by Chad Spencer
Tears rolled down Amanda’s cheeks. “You say just the right things sometimes.”
Jeff didn’t reply. Instead, he just held Amanda close and wondered, “Do you really think Akio is alive? Is that really possible?”
Clinging tightly to him, Amanda answered, “It’s possible, Jeff. It really is. Nothing else explains why Nuraiyana did what she did. Nothing else makes sense. Just hang onto that hope for now. It should only be a few days until they get Akio’s android body done. And then we’ll know for sure.”
“You say just the right things sometimes,” murmured Jeff as he hugged her tighter.
The first thing they did was to take Tolool and Joonen back to their village. The villagers at Xemusiana had heard about the invasion. It was all over the radio and the TV, which the village had exactly one of.
“We’re lucky,” the village Guardian commented. “We are too insignificant to invade.”
Jeff agreed, “For right now. If we don’t fight back, they’ll eventually take over everything.”
The Guardian nodded. “We assumed as much. That’s why we’ve sent most of the men to Nonene to fight.”
Surprised, Jeff asked, “Even though the people there were trying to kill you?”
“It’s our original home,” explained the Guardian. “And your surprising TV appearance proved to the entire planet that we are right in our beliefs. The provisional government at Nonene is seeking out all Tuluvets to become leaders. The Guild of Scientists has been banned.”
Jeff was quite sure he didn’t want to get involved in local politics. So he parked the Shadow Eagle for the night next to Xemusiana. He and Amanda decided to eat their dinner out on the wing together.
As they sat and ate, Jeff observed a change in Amanda. To his astonishment, he saw her face settle into a twisted grimace. Her gaze wandered disdainfully over the happy people moving along the village’s walkways. Night was settling and the ever-present throng of villagers was thinning out as everyone returned home. Amanda looked angry as she watched them.
'Her mask has slipped off,' Jeff realized. Maybe for the first time in a long time, he was seeing the real Amanda.
“What's wrong?” he asked gently.
“Everything,” was Amanda’s answer. “Absolutely everything. My family is dead. We're stuck in another universe that's falling in on itself. If we get back to our own universe, there's a battle waiting for us that we can't win. And even if we do somehow win, we still have to fight a whole war that we can't win. And even if we do somehow win, it doesn't mean it's the end. Other aliens could come and attack us any time. I can’t take it anymore, Jeff. I can’t take it any more. I’ve tried to be strong and stay positive. But I can’t do it any more.”
Amanda paused, and Jeff saw her tremble momentarily.
“Look at them,” Amanda spat as she harshly pointed at the villagers with her chin. “They don't know anything. They're living a lie. They live their lives clinging to a rock they made that floats in the atmosphere of a gas giant. Anything could happen to them. Their universe is going to crush them. Anything at all could happen to them. I hate seeing their families. They think they're going to have lives together. But they just sent a lot of their men to war. Some of them will probably never come home. And these people here … any one of them could die in an instant just because a walkway they're on collapses. They have no idea if the person they love will be there tomorrow. Tomorrow is just a lie they tell themselves so they can go on living.”
Amanda's eyes filled with tears. They ran down her cheeks as she demanded, “But what is it all for, Jeff? What is it all for? I just keep walking through each new day pretending to be strong and living life and fighting the good fight. How can you and I ever have a future, Jeff? I thought I loved you. But now how can I love anyone when I know they could be gone in an instant and I'd be left with nothing but crushing memories? On the Amsterdam we tried so hard to survive. We tried so hard. But I’m the only one left. Now we're in another universe. Anything can happen, Jeff, anything. I'm pretending to handle it all, but it's just another lie. The truth is that I never wake up from good dreams anymore; I haven't since you found me. It's been months. But I put on my happy face and live a lie and pretend. And things just keep getting worse. How can I go on? I don't see a future. I don't see any way to have hope. Today was just too much, Jeff. It was just too much.”
She stopped and covered her face with her hands. Her voice grew small and tight. It was almost a hiss. “No matter what,” she asserted, “we all die. No matter what, we lose the people we love.”
Jeff sat silent for a moment. Then he blurted out, “But we also live.”
Opening her hands, Amanda glared at him in confusion. “What?”
“Before we die,” Jeff stammered, “we live. That means something. It has to. And yes, we do lose the people we love. I lost my mom, just like you lost your family and friends. But while we have them we get to love them. We all are born. We all die. It’s the time in between that we have to make worth something. We can give up and die or we can fight so that those who come after us have their chance at life.”
Amanda stared at him, her eyes overflowing with tears. Then she hit his shoulder and said, “I hate you.”
“Wha … ? What?”
“I keep thinking that you’re so clueless about what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling. You waffle around and won’t really commit to me like I want you to. So I think, ‘I should dump this guy.’ And then you say exactly the right thing and it always makes me cry. I don’t know whether to love you or hate you.”
“Love. Definitely love. I’m not really a big fan of hate.”
“Does that mean you love me?”
“Ah … well …”
“I hate you.” Still crying, she got up to leave.
Lunging out and grabbing her arm, Jeff blurted out, “Amanda, wait! The answer is yes. Yes, I do love you. I was just hoping for a more romantic way to say it.”
“You’re so dumb sometimes.”
“Well … that’s probably true. And you’re right. I don’t really know a lot about girls. We’re both trying to figure ourselves out right now, and figure out the world around us. But the world around us keeps changing. Life just keeps throwing new things at us. I worry about the future. I mean, the future is changing–and so is the past. That’s what the message we got from Future Me said. Anything can happen to us, anything at all. Look at us. We’re sitting in another universe. Another universe! What else is coming at us? And I don’t know if …”
“If what?”
“If I can … if I can protect you from whatever’s coming.”
“You’re so dumb sometimes.”
“What?”
“Why do you think I need you to protect me? Maybe I’ll protect you! You’re do dumb sometimes! I’m strong enough to fight right by your side, no matter what comes.”
Jeff chewed on that, turning it over in his mind. Then he replied, “Yeah. Yeah, you really are strong. Maybe you’re stronger than me. But either way, you’re right. We should deal with life together, right by each other’s side.”
Amanda slid into Jeff’s arms and cooed, “You’re so smart sometimes.”
Jeff just held her close and kissed her. They sat there like that on the wing for a long time. When the day was long gone and the rings and moons of Thitheus shone brightly, Amanda and Jeff finally went back inside the ship and turned in for the night.
By the next day, Jeff had recovered and was able to take charge of the Shadow Eagle again. In spite of their best efforts to hunt down the dairei, neither Jeff nor anyone else was able to find him.
Even with four Living Fighters, it was hard to beat back the invasion. All eleven continents on the planet were under attack by forces that gushed like a flood of death from the twelfth continent. The enemy numbered in the hundreds of millions. And they were rapidly converting all of the captives they could into mind-controlled allies.
The four fighters were able to stop the in
vasions of six of the continents. And the locals on those continents were rapidly organizing their resistance forces to repel the invaders.
After five days of relentless fighting, the Shadow Eagle and the Hiryu left their battles and met in orbit around Seriphoth. One of Akifumi’s Living Fighters joined them as well.
All of Akio’s crew, as well as Jeff, Hugh, Harriet, and Amanda crowded together in the medical bay of the Hiryu. One of Akifumi’s people was there as well. He brought in a holographic projector so that Akifumi’s hologram could attend.
Akio’s new body looked exactly like his old one. Nuraiyana’s inert form lay on the bed by his side.
“Ikko and Nikko put the overmind into his body this morning,” Rick explained. “It takes a while for the overmind to be affected by the body’s hormones. I’m estimating that Nuraiyana should leave the overmind any time now, if she’s going to.”
As if she was prompted by Rick’s words, Nuraiyana emerged in her true churei form from Akio’s android body. She seemed to take stock of her surroundings, and then she gently wafted to her own android body.
Having returned to her human form, she opened her eyes and sat up. She asserted, “It was you that figured it out, Hugh. Wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. It was me.”
“I was counting on you or Kasumi to understand what I did.”
Jeff broke in, “But did it work?”
Akio opened his eyes and stated, “Yeah. It worked. I think. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the afterlife. And if it is, I’m kind of disappointed. I expected better.”
Nuraiyana hugged Akio tightly for a brief moment and then released him. She smiled brightly.
As soon as Akio stood, Jeff hugged him and thumped him on the back. Harriet embraced him fondly. So did his friends from the planet Yokohama. After a few words of greeting with Akifumi’s hologram, Akio turned to everyone in the medical bay and asked, “Ok, what did I miss?”
42
‘It doesn’t feel weird to be an android,’ thought Akio during a pause in the war. It seemed to him that it should feel weird, but it didn’t. ‘It feels just like being me.’
He needed to eat and drink, just like before. He didn’t need sleep, which he liked. If he just took a four-hour break when he was tired, his body rested itself. So instead of sleeping, he would go to his cabin and read.
‘I’m reading. Every day I’m reading. I never used to read. Dad would probably be proud of me.’
It didn’t hurt as much any more to think of his father. His life with his family seemed so distant and remote. It was almost like a happy dream that he woke up from long ago.
‘In some ways, it doesn’t even seem real. Dad would be proud of me for reading every day, but I somehow can’t feel very happy about that.’
Being in the overmind made Akio able to read much faster than he ever could before. It was amazing to him how fast he could take in information. Akio liked that.
Because Akio was up all night, he found he had to have an extra meal at about 4 a.m. He didn’t mind that. Eating was something he liked.
In every other respect, being in an android body was just like being in a human body.
‘But am I really me? Did Nuraiyana really save my life? Or am I just some kind of copy?’
His thoughts bothered him over the next few days as the invasion on Thitheus ground to a halt. About half the people on the planet were living in occupied territory. Most of the enemy air vehicles had been shot down. Their supply lines and reinforcements were cut off.
The Living Fighters were rapidly producing seeds, which were planted among the plethora of moons and asteroids in Thitheus’s rings. They were immediately manned by the colonists from the Bowman system.
‘Pretty soon,’ Akio told himself, ‘we’ll have enough ships for us all to leave this universe. After that, the locals here can work things out for themselves. They’ll have everything they need to fight back and get themselves out of here.’
But when he mentioned it to Jeff in one of their numerous videoconferences, Jeff disagreed.
“We haven’t found the dairei,” Jeff reminded him. “If he gets back into space, he can take his forces and invade the Alliance. He’ll do to the human race what he did to the tahkti. We have to stop him.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“I’m not sure yet. But we have a much better chance of stopping him if we can get the locals here into space.”
“You mean produce enough ships for all of them to leave Thitheus? Jeff, that’s a lot of ships.”
Jeff agreed, “You’re right. But remember these ships reproduce exponentially, like living things. In ten years, there could be enough ships for everyone that’s not mind controlled to leave Thitheus.”
“Ten years? You want to stay here ten years?”
“Yes and no. If we go into cryostasis and let the locals fight the war with the ships they’ve got, in ten years they’ll produce enough ships to make an armada. We won’t get any older. Back in our universe, less than a day will go by. When we go back with an armada, we can fight whatever tahkti ships are left. Once we get the locals here into space, we’ll have to destroy every island and continent on Thitheus. That’s the only way to make sure that the dairei can’t leave.”
“But Jeff, he’s got hundreds of millions of people under his control. You’re talking about killing all of them.”
“Yeah,” Jeff bit off bitterly. “I am. You have a better idea?”
Akio had to admit that he didn’t.
The Tuluvets had formed a council that ruled all of the free humans in the pocket universe. When Jeff and Akio presented the idea to them, they were shocked at first. But after a few days of chewing on it, they agreed to the plan; they couldn’t think of anything better either.
That night, Akio was in the ship’s common area eating alone with Nuraiyana. He was still worrying about being real. So he decided to ask her about it.
Akio queried, “How … how did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Keep me from dying when my body … died.”
Hesitantly Nuraiyana told him, “I called to your korei and asked them to hold onto you. Then I held onto them and took us both into the overmind.”
“You can talk to korei?” Akio questioned, astounded.
Nuraiyana waved her hands in a so-so kind of way. “Kind of,” she replied. “You know how humans can get dogs to fetch or sit or stuff like that?”
Scratching his head, Akio answered, “Well … I’ve seen it in 3V shows. But I’ve never actually seen a real dog.”
Not deterred, Nuraiyana explained, “Well churei like me can get korei to do things we want to. We don’t exactly talk to them. We more share our impressions and emotions. We’re a telepathic race. If the korei feel that we’re not a threat and we’re friendly, they’ll usually do what we want. Your korei all know that I’m not a threat because you see me as not being a threat.”
“They know what I’m thinking?”
“Kind of. They more know what you’re feeling. And they know you like me.”
Embarrassed, Akio went immediately silent. ‘I like you?’ he wondered silently. ‘Do I really? I guess … I guess maybe I do.’ But he didn’t dare say any of it out loud.
Nuraiyana observed, “You don’t look very happy to be alive, Akio.”
“I’m grateful you saved my life, Nuraiyana. I really am. My android body feels just like a real human body. But …”
“But?”
“I'm a ghost,” asserted Akio desolately.
Startled, Nuraiyana repeated, “A ghost?”
“Yeah. I'm moving through my own life like a ghost. Or maybe a shadow. I don't really know. But there should be someone here. Someone real. Someone alive. Not someone like me.”
“What do you mean? You're real. You're alive.”
“No. No I'm not. I left behind everything that ever made me feel alive–everything I cared about. And everyone I cared about. I'm not even me any more. I
've lost everything, even myself. All that's left is a ghost–a ghost that keeps fighting but doesn't have anything left to fight for. It's kind of funny actually. Or maybe kind of pathetic, I'm not sure which.”
Akio laughed bitterly and said, “That's me, a ghost. A ghost that doesn't even have sense enough to die.”
Tears filling her eyes, Nuraiyana countered, “Akio … Akio, you’re strong, stronger than you know. Don’t lose hope. After the wormhole collapse, you thought you lost Jeff forever, but you found him again. You thought you lost your brother, but in a way he’s still with you; you gave him the life you promised him. And you still have all of us with you. You’re not a ghost or a shadow and you’re not alone. You make a difference. As long as you’re still in the fight, we have a hope of winning. You’re so strong. If we lose you, our chance of winning goes away. We need you, Akio. The whole human race does.”
Heaving a huge sigh, Akio muttered, “I wish the whole human race would find someone else to need once in a while.”
Nuraiyana laughed through her tears, “No. Never. We’ll always need you.”
Akio glanced at her quizzically, “Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”
Flushing, Nuraiyana replied hesitantly, “All of us. Me. Especially me. I need you. I always will.”
Not quite sure he knew what he was doing, Akio reached out and wiped away the tears from Nuraiyana’s soft, warm cheeks. Then to his own surprise, he gently took her face in his hands and kissed her tenderly.
And when he was done, Nuraiyana, whose face was still held fondly in his hands, gazed up at him with wide eyes, smiled, and told him, “Definitely. Definitely not a ghost.” She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his chest.
43
“Master Jeff,” began Arvix with a strange hesitation in his voice.
Jeff was sitting alone during the evening on the bridge of the Shadow Eagle as it orbited Thitheus. A week and a half had passed since he and Akio had presented their plan to the Tuluvet council. The locals were holding their own against the invaders, and in many cases they were gaining territory. And every time they did, they were able to recover captives before they were turned into mind-controlled enemies.