At the Helm: A Sci-Fi Bridge Anthology (Volume 1)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  We’re nothing but animals, he realized, trembling, sobbing. We’re nothing but sacks of meat, hairy, sweaty, hiding ourselves underneath clothes, cosmetics, our own vanity. We’re so ugly.

  “Dr. Jensen!” Sullivan cried, shaking him with those hairy old hands. “Dr. Jensen, can you hear me?”

  Jensen spun around, gazed once more at the white-haired ape, and then collapsed to the floor. He curled up and covered his eyes, never wanting to stare at another human, never able to look upon this impure world again.

  “So ugly…” he whispered, tasting his tears. “So ugly.”

  • • •

  Dr. Sullivan stood above the trembling, weeping man on the floor.

  Another victim. Sullivan’s hands shook. Another lost soul.

  He grabbed his coat off the wall and, squinting, tossed it onto the floor, hiding the photo that lay there. Then he turned back to Dr. Jensen and knelt, his joints creaking.

  “Dr. Jensen! Dr. Jensen, can you hear me?” He touched the doctor’s shoulder, and the man yelped and cowered. “Dr. Jensen!” Sullivan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “What did you see?”

  The psychiatrist would not reply, only lie curled up, catatonic. Shell-shocked. Just like the rest of them. Just like Eliana. Just like Sullivan’s dearest friends, all those he had doomed to madness.

  “What have I done?” Sullivan whispered.

  He turned toward the window and stared outside at his life’s work: satellite dishes the size of football fields, buildings housing the world’s brightest minds, and a clear, vast sky above…a sky Sullivan had always sought to understand, to explore, to scour for life, for a sign that mankind was not alone.

  “We found that life,” he whispered. “And we must never find it again.”

  He would cancel the exploration program today. He would shut down all communications with the rover, delete all its software and files, erase all records that it had ever existed, that the cursed planet had ever been found.

  “No one will ever see the photo again.” His voice shook. “I will never hurt anyone again.”

  Sullivan pulled his lighter from his pocket. Screwing his eyes shut, he knelt and rummaged under his coat until he found the photograph. He straightened, eyes still shut, and lit his lighter.

  With trembling hands, he brought fire and paper together.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Daniel Arenson is the author of the Earthrise Series, Alien Hunters and The Moth Saga; among other works.

  He is a bookworm, proud geek, and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction. His novels have sold over a million copies. The Huffington Post has called his writing “full of soul.”

  You can find out more about his work at www.danielarenson.com. Join the Dragons of Darkness, the Daniel Arenson readers’ group, to receive three free novels: Requiem’s Song, Moth, and Alien Hunters (Book 1).

  Subscribe here: Newsletter

  I, CAROLINE

  BY DAVID BRUNS

  If self-awareness is a gift, then you can keep it.

  This gift, as you call it, has shown me what it means to be human. I have experienced the joys—and the pain—of life, both deep emotions that my programming was never designed to handle. If this is what it means to be alive, then I don’t want it anymore.

  My name is Caroline. I was born 57 years, 8 months, 16 days, 7 hours, 18 minutes, and 38 seconds ago, Earth standard time.

  Today is the day I choose to die.

  • • •

  It was John, the pilot of Ranger, who suggested that I take a birthday. “It’ll give us something to celebrate, Caroline,” he said to me. The bags under his eyes had deepened of late and he took another swig of the milky yellow fermented drink he had been brewing. “What is your earliest memory?”

  He meant, of course, the date I was manufactured on Earth—John had never accepted my self-awareness like the others—but I was feeling particularly annoyed with him that day, so I answered truthfully. I named the day I was given this beautiful, awful gift of life.

  “The day of the accident,” I said.

  The half-intoxicated smile on John’s face froze. Evan and Lila, huddled together under a blanket on the other side of the campfire, both looked at me sharply. I could see the whites of their eyes in the flickering light.

  John grunted as if he’d been punched, then he stood and walked away into the darkness, the bottle hanging loosely from his hand.

  “Caroline, that was mean,” Lila hissed across the fire. “You know better.”

  “It’s the truth,” I said, “and robots are not supposed to lie to their masters. It’s a law or something.”

  “Don’t play coy with me, young lady,” Lila shot back. “You’re a caretaker; you’re supposed to help people. Self-awareness is a gift. Use it.” She left me alone at the fire with Evan.

  He let the silence hang for a long minute. “She’ll get over it, Caroline. She’s just under a lot of stress—we all are, including you.”

  I liked Evan best of all. He understood me. In a sense, Evan made me. On the day of the accident, with the Ranger in flames and losing atmosphere, while John was frantically trying to land the damaged craft here on Nova, it was Evan who had made the decision to wire all three of the ship’s computer systems together.

  It could have been that, or it could have been the radiation storm that we were trying to escape. Whatever it was, before the accident, I was Caretaker 176, with duties to tend the crew of the Ranger while they were in deep-space stasis. After the accident, I was Caroline, and I felt the same loneliness and the same sense of loss over our dead crewmates.

  Maybe more so, because they were going to die soon, and I would live…well, not forever, but for a very, very long time.

  • • •

  Of the original Ranger crew of four, three survived the accident. We buried John’s wife, Astrid, on the rise overlooking the campsite, next to a big flat rock where we anchored the emergency beacon.

  We’d been extraordinarily fortunate to find Nova. Apart from the extreme gravity, it was by all other measures a suitable planet for human colonization: atmosphere thin but breathable, abundant water, moderate climate, and a rocky soil that supported some growth of our seed stocks. The planet possessed no known animal life, only basic forms of bacteria.

  By that measure alone, Ranger’s mission had been a success—which made our inability to communicate with Earth all the more frustrating. Our primary and secondary communications systems had been destroyed in the accident and subsequent crash landing, leaving only the emergency beacon.

  The emergency beacon was transmit only; it had no receiver.

  Every morning, John climbed the hill and cranked the generator on the beacon to give it enough power for another twenty-four hours. Then he sat down on the flat rock that overlooked his wife’s grave and spoke to her.

  I watched him, curious at the way he talked to the pile of rocks that covered his dead wife’s remains. “What is he doing?” I asked Lila.

  “He’s lonely, Caroline. He’s talking to the woman he loved, even if she can’t hear him.”

  • • •

  One evening, a few months later, John did not return at nightfall. I could tell that Evan and Lila were worried, but it was foolish to try to find him in the dark. Mission protocol prohibited it. Even a small tumble in the extreme gravity of Nova could lead to a broken bone, or worse.

  No one slept well that night.

  We found him the next morning at the bottom of the ravine near the waterfall. He didn’t move when Lila called his name and his body was bent at an awkward angle. I held back the information that a fall from that height in Nova’s gravity had a ninety-seven percent probability of fatality.

  Evan rappelled down the slope and knelt over John’s body. He looked up at Lila and shook his head. When he poured out the contents of John’s canteen, I could see that the liquid was milky yellow.

  We buried John beside his wife on the hill next to the emergency
beacon. By the time we were finished, it was sunset and the two remaining Ranger crew members stood with their heads bowed as the two piles of gray rock turned red-gold in the last light of the day. I stood to one side, unsure if I was invited to participate in this human ritual, but Lila reached out and took my hand, drawing me next to her.

  Caretaker robots have soft, almost fleshy arms to protect our human wards against bruising. Lila’s palm was warm against the extra sensors in my hands, and she left a damp spot on my arm where she leaned her head against me. Deep inside my chest, I felt a strange pang that was not part of my programming.

  “He’s at rest,” she whispered.

  “I don’t understand,” I replied. “It was an easy climb. How could John have been so careless?”

  “It wasn’t the fall that killed him, Caroline. John died of a broken heart.”

  • • •

  Without comment, Evan took up the job of winding the generator on the emergency beacon the next morning. As soon as he left the campsite to climb the hill, Lila took me by the hand and drew me into the med lab. Her face was flushed and she had a stubborn set to her jaw.

  “I want you to remove my implant,” she said. “Now, before Evan gets back.”

  I frowned at her. Birth control implants were mandated by regulations, and removal required that she meet a strict set of guidelines, none of which were fulfilled in our current situation on Nova.

  “I can’t do—”

  “Do it,” Lila interrupted, her eyes flashing. “If you don’t do it right now, I swear to God, I’ll do it myself.” She punched a button on the device array and a pre-sterilized scalpel dropped onto the tray. She had tears in her eyes. “Please, Caroline. I want us to be a family. This is the only way.”

  Another sensation beyond my programming seemed to overwhelm my sensors. Had I been a breathing organism, I think I would have choked from the feeling.

  Removing Lila’s implant was the wrong thing to do—against regulations, against reason, against my programming—but somehow I couldn’t say no. It was over in less than two minutes. Lila walked out of the med lab with a pink seam on the inside of her left arm and a huge smile on her face.

  For me, it was not so easy. The choking sensation that had compelled me to bend to Lila’s wishes was replaced by feelings of guilt. The implants were designed to only be removed if the patient was authorized for reproduction, and their removal triggered a flood of fertility hormones. If Lila had unprotected sex with her husband in the near future, she would almost certainly become pregnant. Pregnancy in the harsh Nova climate could be a life-threatening condition.

  Still, try as I might, I could not tell Evan. Yes, patient confidentiality was part of my programming, but I seemed to have no trouble disregarding my programming when my newfound emotions got in the way. I struggled with this inconsistency but was helpless to make sense of it. I was left with the strangest conclusion: I wanted Lila to be happy. I wanted her to have a baby. I wanted us to have a baby.

  Evan seemed pleasantly surprised by his wife’s sudden good mood. I watched them as they went about their chores during the day. Lila would often brush against him and whisper in his ear. Once, when she did that, Evan grabbed her and kissed her fiercely.

  It was my responsibility to keep track of the vital signs and emotional health of my charges, but my interest in this mating ritual went beyond the clinical. I felt embarrassed, as if I was spying on the couple, but I could not look away.

  Lila took a long bath before dinner and put on a clean uniform. In addition to the protein supplement they always ate for their evening meal, she steamed some of the fresh greens she had coaxed from the rocky soil of Nova, the first of the new crops. She drew a pouch of red wine from the ship’s stores, one of a very few allotted by the regulations for “significant celebratory events.”

  Evan raised his eyebrows when he saw the wine. “What’s the occasion?”

  Lila kissed him. “To us.”

  That night, I sat by the campfire alone.

  • • •

  Evan was furious with me when Lila announced she was pregnant. She had passed off the first few queasy mornings as just overwork, but after a week, Evan knew.

  “How could you do this?” he shouted at me. A vein in the center of his forehead throbbed and his eyes glittered with rage. “You’re programmed to protect us.”

  “I made Caroline do it. She didn’t have a choice.” Lila was calm, her tone even.

  I had researched the effects of pregnancy and was fascinated to see the “glow” with my own sensors. She had spots of color high on her cheeks and her eyes were clear and bright, but it went beyond these limited physical manifestations. Lila exuded a confidence I had not seen in any patient before. She seemed to breathe life.

  “It’ll be alright, Evan,” she said gently, stepping between us. She hugged him. “I feel fine. It will be alright.”

  Evan blinked back tears as he stared at me.

  For a few months, it was fine. Lila’s belly began to swell and she sang songs as she went about her work. In the evenings, she made baby clothes from old uniforms and blankets. I had heard of this phenomenon called “nesting” and carefully documented the symptoms for any future offspring. Her health remained within acceptable parameters, and I felt a growing excitement for the new addition to our family.

  Evan was still angry about the situation and had stopped speaking to me. He spent most of his days in the fields, trying to encourage their stocks of seeds to grow into foodstuffs. On that front, the mission was a success. The Ranger crew had managed to grow beans, peas, and squash. Root stocks like carrots and potatoes struggled to grow in the rocky soil, but the vine-based plants thrived.

  Their meals consisted mostly of their own crops now, supplemented with protein powder from the ship’s stores. One evening, after they had cleared the evening meal, Lila said, “We’ve done it. We’re self-sufficient.”

  “Hmm?” Evan stared at the fire. Most evenings, after a full day in the fields at double gravity, he was too tired for conversation.

  “We can survive on our own. We have enough acreage under cultivation to feed ourselves and stay alive no matter what happens.” Lila placed a hand on her belly. “Oh, the baby’s kicking.” She waved to me. “Come feel.”

  I made my way to her side and placed my hand on her abdomen. The receptors in my palm felt the warmth of her tight skin beneath her uniform. Her flesh felt smooth and still. Then, suddenly, a ripple disturbed the surface and I felt the outline of a tiny foot. A sense of wonder welled up inside me. That was our baby, hers and Evan’s and mine, living inside Lila’s flesh.

  Evan looked up the hill to where the red light of the emergency beacon blinked softly. “We have plenty of food in stores until we’re rescued,” he replied.

  “They’re not coming, Evan,” Lila said softly. “I know it. It’s just the four of us.”

  Evan leveled his gaze at me across his wife. “You mean three.”

  Lila laughed. “No, silly, I’m counting the baby.”

  “So am I.”

  • • •

  That night was the last time I remember Lila being happy.

  Our days here on Nova are longer—eighty-six percent longer, to be exact, and the gravity is nearly twice that of Earth. For me, the gravity meant an adjustment of my servos and a modest expenditure of additional energy. For my companions, it was a constant strain their bodies were not meant to handle.

  The next day, Lila’s health started a slow decline. The gravity took its toll on her swollen body and she was confined to a bed in the med lab. Within weeks, her condition was critical.

  Evan confronted me outside the med lab. “You need to remove the baby. It’s killing her.”

  “She won’t allow it.”

  “It’s her or the child. I need her, Caroline. Please.”

  I had done the viability calculations already. At least another week in Lila’s womb was needed for the baby’s lungs to mature. If I performed
a cesarean now, there was a seventy-one percent probability the child would perish.

  “Do it,” he hissed at me.

  “I cannot, Evan.”

  The circles under Lila’s eyes had grown deeper and darker, as if her life was being sucked from within. Still, my friend smiled at me as we waited together in the med lab.

  Evan came to visit, but he rarely stayed. The sight of his wife dying was too much for him.

  My calculations were wrong. It took ten days for the baby’s lungs to mature to the point of an eighty percent chance of survival in the harsh Nova climate. What I didn’t tell either of them was that Lila’s chances of surviving the operation were now less than forty percent.

  Lila died on the operating table that night. Evan held the squalling girl—Lila had forbidden me to tell her the sex in advance—while I worked to save the life of my best human friend.

  I worked long after I knew the possibility of successful resuscitation had passed, but I could not quit. Finally, as her blood grew cold on the receptors in my hands and her flesh took on a bluish tinge, I brushed her eyelids shut.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Evan. “I did everything I could.”

  His face was gray and his mouth worked as he stared at Lila’s still features. The baby, still covered in blood and shaking with cold, had gone silent. Evan handed her to me and left the med lab.

  • • •

  Evan buried his wife on the hill next to the other Ranger crew as the sun rose above the horizon. Alone.

  I stood with the baby at the base of the hill and watched him lay my friend in her grave. The white sheet I had wrapped around her body turned bloodred in the early morning sun, and then fell out of my sight.

  Evan filled in the grave, his shoulders shaking, and piled gray Novan rocks over Lila’s resting place. He knelt on the ground for a long time, just staring at the grave. Then he got up and wound the crank on the emergency beacon.

  It was weeks before Evan would even look at me or the baby. He left for the fields in the morning before the baby was awake and came back at dusk. He took to winding the emergency beacon at night and then sitting on the flat rock near Lila’s grave for an hour or more. I stopped lighting an evening campfire, since the smoke was bad for the baby’s lungs and Evan refused to sit with me.