by C. Gockel
“I'm sorry, Carl Sagan,” James said. “I didn't see you there.” He'd once pondered the futility of speaking to an alien creature, but in a weird twist of convergent evolution, Carl Sagan seemed to understand tone, if not words. He reached out, and sure enough, Carl Sagan rubbed his ears against his fingers. James looked down at the creature's tail. It didn't look broken, but he could see the dusty imprint of his heel on the tip. He wondered if he should ask Monica for some ice. Carl Sagan more aggressively butted his head against James's fingers, and James recognized a demand for a scratch behind the ear. Obliging the creature, he felt his processors light. How could convergent evolution possibly occur between a machine and a werfle?
“I didn't know!” Raif cried.
“What?” said James, looking up at the boy.
Raif gulped, and pulled himself up. “He told me we were going to go talk to you, he didn't tell me about what, but I should have known because Carl Sagan started hissing and my dad grabbed him with his augmented hand and threw him in a drawer, and then he dragged me down the hall, even though I said we shouldn't leave Carl Sagan like that. He said we were just going to talk, and I thought that I'd go back and get Carl Sagan afterward because I was afraid if I didn't listen, he'd hurt me or Carl Sagan, and then we found you. I didn't know what he was planning, honest!”
Carl Sagan purred, rubbed his head against James's fingers, and kneaded his ten sets of claws into Raif's lap.
James heard the door open, and felt Noa close by. He wanted to turn to her, but knew that would be odd—inhuman—with the boy so focused on him and so upset. He tossed a ball of light to her through the ether, but kept his eyes on Raif.
James inclined his head toward the boy. “You took a stun bolt for me.”
Raif's body relaxed and James found himself relaxing, too. That was over relatively painlessly. Now he'd slyly suggest to Noa that Monica and Manuel needed rest, and that everyone else should leave the medbay …
Raif curled in on himself, clutching Carl Sagan so tightly the werfle squeaked. The boy took a deep breath and let loose a sob.
Or maybe James was stuck. He wanted to run, but managed to reach out through the ether. “What is it, Raif?”
“He's my dad,” Raif choked out. “He almost killed you! He almost killed Oliver!”
James searched helplessly through all the data in the time capsule for a similar situation and found nothing … the other James had been proud of his father and his mother. He'd loved them without reservation.
He sat down on the bed. But he wasn't that other James, and his “parents” were the time gates. Their motives were potentially as questionable as Wren's, and they'd left James adrift with about as much guidance as Wren had left Raif … maybe less. “We can't help who makes us, Raif,” James said. “We can just do our best with what's been made.”
He tentatively reached out and put a hand on Raif's shoulder. Raif put Carl Sagan aside and lunged, catching James in an awkward, sideways hug, and sobbed. This was not the response he'd expected. James patted his back, but knew it was time to declare a mea culpa.
“Help!” he cried to Noa through the ether.
“Raif,” Noa said, coming close. “James doesn't blame you. I don't blame you. Gunny doesn't blame you.”
“Nope!” said Gunny.
“You did your best to help,” said Manuel.
“You're part of our crew, Raif,” said Noa.
“Crew's family,” said Gunny.
James's eyes lifted in the direction of the gate. There was no window in the medbay, and he found himself staring at the wall. What would happen when the gate opened up? When they were no longer crew? To him? To Raif? Would One protect him? Would he expire?
He looked down at Raif. His sobbing had ceased. James gave him a squeeze. If the boy didn't ask about the future, he wouldn't bring it up. A song came to James’s mind, one that he sometimes heard playing in engineering. Alone in the Black, it was called. It was about the hunt for intelligent life, but maybe more it was about the search for connection? James and Raif were both alone—different species, same predicament.
“As doctor to the crew,” Monica declared, “I'm going to have to advise you, Raif, to get some sleep.”
She motioned for James to get up, and he pulled away.
Raif looked to Monica with wide eyes. “Don't worry, you won't be alone. Manuel and I will be sleeping here, too.” She took a deep breath, and looked at Noa. “I need sleep as well, so I'm going to have to ask everyone to leave.”
“Of course, Doctor,” Noa said, heading for the exit, Gunny and James close beside her.
They'd just reached the door when Monica murmured, “You aren't good with children.” James felt the prickle of electricity racing up his spine, and in his mind a dark application whispered, “She knows.”
Noa spun on her heel to face the doctor. James turned more slowly, afraid of what he might find. Monica was staring up at him. There were dark circles under her bloodshot eyes.
Dipping her chin, Noa said in an almost hiss, “Doctor?” And her hand touched James's wrist. Gunny put a hand on James's shoulder.
Monica's jaw dropped, and she put a hand to her chest. “I mean you weren't good with children,” she said, looking confused. “I'm sorry. I misspoke.”
“No offense taken,” James said, just wanting to get out of the medbay. “Get some sleep.”
Monica nodded distractedly. “Yes, I have open heart surgery to do tomorrow.” She turned away, and Noa, Gunny, and James exited the medbay.
“Thought you did a good job with the kid,” Gunny said gruffly.
Noa looked both puzzled and bemused, and that look remained until they were back in their quarters, when she spun abruptly to him, grabbed his collar, and pulled him down for a kiss.
James might have completely forgotten about that strange look, but it returned later when they were laying together in bed, spent, and relaxed. Noa's head was on his shoulder, and he saw the mysterious expression again.
“What are you thinking about?” he said, smoothing the crease above her nose with a finger.
She smiled and huffed. Her sparkling black eyes slid to his and then she looked away. He thought he saw her dark cheeks get ever so slightly darker. “I never thought of you as someone who would like kids, either.” She shook her head, and hid her eyes with a hand.
He didn't like kids, but he didn't want to disabuse her of the notion. Instead he said, “I know you like kids.”
The smile vanished immediately. She looked down. “I do.”
James felt like the temperature in the room had dropped.
She looked over at him, the light in her eyes gone. “Before you ask, I'll answer. I can't have any.”
He almost said, “I don't care,” but her tone, and the way she'd tensed in his arms, he knew she did care, and that wasn't the right response.
“I know,” he whispered instead.
Her lips parted.
He caressed the scar on her abdomen. That wasn't how he knew, but he had a feeling it was a sign.
Noa's breath caught. For too long she said nothing, and then she said, “So this relationship isn't just a ploy of yours to have nearly normal-looking children?”
For a moment James was confused, and then he remembered meeting a woman in London who'd been raised in an isolationist Han Chinese community. Her features had been very ethnic, and she'd said nearly the same thing. All of his circuitry shut down and restarted, and he wanted to laugh, but couldn't in the real world so he let his avatar laugh. Noa huffed softly. “You've heard that line, too?”
He nodded, and Noa put her hand on top of his and sighed. “It was a stupid accident, it happened after Six …” She looked away and her expression clouded over. Wearily, she sighed. “Surrogacy would have been an option but since Tim was …”
Shaking her head, Noa said, “On Luddeccea adoption is the most common choice. There are a lot of orphans, with the incidence of illness being higher. I do like children. Don
't know if it is me, or just my culture. A new baby in the community always meant a new friend to play with in the bush. It's not like Earth where kids stay locked up in apartments in big buildings and are not allowed to go out on their own until they're fourteen.”
James thought about his own childhood—or the other James's childhood. It had been very scheduled, but he'd been lucky. His parents had been willing to nurture his interests, rather than push him into activities that were their interests. He had friends who weren't so lucky, and wound up having breakdowns later in life when they'd realized they'd become very successful in career paths they'd never wanted. Freedom, even in the bush, would have allowed some self-discovery, he supposed. He felt his circuitry darken, and the twisted app in his mind whispered, “What do you want, James? Do you have the freedom to find it?”
It was a cruel application; he might not even have time to find what his real interests were. He could picture the scene in his mind, when the time gate opened, when he arrived at One, and when the Fleet was confronted with the fact that Professor James Hiro Sinclair was a dead man. He could imagine Fleet personnel arresting him, taking him away from Noa. Would Noa protest, reach out to him? Or would she turn away in shock, horror, and disgust?
Noa's eyes were slipping closed. He felt her tremble in sleep, but the light that was his connection to her was flickering and alive in his mind, calling to him. He answered it immediately, afraid to examine the question the dark app was posing, or to think about the future. He found himself in a nondescript white room. It took a moment for him to realize it was a hospital room. James waved a hand, and gave it more detail. Noa was lying in a bed of white linens, an empty, slightly amorphous chair beside her. James waved a hand, and made the chair appear more solid, and gave the room a window, with blue skies, and a door open to a hallway with nurses in scrubs walking past. He approached the bed, but instead of looking at him, Noa looked at the chair. A Caucasian man with blond hair and blue eyes materialized there. The man had a scar on his chin; apparently he had the same aversion to plasti-surgery Noa did. He wasn't quite as tall as James, or as broad shouldered. Noa reached out to him—but her hand passed right through him. The man flickered, and James's own avatar gaped. He was looking at a dream of Tim's avatar. Noa's dead husband bowed his head. “I don't know if I'll see you again, baby,” he whispered. “Noa, I'm so sorry about what happened to you … I'm so sorry … I'm so sorry …” He didn't finish but James's apps lit and told him the dream was steeped in sorrow.
“Shhhhh … Tim,” Noa whispered hoarsely, half-lidded eyes on the man. “It's my fault. You can't keep me away from trouble.”
The man appeared to choke, and then the message replayed.
James felt his mind fire brightly with awareness he didn't want. Timothy's avatar was a recording. Noa must have played it automatically when she woke up in the hospital bed.
Noa gave a startled gasp. “Nurse! Nurse!” she cried. A woman rushed in, and Noa demanded, “Where is my husband? Where is my husband?” The scene began to grow dark. In the real world, Noa started to get out of their bed, chasing after the dream nurse.
James jumped out of bed, and caught her before she reached the door. Spinning her around, he pulled her to him. “Don't go, Noa.” She didn't struggle against him.
In his mind, her avatar said, “He left me that message just before he died. We were in an accident, a stupid accident. We were on leave, in a chartered hover, and another hover crashed … there was nothing I could do. I should have died at Six! He shouldn't have died on leave!”
“Shhhh … Noa,” James whispered into her hair. She didn't move, or protest, and James thought she must be awake. He guided her to the bed. He'd just tucked them both in when he heard the sound of hooves.
Lifting her head, Noa whispered, “It's my unicorn!”
The sound of hooves was too close. Before James could move, the beast–still origami–crashed by them. Before his eyes, the vision morphed into one of a “real” unicorn, and then it vanished.
It was just a dream, he told himself. It didn't mean anything to her.
Noa smiled bemusedly. “I'm dreaming the dream of a cyborg from a twenty-first century mov-ee.”
James snapped out of her dream.
Chapter Thirteen
Noa woke up just before her chronometer app's alarm went off. She sat up with a start, not wanting the annoying buzz to sound in her brain. James was already awake. Sitting up, back against the headboard, he was staring out the cabin's porthole at the Kanakah gate. His expression was as ever unreadable, but maybe because of the silence in her mind, she felt like he was troubled. Was he worried about Oliver? About Raif? About their ability to fix the gate? They were taking a huge risk by disabling the Ark to repair it. Was he suffering from PTSD? He had to be.
“Hey,” she whispered, sitting up and taking his fingers. “What's troubling you?”
James rolled his head toward her. For a few heartbeats too long, he was silent. And then he said, “After we make it through the gate, what happens then?” He tilted his head. “Will I see you?”
Noa's lips parted. He'd saved Oliver how many times? And her. And the way he'd spoken to Raif before the sleep cycle had warmed her heart and put butterflies in her stomach. But as important, over the past month of lightspeed tedium she'd enjoyed his company. He was witty, didn't mind her connection always being open in his head, and had different enough experiences and interests that she wasn't bored. All the simple, non-dramatic things that really made a relationship work. And the sex was good. “I really want that,” she answered.
James reached behind her head and dragged his hand down the back of her neck. He rested his forehead on hers. He couldn't kiss, but she understood it for what it was. “I really want that, too,” he whispered. Noa closed her eyes and leaned into him. He smelled good. He always smelled distractingly good. If her chronometer wasn't about to start buzzing in her mind …
It did buzz. James heard it, or had his own app, because he pulled back and said, “Hurry and get ready.”
“Thank you,” she said, kissing his bottom lip, catching it in her teeth, and slipping from the bed. She went to take her shower in the sanitary cubicle. As she did, she could hear James rummaging around. She thought she heard a vaguely metallic thunk—like the hull had been hit by a small object—except it came from their quarters, not the hull. She shook her head. She had to be hearing things.
A few moments later, she stepped out and saw James trying to shut the metal drawer that was under the bed. Wrapping her towel tight, Noa came over. The drawer was obviously weighted wrong if it was sliding out like that, but it shouldn't slide open—like ancient ships, starships had latches on all the drawers to keep them from opening.
James looked up over his shoulder. “I, uh … broke the latch.”
Noa's brow furrowed. The latch had been metal. She blinked. Augmented strength, obviously. She tried to make a joke. “In a rush to get something out of there?”
“Maybe,” he replied.
The drawer had towels, her great-great-something grandparents' holo, and her stunner. She looked down. Her stunner was by his side.
Following her gaze, James said, “It's out of juice again.”
She couldn't tease him about not needing a stunner in the Kanakah Cloud anymore. “Must be a faulty battery if it can't hold a charge,” Noa replied.
He picked it up. “Must be. I'll get it fixed.”
Noa shook her head. “No, get another one. Something else is up with that one—the charger should tell you if the battery isn't holding a charge.”
“Sure,” said James, not meeting her eyes.
Monica's thoughts intruded through the ether. “Commander, I've discovered why Oliver's heart is behaving so erratically.”
Dropping the towel, Noa found her clothes. “Go on, Doctor.” She bit her lip. Please, don't let him die, not after so much sacrifice. She looked at James, who was sliding a shirt over his head. His tattoos weren't showing no
w, and his skin was very pale. She'd seen the markings unfurl when he was angry, in lust, and in sunlight. When they weren't dark, he looked … cold. He met her eyes as his shirt slid into place.
“Monica?” Noa asked.
“I'd like to speak to you in person,” said Monica.
Noa's brow furrowed. “All right. I'll be there in five,” she said, sitting on the bed and slipping on a pair of boots from one of the smaller members of the tick team.
James, already dressed, said, “That doesn't sound good.”
It didn't. “But it doesn't sound hopeless,” Noa said.
“I need a stun,” James said, picking up the weapon. “A stunner, I mean.” Chin to his chest, not meeting her eyes, he said, “I'll meet you there.”
The door whooshed behind him and she shook her head as she finished getting ready. She must have thought “aloud” again—Monica had been speaking through a private channel.
As soon as the door closed behind him, James stunned himself in the arm. His tattoos barely emerged at the point of contact. His vision only slightly cleared. The stunner had lost its ability to hold a charge—probably because he'd been using it every day, twice in rapid succession, on himself. Had he lost his own ability to hold a charge? He'd been hit multiple times the day before. Maybe he couldn't hold more than a set amount?
These would be things that would be helpful to know, he thought, trying to direct the thought to that part of his hardware that communicated with the gates. He got no response. Swinging himself into the access tunnel, he considered banging his head against the wall to jar whatever wire was loose, but stopped himself. His left hand was shaking, and his vision was getting dark. He grabbed both sides of the ladder and slid down to the level of the armory. No one was around. He breathed out a sigh of relief, and then wondered why he sighed when he didn't even technically need to breathe.