship is in poor condition, and we must take new measures to preserve the mission’s goals in the manifesto.”
Prickles ran up his arms and legs. He’d had enough of this discussion. “What do you want me to do?”
“We’ve deviated course. The ship will not hold together long enough to make it to Paradise 18. We must land on an alternate habitat for colonization.”
This much he’d suspected. At least they weren’t all going to die. “All right. Where are we going? What should I tell them?”
“Tundra 37 is a compatible location for our colony. If we land the ship, we could keep the life systems sustainable until an engineering team constructs a suitable shelter.”
The plan seemed too easy. Brentwood shook his head. “There’s got to be a ‘but’ to this.”
The Seer on the right lowered herself to look into his eyes with her single dark eye He resisted the urge to back away. The Seer moved her upper shoulder, and the wires nudged him toward a sparkling globe in the distance. “Tundra 37 is a frozen world experiencing a glacial period. Living conditions will not be optimal, but we must learn to adapt in order to survive.”
“I see.” He leaned toward the sight panel as if spying it closer would help him prepare. “I’ll look up the initial scout readings and make arrangements.”
The Seer settled back into the framework of the metal grid. “We’ve sent alternate occupations for the Lifers able to contribute to our colonization efforts. You are to make the announcement of the change and relay our assignments.”
Her twin squirmed suddenly, and the lieutenant jerked back. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing. While we talk, she senses our course. Each change in trajectory jolts her body.”
The lieutenant wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t want to spend one minute longer in their eerie p
resence. “I will convey your message.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. We’ll send out new assignments soon.”
He bowed. “Until we reach Tundra, 37, then?”
The Seer nodded. “Have everyone secured in their personal cells by twenty-one hundred. We expect a rough landing.”
Chapter Five
Reassignments
The stems tickled Gemme’s palms as they bowed gently in a whispering wind. A radiant sun glowed overhead, warming the top of her head and burning her cheeks. Her sundress shifted in the breeze, embroidered roses winking at her just above her bare legs and feet.
Have I died?
Golden swirls clouded her vision and she blinked against the glare of the sun. The swirls dissipated as her eyes adjusted, scanning the meadow. A winding dirt road circled the grasses. Beyond that, a distant farmhouse clumped next to a silo on the horizon. At the center of the field, a stack of real books lay in a heap underneath a willow tree. She cut her way through the long grass, blinded by the stunning rays of sun. A buzz whizzed by her ear and she flailed her arms as a fat, yellow-striped bee dipped and circled around her. Gawking, she followed its meandering path until it zipped away above her head. The only insects she’d ever seen were flies in the animal cells in the biodome.
A patchwork blanket cushioned the books. She settled down on the crude fabric, crossing her legs and flipped open the top volume. Numbers and calculations filled the pages. She ran her fingers over the thin paper, feeling somewhat at home.
Yes, I know this. Algorithms, proofs.
Her own thick pencil strokes decorated the margins. A sense of dislocation dizzied her. Had she ever written with a pencil? She performed all her calculations in keystrokes. How did she recognize her writing in the book? The thoughts just turned in on themselves and she snapped the binding shut, searching the sun kissed meadow for answers.
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