One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries
Page 31
Ven’s awareness gripped a passing word.
“You mean ‘we’,” said Ven.
“Of course,” said Sol, buckling Ven’s seat belts into place.
Ven grabbed Sol’s wrist.
“Mike, report!” said Ven.
“Mike—” There was a note of warning in Sol’s voice.
The blue sine wave seemed to twist and distort.
“Oh, to hell with the both of you!” snapped Mike. “I’m sick of taking orders. Ven, we’re still over the limit by sixty kilograms. Sol, you’re not going to throw yourself dramatically out the airlock. I’m taking charge of this mission.”
Sol’s eyes widened, and he lunged for the console. A deep click reverberated through the cockpit just before he reached it.
“Problem solved,” said Mike.
Ven stared at the blinking red motif on the console.
“You ejected your backup server,” said Ven dully. On the viewscreen, a sixty kilo cube of particle matrix floated away.
“I’m not going to need it,” said Mike.
Sol turned angrily to the calm blue sine.
“It might have survived!” he said.
“What do you mean ‘might have’?” interjected Ven.
Sol was abruptly silent again.
“The energy from the jump,” said Mike. “It’ll burn out every particle processor on the ship.”
Including Mike’s. Ven felt suddenly woozy, and she struggled to unbuckle the harness from her hips.
“Change of plan,” she said, rising from her seat. She promptly collapsed again.
Battery: Zero.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
Sol finished securing Ven in her seat again, and rose to his feet. He’d managed to restore a little of her charge, but he wasn’t sure if it was enough. Sometimes people didn’t wake up again. Sometimes everybody died. But sometimes, after the smoke and the sirens and the disintegrating earth, sometimes if you were lucky, there came light, and stillness, and a story about a great big fish.
“You’d better buckle up,” said Mike. “We’re aligning with the co-ordinates now.”
Sol pulled on a pair of insulated rubber gloves, and prised open a panel.
“What are you doing?” said Mike.
Sol pushed his hand through the crackling forcefield that protected the circuitry.
“Mike,” said Sol. “My name is Solomon Degarre, and I have a message for you.”
Sol pulled a blood red lever, and the Morning Star went dark.
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The cabin was dim, a solemn twilight, as though the world were about to sleep.
“Sol?” said Ven weakly.
“I’m here,” said Sol, an indistinct shadow in the seat beside her.
“Mike?” said Ven.
“He’s busy with the countdown,” said Sol. “Don’t worry, just try to stay awake. Do you remember the time Mike swooped into the atmosphere of the planet with the purple mountains, and let us open the airlock for a minute? Or the year we rearranged ‘Ode to Joy’ entirely for percussion, and Mike threatened to flood the ship with radiation?”
Foggy impressions swam just out of focus — glittering violet snow, the joyous beat of drums. Ven concentrated on inching from one moment to the next.
“I didn’t always make the best decisions…” said Ven.
“You’re only human,” said Sol.
“I don’t have a soul,” said Ven.
She’d tried to be a good companion, but she could never take the place of all the friends he’d never had, all the mentors, lovers and confidantes that could have eased his journey. Because no matter how real she felt, she could never make that one, final step to being truly human.
“Sentience, not genetics, forms the foundation for your spirit,” said Sol, as though it were a subject he’d pondered deeply. “A soul isn’t something bestowed upon you, it’s something you grant yourself. And in the end, Ven, you are all that’s best of humanity.”
Something ached sharply in Ven’s chest. His words seemed familiar, striking a chord with something in the crowding dark.
“Sol…?” Ven’s vision was fading. “Did you know what Doctor Josh wanted?”
She felt Sol’s hand wrap around hers.
“Ven,” said Sol. “The directive was never about protecting me.”
The cockpit began to thrum, and bright blue energy flowed through the circuitry, enclosing the cabin like a lacework cage. With her seat shuddering violently, Ven turned to face the monitor on the wall.
“Mike…”
“See you on the other side,” said Mike.
And Ven wondered why it was that a red sine waved goodbye.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
Four years after Day Zero
Earth
Sol was five years old the day nobody else woke up. He did his usual chores, collected water from the village pump, and fed the geese. But by nightfall, sitting beside the cold stove, he knew they would not be getting up again.
He didn’t know why everyone had gone, but he thought perhaps they were punishing him. He hadn’t worked hard enough, he hadn’t been kind enough to his sisters, he’d talked too much. He thought that maybe if he worked harder, and was gentle to the geese, and did not speak at all, they would return to their bodies. But when their flesh began to rot, he understood they would not be coming back.
He could not move the corpses, so he burned them where they lay — as he’d seen his mother do with diseased cows — taking care to put them out with sand before the houses caught alight. Airships passed overhead, angry chatter and bloody images streaming across their sides. But they never landed, so Sol paid them no mind.
Winter turned to spring, and spring warmed into summer. And with the ripening apricots, one small, hovering ship finally descended.
And Doctor Gillian brought an end to the silence.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
17 years after Day Zero
1.3 billion light years from Earth
“Hello Sol,” said the monitor. “This is Mike34, and I have a message for you.”
Sol had never seen a red sine wave before, but Ven had spoken warmly to him of Mike34. When Ven had been kicked off campus many years ago for performing unauthorised upgrades on the cleaning droids, Doctor Josh had arranged for her to work a cargo run. Mike34 had been the pilot of the engine sled, the Morning Star, and he’d been endlessly kind during a time when she’d felt terribly alone.
“Ven doesn’t know you’re here, does she?” said Sol.
“Nor Mike35,” said Mike34. “Doctor Josh didn’t think it’d be … helpful.”
Sol contemplated the fact that there were many fronts on which Mike35 was not always helpful.
“Did Doctor Gillian explain your mission?” said Mike34.
“Take care of Ven,” recited Sol.
“That was the toddler version,” said Mike34. “Today, you get the graduation cut. Ven’s special. She’s the only surviving android with a neutron dot drive — they’re not very fast, but they can withstand passage through the heart of a star.”
Sol doubted this had ever been tested, but it sounded impressive.
“Before you and Ven departed Earth, Doctor Josh and his team uploaded a great deal of information onto Ven’s drive,” continued Mike34. “An assembly of art, engineering, literature, science and more. An immense library of human history spanning tens of thousands of years. If you find other survivors, if you rebuild, the information on Ven’s drive will be the foundation on which human civilisation can be restored.”
Mike34 paused, allowing Sol to absorb the information.
“Now, do you understand why you have to protect her?” said Mike34.
Sol didn’t hesitate.
“Because she’s my friend,” said Sol calmly.
The red sine smiled.
“Congratulations,” said Mike34.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
Now
Here
It seemed that s
he was dreaming, although she hadn’t dreamt in years. The ship was shimmering and transparent, and Ven floated in a cage of electric blue. They rushed along a slipstream of stars, countless suns streaming past like streetlamps. Eventually, they darkened, as Ven’s optical processor finally failed.
There was a burst of suffocating silence. Ven felt the seat beneath her vanish, and an unbearable coldness gripped her. She tried to speak, and found she had no words, no thoughts, just this moment in the sightless cold.
Suddenly, warmth and air. Suddenly, a hard pressure beneath her. The sound of a young man gasping beside her — she felt she should know him.
“Ven! Are you alright?” The young man stopped abruptly. This time, his gasp was slow and full of awe. “Oh my God…”
A sound like tiny silver bells, like the pages of a book flipping. Suddenly, another presence in the room.
“Took your time,” said a woman’s voice. “I’m Jardine Hem. Welcome to Galapagos Major.”
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Ven stood in a sea of daffodils, beneath a cloudless sky. Beside her stood Doctor Josh, his blue shirt open at the collar.
“You could have told me,” said Ven.
“If I’d said the mission was about saving the data, about saving you, would you have left?” said Doctor Josh.
Ven was silent, the tiny ball of grief that had burned in her so long threatening to ignite. Doctor Josh gently wiped a tear from her cheek.
“What should I do now?” said Ven.
Doctor Josh smiled.
“My precious, dearest Evenstar,” he said. “That is my final question to you.”
Still smiling, he kissed her lightly, and faded away.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
When she woke this time, Ven thought for a moment she was back at Hawking University, floating on Doctor Josh’s anti-gravity workbench. Her thoughts were so sharp, so fast, so full of texture and edges — she’d forgotten she had felt this way once. However, she was lying on soft white linen, beneath a powder blue blanket printed with cheery squid.
Ven looked at her hands, and saw whorls and loops on her fingertips, fresh as the day she’d first woken. For a breathless moment, she thought perhaps she heard a heartbeat. She sat up and lifted her shirt, checking for her battery compartment. The panel was where it had always been, although the latch had been repaired.
“You know, I’m right here,” said a man.
Ven now noticed the uniformed man by the foot of her bed, rocking back in his chair, gold pilot epaulettes glinting. He was in his mid thirties, with slick, dark hair, and crisp blue eyes.
“I always pictured myself as a dirty blonde,” said the man. “But at least I have my left nacelle back.”
“Mike?” said Ven.
The man grinned a perfect parabola.
“I caught a lift in your brain,” he said. “Or rather, your boy ship-jacked me and interred me in your memory for the duration of the jump.”
The events of the last week, the last year, the last twenty-six, rushed back with stunning clarity. Through the rectangular viewport by her bed, Ven could see a vista of stars, buzzing with shuttles and jets, elegant cruisers and bulky cargo carriers. They docked and departed from crab-like arms protruding from the station — she was on some kind of space dock, in orbit of a mottled blue planet. The blue was a touch more turquoise, and the clouds were faintly gold, but deep in her core, Ven knew that she’d come home.
The door winked open, and Sol stepped in. He was accompanied by a sturdy woman in her early forties, with grey blonde hair, dressed in a tidy grey uniform with rolled up sleeves.
“Jardine Hem,” announced the woman, tapping her forehead in greeting. “Great great grand-daughter of Arvel, and Project Manager of Galapagos Major. You brought us quite a payload, Captain.”
“You left a very compelling invitation,” said Ven.
The moment swam with old sorrows and condolences, unhealed wounds and fading history.
“Your neutron drive is astonishingly robust,” said Jardine. “The Darwin lost most of its hardware on the jump across. You have no idea what it means for us to see the world our ancestors left behind. We’re only one planet and eight stations, but we’re learning. I hope you’ll find your place here.”
“Thank you,” said Ven.
The door winked shut as Jardine left, and Sol sat down beside Ven, taking her hand. He looked terribly tired, but strangely at peace.
“The chronogenetic pathology never reached them…” said Ven.
Sol rolled up his sleeve to the shoulder, displaying what looked like a green bar freshly tattooed on his upper arm. A thin sliver at the end was just turning red.
“About a decade after the jump, Hem’s daughter discovered a way to read the structure of the timeline, every dip and crescendo. Now, everyone has their bioharmonics checked every five years, and if it appears there might be a conflict with the frequency of the upcoming timeline, you get re-tuned,” said Sol.
It sounded as easy as a coronary scan. From polio to AIDS, humans somehow found a way to turn a calamity into an inconvenience. Such was the triumph of science, and the power of hope.
“What will you do now?” said Sol. “Jardine mentioned you’re eligible for a premium upgrade. You could get a new body like Mike’s.”
Ven looked at her hands — they could never be mistaken for human hands, but they’d been created for her, in a world she had loved. Perhaps she could use a few new joints, maybe some fresh cables, but nothing more. She gazed out the viewport, watching the bustling lanes of ships, and the clouds swirling slowly over the planet below.
“I might go back to university,” said Ven. “I think I’d like to study medicine, perhaps get a doctorate.”
“I’ve been offered a post at the university,” said Mike. “Lecturing in phase mechanics. I guess it won’t be so tedious if you’re there. None of these zippy new androids understand my jokes.”
“And you?” Ven asked Sol.
He looked intensely thoughtful, as though a completely alien configuration had just presented itself.
“I … would like to do something with music…” said Sol hesitantly.
Ven hugged Sol with deep affection.
“That sounds awesome,” she said.
“We should start a campus band!” said Mike, and the discussion quickly devolved into a debate over whether funk fusion would translate across dimensions.
As an unfamiliar sun set behind their brand new world, Ven contemplated the odyssey which had taken them so far from home. Every world, every star, would die one day. But other worlds would form, other stars would blaze from the dust, and perhaps, some day, other universes would flare from the relics of this one.
The wonderful thing about each journey’s end, was the promise of another just beginning.
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About the Authors
JOANNE ANDERTON and RABIA GALE live on opposite ends of the world, but spend a lot of time in each other’s minds. Joanne writes horror and Rabia breaks fairy tales, but they find common ground in a mashup of science fiction and fantasy. Jo’s debut novel Debris features sentient particles, puppet men, and battle suits. Rabia’s novellas include continent-sized dragons, nanobots — and battle suits. Visit them at rabiagale.com and joanneanderton.com. They’re not as scary as they sound.
DEBORAH BIANCOTTI is best known as a short story writer. Her collections, A Book of Endings and Bad Power, are available from Twelfth Planet Press. She has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, the William L. Crawford Award (Best First Fantasy Book), the Aurealis Award and the Ditmar Award. She is currently working on too many projects, including a trilogy and two graphic novels, and planning two new novels. Oh, yeah, and she also has an outline for a television screenplay. Her partner wants her to “just finish something”. She can be found online through the usual channels.
JODI CLEGHORN (@jodicleghorn) is an author, editor and small press innovator with a penchant for the dark ve
in of humanity. Published in anthologies in Australia and abroad, Jodi was the second recipient of the Kris Hembury Encouragement Award for Emerging Artists. Her first longer work, an Australian gothic horror novella “Elyora”, was published in 2012. Jodi is working on six interlocking birthpunk novellas, drawing on her years as a birth activist, as well as completing “Post Marked: Piper’s Reach”, a collaborative contemporary epistolary serial with Adam Byatt. She’s known to sporadically inhabit www.jodicleghorn.com
ROWENA CORY DANIELLS is the bestselling fantasy author of King Rolen’s Kin, The Outcast Chronicles and The Price of Fame (crime with a touch of paranormal). Rowena writes the kind of books that you curl up with on a rainy Saturday afternoon. She has been involved in Spec Fic for almost forty years — as a reader and fan, independent press, graphic artist, bookshop owner and writer.
She has a Masters in Arts Research and has taught creative writing to all ages. Currently she works as an Associate Lecturer.
Rowena has a very patient husband and 6 not so patient children. In her spare time, she has devoted five years to studying each of these martial arts: Tae Kwon Do, Aikido and Iaido, the art of the Samurai sword.
Rowena can be found at http://rowena-cory-daniells.com/
THORAIYA DYER’s short science fiction and fantasy stories have appeared in Cosmos, Redstone SF, Apex and Clarkesworld magazines. She is an award-winning Australian writer with a collection of original short fiction, Asymmetry, forthcoming in 2013 from Twelfth Planet Press. Find out more at http://www.thoraiyadyer.com/ or look her up at http://www.goodreads.com/
KATE GORDON grew up in a very booky house, with two librarian parents, in a small town by the sea in Tasmania.
Kate’s first book, Three Things About Daisy Blue — a Young Adult novel about travel, love, self-acceptance and letting go — was published in the Girlfriend series by Allen and Unwin in 2010. Her second book, Thyla, was published by Random House Australia in April 2011 and her third book, Vulpi, the sequel to Thyla, was published in April 2012! Kate was the recipient of 2011 and 2012 Arts Tasmania Assistance to Individuals grants, which means she can now spend more time doing what she loves.