The Final Frontier

by Neil Clarke

  The woman caught Adel before he sprawled headlong off the transport stage. “Slow down.” She was taller and wider than any of the women he’d known; he felt like a toy in her arms. “You made it, you’re here.” She straightened him and stepped back to get a look. “Is there a message?”

  —a message?—buzzed Adel’s plus.

  minus buzzed—yes give us clothes—

  Normally Adel kept his opposites under control. But he’d just been scanned, transmitted at superluminal speeds some two hundred and fifty-seven light-years, and reassembled on a threshold bound for the center of the Milky Way.

  “Did they say anything?” The woman’s face was tight. “Back home?”

  Adel shook his head; he had no idea what she was talking about. He hadn’t yet found his voice, but it was understandable if he was a little jumbled. His skin felt a size too small and he shivered in the cool air. This was probably the most important moment of his life and all he could think was that his balls had shrunk to the size of raisins.

  “You’re not . . . ? All right then.” She covered her disappointment so quickly that Adel wondered if he’d seen it at all. “Well, let’s get some clothes on you, Rocky.”

  minus buzzed—who’s Rocky?—

  “What, didn’t your tongue make the jump with the rest of you?” She was wearing green scrubs and green open-toed shoes. A oval medallion on a silver chain hung around her neck; at its center a pix displayed a man eating soup. “Can you understand me?” Her mouth stretched excessively, as if she intended that he read her lips. “I’m afraid I don’t speak carrot, or whatever passes for language on your world.” She was carrying a blue robe folded over her arm.

  “Harvest,” said Adel. “I came from Harvest.”

  “He talks,” said the woman. “Now can he walk? And what will it take to get him to say his name?”

  “I’m Adel Santos.”

  “Good.” She tossed the robe at him and it slithered around his shoulders and wrapped him in its soft embrace. “If you have a name then I don’t have to throw you back.” Two slippers unfolded from its pockets and snugged onto his feet. She began to speak with a nervous intensity that made Adel dizzy. “So, Adel, my name is Kamilah, which means ‘the perfect one’ in Arabic which is a dead language you’ve probably never heard of and I’m here to give you the official welcome to your pilgrimage aboard the Godspeed and to show you around but we have to get done before dinner which tonight is synthetic roasted garab . . .”

  —something is bothering her—buzzed minus—it must be us—

  “ . . . which is either a bird or a tuber, I forget which exactly but it comes from the cuisine of Ohara which is a world in the Zeta 1 Reticuli system which you’ve probably never heard of . . .”

  —probably just a talker—plus buzzed.

  “ . . . because I certainly never have.” Kamilah wore her hair kinked close against her head; it was the color of rust. She was cute, thought Adel, in a massive sort of way. “Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly,” he said. “You did say you were perfect.”

  “So you listen?” A grin flitted across her face. “Are you going to surprise me, Adel Santos?”

  “I’ll try,” he said. “But first I need a bathroom.”

  There were twenty-eight bathrooms on the Godspeed; twenty of them opened off the lavish bedrooms of Dream Street. A level below was the Ophiuchi Dining Hall, decorated in red alabaster, marble and gilded bronze, which could seat as many as forty around its teak banquet table. In the more modest Chillingsworth Breakfasting Room, reproductions of four refectory tables with oak benches could accommodate more intimate groups. Between the Blue and the Dagger Salons was the Music Room with smokewood lockers filled with the noblest instruments from all the worlds of the Continuum, most of which could play themselves. Below that was a library with the complete range of inputs from brainleads to books made of actual plant material, a ballroom decorated in the Nomura III style, a VR dome with ten animated seats, a gymnasium with a lap pool, a black box theater, a billiard room, a conservatory with five different ecosystems and various stairways, hallways, closets, cubbies, and peculiar dead ends. The MASTA, the molecular array scanner/transmitter/assembler was located in the Well Met Arena, an enormous airlock and staging area that opened onto the surface of the threshold. Here also was the cognizor in which the mind of the Godspeed seethed.

  It would be far too convenient to call the Godspeed mad. Better to say that for some time she had been behaving like no other threshold. Most of our pioneering starships were built in hollowed out nickel-iron asteroids—a few were set into fabricated shells. All were propelled by matter-antimatter drives that could reach speeds of just under a hundred thousand kilometers per second, about a third of the speed of light. We began to launch them from the far frontiers of the Continuum a millennium ago to search for terrestrial planets that were either habitable or might profitably be made so. Our thresholds can scan planetary systems of promising stars as far away as twenty light-years. When one discovers a suitably terrestrial world, it decelerates and swings into orbit. News of the find is immediately dispatched at superluminal speed to all the worlds of the Continuum; almost immediately materials and technicians appear on the transport stage. Over the course of several years we build a new orbital station containing a second MASTA, establishing a permanent link to the Continuum. Once the link is secured, the threshold continues on its voyage of discovery. In all, the Godspeed had founded thirty-seven colonies in exactly this way.

  The life of a threshold follows a pattern: decades of monotonous acceleration, cruising and deceleration punctuated by a few years of intense and glorious activity. Establishing a colony is an ultimate affirmation of human culture and even the cool intelligences generated by the cognizors of our thresholds share in the camaraderie of techs and colonists. Thresholds take justifiable pride in their accomplishments; many have had worlds named for them. However, when the time comes to move on, we expect our thresholds to dampen their enthusiasms and abort their nascent emotions to steel themselves against the tedium of crawling between distant stars at three-tenths the speed of light.

  Which all of them did—except for the Godspeed.

  As they were climbing up the Tulip Stairway to the Dream Halls, Adel and Kamilah came upon two men making their way down, bound together at the waist by a tether. The tether was about a meter long and two centimeters in diameter; it appeared to be elastic. One side of it pulsed bright red and the other was a darker burgundy. The men were wearing baggy pants and gray jackets with tall, buttoned collars that made them look like birds.

  “Adel,” said Kamilah, “meet Jonman and Robman.”

  Jonman looked like he could have been Robman’s father, but Adel knew better than to draw any conclusions from that. On some worlds, he knew, physiological camouflage was common practice.

  Jonman gazed right through Adel. “I can see that he knows nothing about the problem.” He seemed detached, as if he were playing chess in his head.

  Kamilah gave him a sharp glance but said nothing. Robman stepped forward and extended his forefinger in greeting. Adel gave it a polite touch.

  “This is our rookie, then?” said Robman. “Do you play tikra, Adel?”

  —who’s a rookie?—buzzed minus.

  —we are—

  Since Adel didn’t know what tikra was, he assumed that he didn’t play it. “Not really,” he said.

  “He’s from one of the farm worlds,” said Kamilah

  “Oh, a rustic.” Robman cocked his head to one side, as if Adel might make sense to him if viewed from a different angle. “Do they have gulpers where you come from? Cows?” Seeing the blank look on Adel’s face, he pressed on. “Maybe frell?”

  “Blue frell, yes.”

  —keep talking—plus buzzed—make an impression—

  Adel lunged into conversation. “My uncle Durwin makes summer sausage from frell loin. He built his own smoke house.”

  Robman frowned.
/>   “It’s very good.” Adel had no idea where he was going with this bit of family history. “The sausages, I mean. He’s a butcher.”

  —and we’re an idiot—

  “He’s from one of the farm worlds,” said Jonman, as if he were catching up with their chitchat on a time delay.

  “Yes,” said Robman. “He makes sausages.”

  Jonman nodded as if this explained everything about Adel. “Then don’t be late for dinner,” he advised. “I see there will be garab tonight.” With this, the two men continued downstairs.

  Adel glanced at Kamilah, hoping she might offer some insight into Robman and Jonman. Her eyes were hooded. “I wouldn’t play anything with them if I were you,” she murmured. “Jonman has a stochastic implant. Not only does he calculate probabilities, but he cheats.”

  The top of the Tulip Stairway ended at the midpoint of Dream Street. “Does everything have a name here?” asked Adel.

  “Pretty much,” said Kamilah. “It tells you something about how bored the early crews must have been. We’re going right.” The ceiling of Dream Street glowed with a warm light that washed Kamilah’s face with pink. She said the names of bedroom suites as they passed the closed doors. “This is Fluxus. The Doghouse. We have room for twenty pilgrims, twice that if we want to double up.”

  The carpet was a sapphire plush that clutched at Adel’s sandals as he shuffled down the hall.

  “Chrome over there. That’s where Upwood lived. He’s gone now. You don’t know anything about him, do you?” Her voice was suddenly tight. “Upwood Marcene?”

  “No, should I? Is he famous?”

  “Not famous, no.” The medallion around her neck showed a frozen lake. “He jumped home last week, which leaves us with only seven, now that you’re here.” She cleared her throat and the odd moment of tension passed. “This is Corazon. Forty Pushups. We haven’t found a terrestrial in ages, so Speedy isn’t as popular as she used to be.”

  “You call the threshold Speedy?”

  “You’ll see.” Kamilah sighed. “And this is Cella. We might as well see if Sister is receiving.” She pressed her hand to the door and said, “Kamilah here.” She waited.

  “What do you want, Kamilah?” said the door, a solid blue slab that featured neither latch nor knob.

  “I have the new arrival here.”

  “It’s inconvenient.” The door sighed. “But I’m coming.” It vanished and before them stood a tiny creature, barely up to Adel’s waist. She was wearing a hat that looked like a birds nest made of black ribbon with a smoky veil that covered her eyes. Her mouth was thin and severe. All he could see of her almond skin was the dimpled chin and her long elegant neck; the billowing sleeves of her loose black dress swallowed her hands.

  “Adel Santos, this is Lihong Rain. She prefers to be called Sister.” Sister might have been a child or she might have been a grandmother. Adel couldn’t tell.

  “Safe passage, Adel.” She made no other welcoming gesture.

  Adel hesitated, wondering if he should try to initiate contact. But what kind? Offer to touch fingers? Shake hands? Maybe he should catch her up in his arms and dance a two-step.

  “Same to you, Sister,” he said and bowed.

  “I was praying just now.” He could feel her gaze even though he couldn’t see it. “Are you religious, Brother Adel?” The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  “I’d prefer to be just Adel, if you don’t mind,” he said. “And no, I’m not particularly religious, I’m afraid.”

  She sagged, as if he had just piled more weight on her frail shoulders. “Then I will pray for you. If you will excuse me.” She stepped back into her room and the blue door reformed.

  plus buzzed—we were rude to her—

  —we told the truth—

  “Don’t worry,” said Kamilah. “You can’t offend her. Or rather, you can’t not offend her, since just about everything we do seems to offend her. Which is why she spends almost all her time in her room. She claims she’s praying, although Speedy only knows for sure. So I’m in Delhi here, and next door you’re in The Ranch.”

  —Kamilah’s next door?—buzzed minus.

  —we hardly know her don’t even think it—

  —too late—

  They stopped in front of the door to his room, which was identical to Sister’s, except it was green. “Press your right hand to it anywhere, say your name and it will ID you.” After Adel followed these instructions, the door considered for a moment and then vanished with a hiss.

  Adel guessed that the room was supposed to remind him of home. It didn’t exactly, because he’d lived with his parents in a high rise in Great Randall, only two kilometers from Harvest’s first MASTA. But it was like houses he had visited out in the countryside. Uncle Durwin’s, for example. Or the Pariseaus’. The floor appeared to be of some blondish tongue-and-grooved wood. Two of the walls were set to show a golden tallgrass prairie with a herd of chocolate-colored beasts grazing in the distance. Opposite a rolltop desk were three wooden chairs with velvet upholstered seats gathered around a low oval table. A real plant with leaves like green hearts guarded the twin doorways that opened into the bedroom and the bathroom.

  Adel’s bed was king-sized with a half moon head and footboards tied to posts that looked like tree trunks with the bark stripped off. It had a salmon-colored bedspread with twining rope pattern. However, we should point out that Adel did not notice anything at all about his bed until much later.

  —oh no—

  “Hello,” said Adel.

  —oh yes—

  “Hello yourself, lovely boy.” The woman was propped on a nest of pillows. She was wearing a smile and shift spun from fog. It wisped across her slim, almost boyish, body concealing very little. Her eyes were wide and the color of honey. Her hair was spiked in silver.

  Kamilah spoke from behind him. “Speedy, he just stepped off the damn stage ten minutes ago. He’s not thinking of fucking.”

  “He’s a nineteen year old male, which means he can’t think of anything but fucking.” She had a wet, whispery voice, like waves washing against pebbles. “Maybe he doesn’t like girls. I like being female, but I certainly don’t have to be.” Her torso flowed beneath the fog and her legs thickened.

  “Actually, I do,” said Adel. “Like girls, I mean.”

  “Then forget Speedy.” Kamilah crossed the room to the bed and stuck her hand through the shape on the bed. It was all fog, and Kamilah’s hand parted it. “This is just a fetch that Speedy projects when she feels like bothering us in person.”

  “I have to keep my friends company,” said the Godspeed.

  “You can keep him company later.” Kamilah swiped both hands through the fetch and she disappeared. “Right now he’s going to put some clothes on and then we’re going to find Meri and Jarek,” she said.

  “Wait,” said Adel. “What did you do to her? Where did she go?”

  “She’s still here,” Kamilah said. “She’s always everywhere, Adel. You’ll get used to it.”

  “But what did she want?”

  The wall to his right shimmered and became a mirror image of the bedroom. The Godspeed was back in her nest on his bed. “To give you a preview of coming attractions, lovely boy.”

  Kamilah grasped Adel by the shoulders, turned him away from the wall and aimed him at the closet. “Get changed,” she said. “I’ll be in the sitting room.”

  Hanging in the closet were three identical peach-colored uniforms with blue piping at the seams. The tight pantaloons had straps that would pass under the instep of his feet. The dress blue blouse had the all-too-familiar pulsing heart patch over the left breast. The jacket had a double row of enormous silver zippers and bore two merit pins which proclaimed Adel a true believer of the Host of True Flesh.

  Except that he wasn’t.

  Adel had long since given up on his mother’s little religion but had never found a way to tell her. Seeing his uniforms filled him with guilt and dread. He’d come tw
o hundred and fifty-seven light-years and he had still not escaped her. He’d expected she would pack the specs for True Flesh uniforms in his luggage transmission, but he’d thought she’d send him at least some civilian clothes as well.

  —we have to lose the clown suit—

  “So how long are you here for?” called Kamilah from the next room.

  “A year,” replied Adel. “With a second year at my option.” Then he whispered, “Speedy, can you hear me?”

  “Always. Never doubt it.” Her voice came from the tall blue frell-leather boots that were part of his uniform. “Are we going to have secrets from Kamilah? I love secrets.”

  “I need something to wear,” he whispered. “Anything but this.”

  “A year with an option?” Kamilah called. “Gods, Adel! Who did you murder?”

  “Are we talking practical?” said the Godspeed. “Manly? Artistic? Rebellious?”

  He stooped and spoke directly into left boot. “Something basic,” he said. “Scrubs like Kamilah’s will be fine for now.”

  Two blobs extruded from the closet wall and formed into drab pants and a shirt.

  “Adel?” called Kamilah. “Are you all right?”

  “I didn’t murder anyone.” He stripped off the robe and pulled briefs from a drawer. At least the saniwear wasn’t official True Flesh. “I wrote an essay.”

  Softwalks bloomed from the floor. “The hair on your legs, lovely boy, is like the wire that sings in my walls.” The Godspeed’s voice was a purr.

  The closet seemed very small then. As soon as he’d shimmied into his pants, Adel grabbed the shirt and the softwalks and escaped. He didn’t bother with socks.