“Prosser and I are going to be covering you. If she makes a funny move, we can take her out. We’re going to get some height here so that we can shoot at a downward angle. Ideally, we’ll be able to take her out without hitting you. The only issue is what happens if she grabs you, throws you over the side, stabs you, something like that.”
“Keep at least a meter between you,” Tampa adds.
“A meter. Okay. All right.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out my paint gun. The goons exchange a look, but say nothing. I nod for them to open the airlock. They press a few buttons and the hydraulics open. They clamber up onto stepping stools on either side of the airlock exit to get their height advantage, and nod at me that I’m okay to go.
The woman with the shirt disappears, back into her pod, as I step forward. I raise my paint gun and fire one green X about a half meter past the centerpoint of the umbilicus, then another green X about a half meter before it. To show I’m not being aggressive, I place the paint gun down on the ground and step out, arms up.
As soon as I set foot on the umbilicus I brace myself, eyes clenched shut and teeth clenched closed, ready to catch a bullet. In the head if necessary, but I sort of hope if they are going to shoot they’ll hit me – what did Tampa call it? – center mass so I’ll just be knocked out of my socks.
Thankfully, the shot doesn’t come.
“I’m an unarmed civilian!” I shout. “I work for Hestle Corporation. We’re on a mission of exploration.” Okay, so that’s a lie. “We don’t want to hurt you.” That’s not. Not really.
I walk forward slowly, one foot in front of the other, and stop when I reach the green X nearest me. The wind is howling and red droplets from a not-too-distant blood storm is spraying sideways in my face. My hands are still up, but I start to feel silly, so I slowly lower them. The wait is eternal, tense, agonizing. I feel like a fool out here. Not just a fool, but a damn exposed fool ready to get shot any old minute for my foolishness.
I’m just about to turn back and bag it when the shirt woman re-appears. She has a very distinct appearance, quite unlike anyone I know, and I try to place it. Her skin tone is lighter than the usual brownish, and her look is different.
Then it strikes me. I’ve seen photographs of people who look like her in the actual histories of The Manifest Destiny, and how different they looked from the actors who portrayed them in the movie. We had even discussed it in class one day, and our professor had quite a time explaining to us how we were all members of La Raza Cósmica, a blending of various ethnic groups which had once been deeply segregated on Old Earth. They were usually identified by colors – black, white, green, blue, things like that. In space, the old prejudices had simply become unfeasible. We had, to put it simply, fucked until we were all one color.
The shirt woman, though, must have represented one of the colors before they had all blended. My earlier sinking feeling now seems prescient. We’ve gravely misjudged the situation. The Manifest Destiny hadn’t wrecked, killing all aboard. It had continued to function as a seed ship, exactly as it was designed to, for the better part of two hundred years. We had already seen that the hydroponics arrays were still functional. This woman is the offspring of the original colonists.
“Come, come,” I say gesturing towards her and pointing at the green X I made about a meter away from my current spot.
The shirt woman says something, and I only understand about a quarter of it. Of course. Just as our ethnic makeup blended over time, so, too, has our language. I remember reading that Cosmic was a blend of primarily the languages of the original spacefarers: Old English, Old Russian, Old Hindi, and Old Mandarin.
“Just… just one minute,” I say, hoping that she, too, understands about a quarter of what I’m saying. “I’m going to reach for a device to help us communicate. It’s not a weapon. No weapon.”
The woman stops and watches as I slowly reached into my pocket and draw out my jotter. I press a few buttons and pull up some translation software. The translator is actually extremely elegant. It silences the area around the ears of both users, and translates in almost real time, “throwing” the voice where it should be coming from like a ventriloquist. Over time it even cobbles together a rough approximation of the speaker’s voice based on fundamental phonemes, morphemes, and syllables. The effect is similar to watching a film that has been dubbed rather than subtitled – you hear what you’re supposed to hear, though it may not match the moving lips of the person you’re talking to.
I order it to translate from Cosmic to Old English and then pocket the device. It will do the rest, gradually ironing out any kinks.
“You can come closer,” I say, “Step on the green marker.”
Slowly she advances toward the green X I planted for her. Theoretically I was safe from her a meter away, as the security goons had demanded.
“I hear you word better. No perfection, but much betterer than now.”
In the space of those two short sentences her voice is already starting to transform from the initial robotic tones of the translating software’s default voice into her “real” voice. But I’m confused why it doesn’t seem to be translating correctly. That should come instantaneously. I check my jotter.
“Troubleshoot translation software.”
She cocks her head.
“I no have… you speak at device?”
“Yes,” I say. “Hold on just a moment, I think there’s something wrong with my machine.”
“Good, yes,” she agrees. “You talk strange.”
I nod. At least she’s having the same issues on her end. The jotter dings after a moment. I read the error message. The translation software is functioning correctly. The problem is that the shirt woman is speaking something that only matches Old English by about 73%.
I shouldn’t be surprised. After two hundred years there’s bound to be some drift. She’s speaking a new dialect: The Manifest Destiny dialect.
I do something I’ve never done before. At least, I’m not 100% sure how to do it. I ask the translator to uncouple from its usual vocabulary logs and attempt to develop a new linguistic database based on context clues. The more we talk the better it’s going to get, if everything goes right.
“My translator is going to attempt to learn your dialect. It’s different from the one it knows.”
She nods.
“How long it take?”
“I’m not sure. A few hours. The more we talk, though, the better it will get at understanding you.”
She nods again.
“Why did you shoot at my friend?”
She pauses and makes a fist, as though she doesn’t know how to answer the question.
“I take responsibility for miscommunication. Assume my people did that you were infested. I argued against this. Here I am now to apologize.”
The translator is definitely improving, but that can’t be right. She must have meant “infected.”
“Infected? With some kind of disease? Is there a plague on board?”
Her face darkens.
“You really are from outside?”
I nod.
“Where?”
I point upward.
“From the stars. Distant places you never would have heard of.”
“Not from Earth?”
“No.”
“But your people… they’re Brazilian, right?”
“Brazilian? I’m not familiar with the term. Let me just check my machine.”
She nods. I pull out my jotter and attempt to type in the word phonetically. I butcher it, but the archive understands what I’m trying to say, and tells me about Brazil, another ancient terrestrial nation-state. A contemporary of the USA. I flip through some pictures, then I realize where her assumption stems from.
“It’s because of my appearance you think that?”
She nods.
“Everyone looks like me today. Your people… I mean… all people have intermingled. There aren’t really…”
<
br /> “There are no more Caucasians? No more like me?”
I shake my head.
“Maybe in isolated enclaves. Maybe back on Earth. But for the most part, no.”
“Earth is not…” she pauses, searching for the right word, though I’m sure the translator mangles it anyway, “important anymore?”
I clench my jaws.
“No. Not really. It’s still our homeworld. Some people still live there. Sometimes people vacation there to visit the ruins or study archaeology. But, no. We’ve moved on.”
She turns and stares off into the distance at a billowing storm of blood. The human in me makes me want to reach out and put my hand on her shoulder. But I know Prosser and Tampa are watching, their beam rifles leveled, and the only thing protecting her from instant death is the meter of space between us. She turns back to me.
“I am called Jaime.”
“Paige,” I reply.
“Well, where do we go from here, Paige?”
Fifteen
“Go on, Grace.”
The woman sitting next to Jaime is seething. The hue of her skin is not like Jaime’s, but neither is it as dark as La Raza Cósmica’s. She is of a different terrestrial ethnicity. She is also tall, broadly muscled, arrogant and angry. She is their Helena.
As though it is painful beyond all reasoning, Grace stands. She is trying, genuinely trying. They are trying.
“I sincerely apologize for firing my weapon at you. We did not realize who you were. We thought you were infested.”
There’s that word again. “Infested.” The translator has mostly reached the point where there aren’t even any hiccups in translating the odd Manifest Destiny dialect of English anymore. It seems that they really are concerned with some kind of infestation. I have to inquire more about that.
Helena is stony-faced. Her wound has entirely healed and though she looks pale and drawn, overall she seems no worse for wear.
“What I did, I did thinking I was protecting my family and my home. This is not an excuse. This is an explanation. And a sincere apology. I hope you will offer understanding. And… forgiveness.”
Diane turns in her seat to fix a weary eye on Helena. She’s barely been able to take her eyes off the meeting room’s chronometer, which is still counting down from our original eighteen-hour deadline. At this point we have about sixteen hours remaining. The discovery of living colonists aboard The Manifest Destiny and the associated shenanigans isn’t just eating into our schedule, it’s devouring it. The way forward now is up to Helena, but really, it’s clear the director is not prepared to tolerate any more delays.
Helena, for her part, seems to sense all of this in Diane’s gaze the same way I have. With a barely perceptible sigh, she rises to her feet.
“I am the director of security for this office. My career and my sworn task and I guess you might say my calling is the safety and protection of the employees under my charge. I would be lying if I said I appreciate being shot, but I would equally be lying if I said I wouldn’t have done the same thing were our roles reversed.”
She looks to Diane, who gives no response. She holds out her hand toward Grace.
“May I offer our friendship? And that we bury the hatchet?”
Grace looks to Jaime, who nods. Tentatively, The Manifest Destiny’s Helena steps forward and clasps the real Helena’s hand. For a moment, I fear they might test each other’s strength in a crushing contest the way adolescents sometimes do, but it seems that Grace is as eager to escape Helena’s grasp as much as Helena seems to want the whole matter to be over. They both return to their seats, and I half-expect something like embarrassment to color their faces, but far be it for embarrassment to show on such rugged individuals.
“Fine, fine work, all around,” Diane says. She’s eager to get on with the business at hand. “Now, to get down to the root of the matter. Your people. What do you want? Do you want to be taken off of this planet? Returned to civilization? Do you want to be left alone? What are you hoping for?”
Jaime pauses, and I know every second of it is agony for Diane, even if she doesn’t let it show. This simple salvage mission is quickly spiraling out of control.
“All we want is to survive,” Jaime says finally. “If that means spiriting us away, so be it. But I think the more important question here is what do you want? The more I see of your Borgwardt, the less I believe you came here for an exploratory mission.”
The director actually smiles, and for a moment seems less distracted by the ticking clock than by her adversary across the meeting room table. If Grace is the Manifest Destiny’s version of Helena, then surely Jaime is their version of Diane herself.
“Very perceptive. We came here on a salvage mission. We were not expecting the seed ship to be occupied.”
“Then none of our distress calls have been received?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“You see,” Grace growls. “I told you it was a waste of time to continue to hope for aid. Two hundred years and they never bothered to look for our ancestors. Why should they care about us or our petty struggles?”
“My friends, it’s not a matter of not caring. It’s a matter of simple ignorance. Paige? I hate to constantly make you the bearer of bad news, but…”
“It’s quite all right, madam director,” I say, rising from my own seat. This time I’m seated at the conference table rather than on the periphery. My star is rising as I’ve hoped it might. “It’s what I’m paid for. Grace. Jaime. What you have to understand is that the world your ancestors left behind is very much gone. Your country of origin, the nation-state called America collapsed very shortly after you were presumed lost in space. In fact, all nation-states are gone now. There is nothing of the world you knew left. It’s not that your people were ignoring you, it’s that there was no one left to listen. The great stellar listening posts of the old USA have gone untended for years. The transmissions you were sending, well the technology is…it’s what we’d call quaint.”
“It’s antiquated, you mean,” Jaime says. “Two hundred years old. I’m under no illusions about that. What you’re saying is we may as well not even have been broadcasting.”
“That’s correct. And for quite a long time we thought The Manifest Destiny was lost with all hands killed. There was a very famous movie made about it.”
Grace seems livid.
“A movie? About our struggles? You knew that much and you still didn’t send a rescue mission?”
Jaime puts a hand on her partner’s.
“No, Grace. I think she means about the glorious death of our progenitors. That’s what they think happened. Isn’t that right, Paige?”
I nod.
“I’m afraid so.”
A smile flitters across Jaime’s face.
“I think I might like to see this movie. But that is a matter for a decidedly later time. I do not wish, madam director, for you to think of us as throwbacks. We are not Neanderthals who need to be patronized. We want to help you and be a part of society again. Would it be fair to say that if we assisted you in your salvage operation you would grant us passage back to what you call civilized space?”
Diane’s eyebrow rise. Now Jaime has not only caught her attention but dangled a carrot in front of her. They truly do think alike.
“There are certain logistical considerations. Prosser, run and grab Rebecca from the galley.” The security goon nods and disappears. “How many of your people are there?”
Jaime leans in while Grace whispered in her ear. She whispers something back under her breath. What about… somebody. Grace shakes her head.
“There are thirty-two of us left.”
“Only thirty-two?” I repeat.
All eyes in the room lock on me. Shit. Shouldn’t have spoken out of turn.
“How many were you expecting?” Jaime asks evenly.
I look to Diane and Zanib and Helena, but there’s no help from any of them. I put my foot in it and now I have to take care of
it myself.
“Well, to be frank, we weren’t expecting any. Our assumption was that all hands were lost. But if even a single pod survived and your ancestors were following generational protocols there should be hundreds… maybe thousands.”
“I can’t feed no thousands,” Becs announces loudly, entering the room.
“Ah, thank you for coming, Rebecca,” Diane says, “How about thirty-two?”
“Thirty-two?” Becs rubs her chin for a moment. “We’ll have to go on rations. No more ordering what you want. But, yeah, we can make it back to Yloft with thirty-two additional souls on board.” Becs looks the two guests up and down. “What’s wrong with you two?”
“We haven’t fucked until we all look like Brazilians yet,” Grace replies.
There’s a moment of silence before Becs begins howling and slapping her thigh.
“Hey, you shipwrecked weirdoes are all right.”
She takes a seat. I also sit back down, hoping that my impolitic outburst has been wallpapered over by the appearance of the loud Broatoan. No such luck. Jaime turns to me.
“As for your question, Paige, or… your implied question I suppose I should say, our ancestors did follow the original plan. Our people held out hope for quite some time that a rescue would be mounted, or at a minimum that we could figure out a way to terraform this planet to some extent. But the lower pods became infested and we’ve lost many, many people in the battles that followed.”
Zanib leans forward.
“What are the lower pods infested with?”
Grace rises, agitated.
“This is unwise,” she says.
Jaime pats her compatriot, and gestures for her to sit down.
“I know we must seem like savages to you…”
“Not at all,” Diane says.
“Please, there’s no need to patronize me. I know we must appear. Isolated. Cut-off. Barely scraping by with what to you must seem like primitive technology. We don’t even look like people do anymore. I’m under no illusions that we’ll be anything other than an oddity when we get back to civilization. But it’s the hope that my children and perhaps my children’s children can be reintegrated with society that drives me now.
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