Tarsul’s eyebrows knit together. “Two explanations,” he said. “One: your own memories contaminated the accelerator’s stored memory at the same time its contaminated yours. Pieces of your own experience became blended with what you remembered. None of the memories are faithful representations of anyone’s experience. Two: coincidence. Someone on an historical resource-gathering expedition looked like me. Nothing more.”
That would make more sense, she supposed.
Because what was the other explanation? He was over a hundred twenty standard generations old? – whatever that even meant, coming from his colony. Unlikely; the best genetic treatments couldn’t extend life that far. He was cloned, or gengineered? Plausible, but why? She’d met plenty of heavily-gengineered humans, and they were without fail more impressive than Tarsul seemed to be. And if over a hundred generations had passed since that memory, they probably would have improved their gengineering, too. Why reuse the same models?
“You came out here. From your arcology.”
Tarsul nodded, absently.
“How did you –” Not go insane? “Keep busy on the way out?”
“Meditation, mostly,” Tarsul said.
“Really?”
Tarsul spread his hands. “I regarded it as a pilgrimage. I was chosen because I was... temperamentally suited to such a long journey. Unfortunately, that was a consideration I didn’t have the luxury to make, for you.”
Kiu made a disparaging noise.
“Maybe you’d prefer to sleep,” Tarsul said. “We can still put you into suspension. I’m told that it’s a dreamless sleep.”
The same way that memory was supposed to be reassuring? Kiu thought. “No. Thank you. I’ll figure something out.”
“Of course,” Tarsul said. “Let me know if I can offer any diversion.”
“I’m not much into meditation,” Kiu said.
Tarsul laughed, briefly. “I’d think not. Even so.”
“Right.”
Kiu lingered for a moment longer, then took herself away down the hall.
And occupied herself for some short span before folding, and admitting that stasis might be a more comfortable way of traveling by far.
TARSUL WAS RIGHT about this, at least – the sleep was dreamless.
She had no conception of the passage of time when consciousness infiltrated her mind again, arriving in a fog of sleepy confusion. She came to not quite knowing where she was; shivering very badly. Entirely psychosomatic, she’d been told, but she didn’t believe it.
Tarsul was at the console beside her stasis bay, an inscrutable series of tones informing him of something. Kiu’s arm ached, faintly, where an IV had gone in. “We’re there?” she asked – but the apprehension of entering a new world, a strange station and culture, didn’t have a chance to develop.
“We’re off-course,” Tarsul said. Maybe it was her imagination, but he sounded tired. “Something must have gone wrong with the calculations.”
Kiu pushed herself out of the bay, and caught herself against the wall. It felt strangely warm against her palm. “I thought you said the accelerator handled all the actual calculations.”
“With some form of input, some guidance, from the pilot,” Tarsul said. “I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies. But it has never failed, before.”
And with that, a new apprehension rose in Kiu’s chest. “What’s that mean?” Don’t ask me to, don’t ask me to –
“It means we’re traveling into nothingness,” Tarsul said. “Unless you can correct the course. The accelerator can correct itself, I’m led to believe, even at these speeds.”
The apprehension roiled into full-blown fear. “You want me to plug back into that thing.”
“Unless the thought of drifting forever appeals to you.” Tarsul turned his ear toward the hall. “Though ‘forever’, in our case, is bounded by the finite amount of supplies we have on board.”
Slow deaths, then. Set against the immediate threat of all those voices, all those images, blooming up in Kiu’s mind. Her heart sped.
As though he could hear that, Tarsul turned back toward her. “It can wait. A few hours will hardly make a difference.”
Except that it would be a few hours more of sitting and dreading. Kiu grit her teeth. “No. I’ll go now.” Go under threat, but then this entire voyage had been under threat. That was nothing new.
She went back to the interface. Plugged herself in. Tensed her shoulders, tensed her hands, and all sensation of shoulders and hands and body dissolved.
Into –
A little planetoid was nothing. She stood at the helm of a planet, now – no atmosphere to shear off, but thrust turned it oblate. Their progress was slower. Not, however, slow. They could put together most of a system this way –
Or simply flee. Another time, another planetoid, another pilot, staring down at his gloved hands. Memories already coursing through his brain, which Kiu felt at one remove. The whole black body of the accelerator representing a theft as well as an escape. Looking up, to meet the eyes of an engineer who had no idea how to work any but its most basic functions, an entire body of knowledge left behind. Saying –
The tall man again, the one who looked like Tarsul, saying, No, it’s futile. In the long run, the arcology will die. Of isolation. Of indolence. Of attrition. Saying, the prudent choice is to return to a star, and all the resources it offers. Not to continue out here, in the black.
Saying, I’ll do my best for you, but I won’t do anything beyond that.
Kiu didn’t even remember the snap of the course correction; the driving need to go home. She snapped back into herself like a line under tension, shaking, with her hands in fists. And Tarsul, standing there, head cocked, as though he couldhear the rage pouring off her. As though he’d neglected one of the traditional senses for some fleet of senses she had no knowledge of.
I won’t do anything. So very like Tarsul, that.
She could have killed him, there.
Could have. That was a proven fact – and she’d thought, for the most part, that killers were people unlike her; people who didn’t know what direction rationality lay in when it was pointed out to them, people whose brains were fried by some accident of genetics or chemical interest or brainwash mis-socialization. Not people like her, who got angry, yeah, but knew where the line was. And yet.
And yet.
There in no particular Erhat corridor, with no particular history of confrontation, in a bad half-second on a bad day in a bad string of days, some Erhat boy no older than her had looked at her and his face had twisted, the universal human expression of disgust, and he’d sent some social impulse off with an ostentatious tilt of his head. Something that had caused his networked friend down the hall to turn, and look at Kiu, and laugh, and Kiu, who’d been through too many homes already and knew, knew that she was still a piece of foreign debris in this one but would have liked to go a day without being reminded of the fact – had taught a lesson with a small stylus, just tapered enough to enter through human muscle and skin, given enough force.
Nothing said I belong; I’m valuable, I’m worthwhile than a staggering act of antisocial tantrum, huh. Even she knew that had been stupid.
It had stopped his friend from laughing, though. At the time, she hadn’t seen past that – not one second, not one thought, not one millimeter.
Tarsul, now, had his eyes unfocused – they were always unfocused – but it seemed as though he was looking far afield. All the way out to his arcology, full of people whose skin was no thicker than that young man in the corridor. They could solve the problem of resource collection in the interstellar nothingness, but maybe they couldn’t solve the problem of her.
“Kiu,” Tarsul said. His tone made resentment march up her spine.
What are you going to do? she could have asked. I’m the only one who can pilot this ship. I’m the only way your stupid arcology will have the material to keep breathing, keep eating, keep the lights on. You need me.
To the exact extent that he needed this expedition to return successfully. And just what extent was that?
Was he the person in the accelerator’s archived memory?
He let out a long breath, here and now. “Maybe you should sleep again.”
“I don’t want to sleep.” She didn’t want to stay awake, either. She wanted to crawl out of her skin. Get in a fight. Hurt someone.
Tarsul sighed again, and said, “I see.”
“What are you going to do with me?” Kiu demanded. She realized, as she said it, how her breath sounded – ragged, rough, like she was looking for a fight. She was looking for a fight. She knew where she stood, when her fists hit flesh. “I’m bringing you home.” I’m doing my best.
I won’t do anything beyond that.
“I’ve yet to decide,” Tarsul said. Like nothing, like this was easy.
Kiu jerked up from the interface chair.
Tarsul stepped back, and then turned, and walked away.
KIU RAN THE halls, as best she could. Tried to burn off the anger. It worked as badly as it ever had.
Between footfalls, between corners, she tried to think of options.
They were frustratingly few. She didn’t know how to fix the accelerator so it would listen to her; she didn’t know how to fix herself. So, maybe Tarsul would decide he was better off with her dead. She could strike first – she thought she’d be good at that – but if she killed Tarsul, what would she do? Show up at his arcology without him and expect them to let her in? They sounded like class-A xenophobes; Kiu didn’t find the idea likely.
What else? Pilot the planetoid somewhere else? The accelerator alone would sell to just about any shipyard or research consortium for more than Kiu would need, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. Kiu had no idea how Tarsul had gotten it out to the Erhat system in the first place; maybe it was easier without a planetoid attached, but she couldn’t even get it to go where it wanted to go. So that was out.
Which left... not much. Starve to death slowly as the provisions ran out.
She punched a wall. It didn’t help.
In time, as though it had a gravity all its own, she went back to the interface.
She stood staring at it for a good, long time. The source of all her problems, this thing – or, at least, that was a tempting excuse. Much better than all her problems coming from her, or from genetics, or from ontogenic accident. If it caused her problems, maybe it could damn well fix them.
Of course, she couldn’t just hit it until it agreed.
It and its memory, of people and things and places that all seemed to have so much more import than her haphazard little flight, her haphazard little life. All those people, coming into her brain and washing over her, more real to her than she was.
Then it struck her.
If this thing was meant to archive, then fine, it could archive her. Maybe she wasn’t fit to live. But she’d still be remembered by someone. Something.
The thought appealed to her. Before she made a conscious choice, her body was already moving back to the seat.
Bad idea. Yes, well, probably, but she wasn’t much use at having good ones. She growled to herself as she fit the connectors back against her scalp, but she’d decided; she was committed.
She activated the interface, and memory became the air around her.
Or – maybe not memory. Maybe just –
A sense of place, so strong as to be overwhelming. The corridors of the accelerator, but more present and real than they had been as she stood in them. These flooded her awareness, denying distraction, constructing themselves in her mind.
And in her mind, the man who looked like Tarsul materialized as though she’d simply forgotten that he’d been standing there.
But Kiu knew where she was. She didn’t dissolve into it. Instead, she steeled herself, and spoke, with something that wasn’t her voice:
“Who are you?”
Kiu Alee, the apparition said. It didn’t sound like Tarsul; not entirely. Or maybe she just didn’t know him well enough to catch this tone. What an absolutely useless question.
She had no sense of her body, here. She couldn’t lash out. She couldn’t feel her chest tighten, her breath draw in, her jaw and hands clench. It was freeing, in a way. It was also a little like death.
“Okay, then.” She couldn’t take a deep breath. Couldn’t relax her muscles. And yet, she could still feel anger, like a sensation in a phantom limb. “Here’s one: why can’t I fly this thing right?”
Much more useful. Unfortunately, much more complicated. The not-Tarsul turned eyes on her: blank, flat, and still piercing. You are not entirely similar to pilots in the past.
No lip to curl. No teeth to grit, as she considered say saying, No, I’m one of those accidents that happen from time to time. What a waste of resources; what a waste of implants. If the Agisa medics could have pulled the filaments out of her brain and left them salvageable in any meaningful way, they probably would have.
Instead, she found herself here.
But it is an opportunity to learn, the apparition said. I appreciate the chance to analyze your augments. And to analyze you. Of the two, you are more interesting.
Slow realization crept through her. “You’re not a memory,” she said. “Are you?”
You aren’t accessing the archived memories, not-Tarsul responded. I understand the interface controls are erratic on your side, as well. Still, you chose how this interface was calibrated.
“You’re the engine,” Kiu said. “You’re the ship.”
An acceptable explanation.
And that – all the questions she could ask, like who made you or where did you come from, vanished under the tide of annoyance. “You know where you’re going,” Kiu said. “Clearly, you have some kind of intelligence. Why can’t you just fly yourself home?”
Calculations, it said, but Kiu thought there was a coyness to the answer. A slight tinge of lie. Organic processors handle some calculations better.
“If you needed organic processing, your builders could have grown a neural web on a substrate.”
Before she could finish the thought, she was answered – Well, just so. And once a human is connected, why not keep a piece for analysis?
Kiu jerked.
And then she dove, back down toward her body, coming back to the surface of her consciousness with her hands on the connectors. But then the quick-trigger affront died back, just enough to let her close her eyes again, search for the connection.
“You’re copying my neuron structure? Culling it? Replicating it?” Even in Agisa, that wouldn’t have been possible. But moving a planetoid wouldn’t be possible, either. Nor would moving anything but information at this ridiculous speed.
Not as you suspect it, the accelerator responded. Your neuron structure, even with its augments, is not deterministic as to your experiential reality. I expand myself. But if you connected looking for immortality, pilot, all you’ll receive is approximation. Still, this is valuable to me. Whether or not it is valuable to you hardly matters.
She could have laughed. “Story of my life, isn’t it?”
Well, it said. Keep coming back. So far as the story of your life goes, it will matter here more than anywhere.
That didn’t sound like something Kiu was meant to understand. She moved past it. “If you study my augments, will you course correct? Is that what you need?”
No, the accelerator said. That, I’d do for my own interest.
“Wonderful. Great.” This thing’s intelligence was entirely unhelpful. “Can you just tell me why you won’t go home?”
Kiu Alee, the accelerator said. Why won’t you let me?
KIU WORKED HER body as hard as she could, after disconnecting. Made circuits of the halls, pushed and pulled against fixed points, did stretches and fast motions until she was gasping air. It bled off some of the boiling energy, if not all of it.
She came to Tarsul in the console room, a far-flung little s
pace full of screens which he disregarded. She was almost too exhausted for rage, mostly just too cynical for anything. Tarsul tilted his head to acknowledge her entry.
“We are still not on course,” he said. He sounded resigned. “I admit, I’m surprised. I don’t know of any pilot who... experienced this much difficulty.”
“I’m special,” Kiu said, voice heavy. “My brain doesn’t work right. Ace choice in pilots, though.”
Tarsul turned to better regard her. His face, in that three-quarters turn, looked drawn and pensive. Kiu could almost hear the retort on his tongue: I had no choice.
Yeah, well. Seemed to be a common complaint, here.
Kiu glared at him for a while, and then softened, despite herself. Raw deal for him; surrounded by all this wonder, and he had a murderer with a broken brain on one side, a starving arcology so hidebound they needed a planet brought to them on the other. And hour after hour, he just kept doing what was in front of him to do.
Kiu felt a stabbing moment of powerlessness, of the attendant rage. She fought it back down.
“I can try again,” she said. “One more course correction, right? No harm in trying.”
“No harm,” Tarsul agreed. Kiu wondered if, behind that easy agreement, he was already writing her off.
“Yeah,” she said, and went back down the hall. After a moment, Tarsul followed her.
Maybe she’d go into the connection and not come out. Maybe she’d let Tarsul sedate her and let the accelerator mine her brain and learn her augments and maybe she would learn the command that would set their course correctly. Maybe that was the option left to her.
What had Tarsul said? It’s adaptive to fight when one’s life is at risk. Well, throwing a punch wouldn’t save her, so maybe she should stop trying to throw the first punch. Maybe she should find something to pre-empt the violence that waited on the other side of every heartbeat. Maybe this was it.
“I think I can do this,” she lied.
“I’m heartened,” Tarsul said.
Maybe it was Kiu’s imagination, but he sounded like he had as little faith in her as she did.
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