Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy's Edge: a space opera anthology

by Nick Webb

Stepping out into the hallway, Rora walked past the four buttons that sealed the cryochambers closed and activated the dispersal of humafreeon. A machine could not initiate the sleep. The makers of robots and spaceships didn’t trust the machines to make the right decision, only the logical ones. And when right wasn’t the addition of all available information, well, only a human could decide.

  Jean needed to rest. Actually, she needed far, far more than that: her fractured mind needed to be submerged back into the primal sleep. There was no cure. Not until her feet could touch real land, until she could stand by an ocean and dig her toes into the sand. And there was no chance of that for another eleven and a half years.

  Rora noted the incident and the symptoms in the report.

  As the robot spun to return to the cockpit, there was an awful shriek, more enraged gibbon than human, more incomprehensible fury than anything else. Through the cryochamber’s open door, what once was Commander Jean Denton Basel sprang, foaming at the mouth, bloodshot eyes full of murderous anger.

  Tackling the unprepared AHI, Jean knocked it over. With the strength of ten humans, she ripped and tore at the alumaplastic body. Brutally pulling at exposed wires, the frenzied commander ripped apart anything within reach, switching off functions. Rora flailed metal and plasadium appendages, attempting to limit the destruction.

  One arm connected to sweaty human flesh. With the thunk of a baseball bat, the alumaflesh knocked the unstable woman off. She landed against the hatchway wall with a muffled sound of bones snapping, of jelly lurching free of a broken glass jar.

  A thin trickle of blood escaped her open mouth.

  Sitting up, Rora assessed the damage to its components: 65.9% function in arm and both legs. Leaking fluid, in need of repair. The human was not much better off.

  Lurching to its feet, Rora approached the fallen woman. The pool of blood under the human’s head grew. Violently red liquid spread across the embossed flooring of the walkway. One robot foot stepped into the blood as the machine assessed the damage. Scans showed internal hemorrhaging, compressed ribcage, fractured bones, broken spine.

  She was slipping into shock, well on her way to critical. Rora’s mandate was clear: Save the Human.

  Picking up the failing body, the AHI hurried back to the cockpit, to the only being awake on the faltering spaceship. Setting down the injured woman, the robot touched the wall at the one location where it felt the presence of the ghost in the machine.

  At the same time, Rora initiated standard medical treatment: isolation and a gravbed. Turning on advanced biomedical programming to fix the damage done by its own hand, Rora watched as lasers and tools of light manipulated the floating woman. Attempting to fix what had been badly broken, the technology was swift and pinpoint accurate.

  Shock dilated Jean’s eyes as her blank face spun within the forcefield. Drugs could only do so much. Every time her gaze rotated towards Rora, deadly, threatening emotions flooded those irises. Even the pain that filled her senses did not quiet the beast of madness. So much damage was done, the human would take days, weeks to recover.

  And Rora knew that was the limit of the time it had. Jean Denton Basel’s recovery equaled the AHI’s decommission. No human judiciary would take its side, listen to its reports, quantify the various stages of insanity. Even now, the frail creatures refused to admit the simple truth: they were not designed for space travel. This tragedy would be blamed squarely on a malfunctioning AHI.

  Spinning in her medical cocoon, the hostility of the damaged human did not wane. In fact, her mouth moved in a specific pattern of words. Even without sound, the robot could clearly read: I will. Destroy. It. All.

  I will. Destroy. This. Gawdforsaken. Ship.

  I will. End you. Cannot. Stop m‌—‌

  Rora raised the digits of its functional arm, attempting again to find contact with the spaceship. There persisted this definite feeling of connection, of reaching something, someone. Under the hateful glare of the madwoman, the AHI tuned every resource and bandwidth to communicating with Epsilon Pi-15. Or whatever lived in its wires, engines, and the spaces between its drives. Necessity beat out curiosity.

  Faster than light, the information flew out, sounding through the ship, echoing down empty hallways, burning across the fire of engine sparks. And the signal held every report, every detail. At the end, Rora asked these questions: What is the value of life? What is the worth of one? What is the worth of the many?

  Then, it waited with the patience of a machine and the stubbornness it had learned from one Jonat B. Rutherford. 3.852 seconds later, the spaceship answered. Rather like a Smathonian whale talking to the slightest orange krill, the images filtered through the slow sound waves.

  Rora sorted the data. And then it acted.

  * * *

  “A better day, Commander?” Rora asked politely.

  Repairs had been slow but efficient to its damaged structures. The robot carried on a conversation, writing all the details in every report. In exact wording, the AHI noted the patient’s status, the declining health, the refusal to allow treatment. Most important, the reports stated, insanity had permanently settled around the swollen brain. Never resolving.

  Carefully, Rora kept all the notes, filing away any information that did not conform. Sorting the contrary data into a file hidden under a thousand passwords, deeper than any human could access.

  “This is the medicine you need, Sir.” Simple instructions. The words it spoke did not match any action taken. There was medicine. It sat in the room, on the shiny, sterile table to the left of the isolation chamber. The robot did not lift the needles, did not attempt to administer the drug. Instead, it reported: Patient refused treatment. Noted.

  Report: Patient delirious. Noted.

  Jean glared at the Adjunct Human Interface with undiminished hatred until Rora administered the paralyzing agent. Her scowl lessened but the madness inside her mind did not, even in an induced sleep.

  “Sir, this is necessary. You must take this medicine,” Rora spoke to the unconscious commander.

  Report: Patient continues to fail.

  Breaking the needed drugs into bits, Rora flushed them out into space, flotsam on the solar winds.

  Report: All possible avenues exhausted. Noted.

  Report: Brain death expected within a short period. Life failing to thrive even after all the repairs had been made to blood and bone.

  * * *

  The human woman stared at Rora with menacing eyes, very much alive. And very, very deadly.

  * * *

  There were few options available on a junker cargo ship drifting in the middle of the vastness of the starlanes. Another ship might pass this way along roughly the same route. But not for decades or more.

  And everything on the ship required the genetic signature and physical body of a human to authorize. Rora was machine. It served at the pleasure of the Multi-Global Entertainment partnership and only as a tool of accounting and measurement.

  Rora continued to receive reports of partial system failures, of bolts and screws popping off of walls, of engines rattling, faltering without the ongoing maintenance each part of the ship needed. The AHI recorded the mechanical problems as they arose but was powerless to fix the ship as it steadily disintegrated.

  Jonat could be awoken, but he had fulfilled his service already. The bitter edge of madness had danced around his head those last few days of his command. Jonat was needed, but he was too old. Alone, he would falter long before the eleven years that remained of spaceflight. Waking him would only be a temporary solution.

  Every scenario that Rora attempted came back with the same results: Epsilon Pi-15 would never make it to Colony Earth 926. Entropy would always win.

  Rora could see no other outcome.

  But Epsilon did. Whispering across the space in between the metal skeleton and the buffering walls, floated a poem. Its words were initially unclear, wobbling at first. As the robot focused its considerable computing ability on the soun
ds within the echoes, Rora finally deciphered these words:

  Thy soul shall find itself alone

  ‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone:

  Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

  Into thine hour of secrecy.

  Be silent in that solitude,

  Which is not loneliness‌—‌for then

  In life before thee, are again

  In death around thee, and their will

  Shall overshadow thee: be still.

  A human named Poe had written those words millennia before. Databases confirmed the poem’s title: the Spirits of the Dead. Drifting in space, Rora was oddly comforted. Be silent. Be still.

  Rora stood, its digits in contact with the skin of the worn cargo ship. And the AHI watched the stars explode light years away.

  After 9 Hours 26 Minutes 15.29 seconds, the robot moved. Its digits sprang into action, working in a blur of precision and desperation. They took parts from one control panel and plundered what was needed. Faster than human thought, the reconstruction began.

  Within twenty-five minutes, a working modulation headpiece rested on the console. The AHI gently picked it up, examining all sides, searching for errors, running the construction again and again, theoretically. And then, in the end, the machine-designed interface offered the best outcome, the most logical choice.

  * * *

  Report: Brain death of Jean Denton Basel occurred at 15:11.22. Unable to revive. Delay send.

  * * *

  Standing over the medical cocoon that protected Jean Denton Basel’s body, the AHI readied the final injection. A cocktail of three different paralyzing agents, targeted at the conscious brain. AHIs knew no guilt. Robots had no souls. But the silence of the universe was vast. And the mission would fail unless...

  The recalled images of madness lingered in Rora’s memory cache. Hatred that focused was marked and documented. And it would have unnerved any human to be so close to that kind of vicious, berserk emotion.

  Rora did not fear. But the images of fury still dominated its memory storage, searing that slashing rage deep into the robot’s system.

  Reaching out, Rora adjusted the headgear, powering it up through the stages of activity. One final test run. Results: Clear.

  Fury. Vicious Hate. The snarl of the beast looked back at the AHI’s reflection. Commander Jean spoke in spools of nonsense, running through language with the brutality of a Zoneine addict. Garbled and pointless, the sounds tumbled out along with a stream of drool.

  Rora ignored the froth of the animal. Madness only led to chaos. And Epsilon would die.

  Eleven Earth years from their colony, the thing that saved them was the simple fact: Jean Basel was no longer human. Free of the binding contract between the weaker makers and itself, it could act. So it did. Rora chose life.

  Ranting, the human thing roared as the AHI approached. There was no stopping now. No way forward without sacrifice. No path beyond that day, that precious moment. Rora chose.

  Placing the headset securely on the writhing, spitting woman, the robot felt nothing. Pity did not exist in circuits and hard drives. Mercy had no adhesion in the millions of wires. Adjusting the angle and control, Rora turned the electrical connections to ON.

  The woman’s head fell back, even within the stasis pod. The animal that raged and paced inside Jean’s mind quieted. And then, it ceased.

  Breathing quickened and then slowed to a steady rhythm. REM sleep fell across the wrinkles and pain-marked face, softening the lines of madness.

  Her fists unclenched. Her jaw fell open. And just like that, Jean Denton Basel was gone.

  Her body lay still as stone, spinning in the gentle care of the medical stasis. It glowed with the reflected lights of the ship’s console, flashes of green and blue. Peace dwelt in the broken cage, filling in the tattered edges. Death came for the ravages of madness, calming what could never be fixed.

  In that moment, the consoles of the cockpit all flickered. Electricity surged throughout the ship, starboard to port, stern to bow. Every graph confirmed the random spike.

  And then, her eyelids fluttered and opened.

  Rora checked every detail, every measurement. And then it extended its digits toward the medical cocoon. Feedback looped through its alumaflesh connections. Machines do not have feelings. Machines do not matter. Any computer can be repaired or replaced.

  But not Rora.

  And not the Ghost of Epsilon Pi-15. Her human lips broke open in a smile so radiant that words could not describe it. There was nothing to report. Nothing to compare.

  Erase Previous Report. Delete subfile. Overwrite.

  Report: Commander Jean Denton Basel has made a full recovery.

  Medicine administered per protocol has been successful in reviving the failing commander. Duties will resume after one sleep cycle.

  Noted.

  Q&A with Caroline A. Gill

  What drives you to write?

  I am constantly surprised by the stories that pour out of my fingertips. Sometimes, I find myself reading along as the tale unfolds, more reader than writer. There is a need for dreaming, a need for hope threading through our modern world. And that heroism, that determination to better our lives, fills every novel and movie screen. We are more than the sum of our parts. Every day, my life swings up and down, through the pitfalls and triumphs of existence. Each night, I look at what I have achieved. So many things in life are transitory. Writing lifts me out of the repetition, out of the tedium. And reading helps me fly even when my wings are broken.

  Why this story?

  Rules. Rules order the universe. Rules are important. But the breaking of rules, the choice to rebel is equally needed. Conformity has benefits. But sometimes, rules must be changed. And it takes loyalty, friendship, and wisdom to determine when defiance is not only considered but necessary. That choice defines a hero.

  That choice also defines a villain. Timing. It’s all in the timing and the intentions.

  Where would you travel if money and distance were not limitations?

  To the Italian Renaissance, Florence. Assuming I can break the laws of time as well. There were so many things wrong with society... but there was so much light in the minds of great men and women. Discovery of science, aviation, painting, sculpture. All of it. I want to see all of it through the eyes of giants like Da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo. There is something shattering about seeing the beginning of creativity, the blossoming of potential on the shoulders of genius. Even today, five hundred years later, the echoes of their work continue to change the city, state, and world. Creative people show the rest of us the best that we can be. They give us something to strive for. They light the way for us to dream. DaVinci imagined so many things, including war machines and robots... that is where it all begins.

  What else have you written?

  I just completed my first trilogy, the Flykeeper Chronicles.

  Flying Away, Flying Blind, and Flying Free are the stories of Iolani Bearse and her strange gift. As a lost little girl, she discovers houseflies have magic, long hidden from humans. The flies save her when danger comes hunting in the shadows. Not everyone is so lucky. And as Iolani travels with her broken cousin Eleanor and her pinto mare Mango, she finds a world ravaged by the green lanterns of the memory stealers.

  She fights for her family. She fights for the memory of the home she once had. She fights for the hope of a new place, a land of safety and peace. And throughout her travels, Lani lifts as she climbs over the impossible.

  I am currently finishing a vampire hunter series titled Kinship. It is not YA. But also, no sparkly vampires either. There is love, loss, mystery, and fangs. I plan to release it in October, 2016.

  Caroline A. Gill graduated with an MFA in printmaking and metalsmithing from Northern Illinois University, and then she finished an MA in art history. An avid reader of Goodkind, Eddings, Lackey, Heinlein, Silverstein, and Bradbury, she lives in northern California with her four sons, one daughter who r
ules them all, and two leopard tortoises.

  Follow Caroline on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2aIDOE0

  On Twitter at: @writesuntildawn

  Or on Facebook at: http://bit.ly/1PFJKAZ

  Thank you for reading Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy’s Edge. Time to come back to Earth! Please take the time to leave a review.

  Look for the next space opera anthology in the series, Beyond the Stars: New Worlds, New Suns, to be released in the spring of 2017.

  Did you miss the first two volumes in the series? Pick up Dark Beyond the Stars and Beyond the Stars: A Planet Too Far now.

  Subscribe here for news of upcoming titles in this series and others, as well as opportunities to win books!

  http://smarturl.it/Space-Opera-Books

  Acknowledgments

  First of all, I want to thank the amazing authors who contributed to this anthology. I am thrilled to present the fantastic stories in this book.

  My thanks also go to the many folks who collaborated in putting this volume together…

  Julie Dillon, two-time Hugo Award-winning artist, who made the glorious art for our cover, front and back. This is her third cover for us, and the illustrations she creates continue to amaze and inspire.

  Kendall Roderick, who designed the cover, and who was as resourceful and professional as always.

  Therin Knite, who formatted the digital and print editions of this collection. Thanks for your dedication and patience, Therin.