Clarkesworld: Year Six

by Aliette de Bodard

  I am learning names. Mosby, Rosenberg, Liu; Ahmed, Levitt, Jones. But I do not know what to tell them when they ask for mine. I pause, they think I do not understand and gesture more vigorously towards me. Mosby Rosenberg Liu Ahmed Levitt Jones, they repeat, touching themselves with their hands, then they aim their digits at me and wait for an answer. What can I tell them? Sheekah are named when they choose their lifepath—as a pilot, my name is the name of my stellate fighter. Or at least it was. My fighter is damaged, I am no longer interfaced, and I have taken a new form, yet I am hardly in a position to ask them to name me as a true ambassador would. I cannot even communicate what the problem is.

  “Ohree,” I eventually say. It was my childhood nickname long ago. Fitting, because I am so like a child now—awkward and unplaced.

  “Ohree,” they repeat, and the name sounds distorted even though we share a vocal anatomy now.

  I cannot explain anything, I cannot ask for anything. I can only point to an object and earn a garble of syllables for an answer. Does “medbay” describe the platform, the material it is made of, the function it serves, or the person lying prone upon it? Is “door” the word for an egress, or the object that blocks the egress? For the first time since I was a child, fumbling to find my lifepath, I feel hopelessly frustrated.

  Liu and Rosenberg are in the room with me when I decide I no longer care about upsetting them. If they tell the killers to shoot me, then I will be shot, and at least that will be a change from what I am now. I slide off the platform, balancing uncertainly with my new bipedal body, and take careful steps toward one wall where there appears to be some kind of interface terminal. Rosenberg makes loud vocalizations, and I ignore her.

  The terminal has a manual interface—buttons to be depressed by fingers, unthinkably primitive—which I rip out of the wall. I press one palm to the exposed circuitry and close my eyelids, concentrating on the task of growing a direct electronic interface of my own.

  They still haven’t shot me yet.

  I learn this terminal was designed for accessing the medical portion of the ship’s database, which is unfortunately not the portion that I need. I mentally slip behind the front-end processes and gain access to the database in its entirety. It is very large, and organized with the dubious logic of Bright minds, information twisting and twining back on itself like a jumble of vines grown together. Eventually, I access the language files for these aliens and use what little I know to identify “English” as the dialect I need to download.

  When the task is done, I disengage from the terminal and resorb the interface into the flesh of my hand. “Now,” I say, “this will be easier.”

  “Incredible,” says Liu, shaking his head. The gesture makes me wonder if I should have looked for a file on nonverbal communication among humans.

  Rosenberg stares at me, and then says, “Someone better get Mosby.”

  Upon my life, I do not know why it was so important to fetch Mosby. He asks the most inane questions, while Rosenberg holds her lips tight together and Liu backs away as if ceding the whole room.

  Once I prove to Mosby that I am now conversant in his language, the first thing he says to me is, “We need to know about that weapon you fired.” Mosby is the most important of their trained killers and holds the title of “colonel.” He tells the other killers what to do.

  I don’t see the relevance, but I answer his question anyway. “It produces a sort of space-time whiplash that disrupts neurological functioning. Fatally so, in all organisms we’ve encountered so far.”

  “Is it still usable?”

  I stare at him for a moment. “No, that’s unlikely. The damage to my fighter is too extensive. Were you planning to commit genocide in the near future?”

  Mosby’s face scrunches up in an expression I do not understand. Rosenberg takes a step forward, places a hand on his arm, and says to me, “Of course not. The Colonel’s just worried about defending the ship against another attack.”

  “That is no longer my concern,” I say.

  “What do you mean ‘not your concern’?” Mosby says, his volume and pitch rising. “Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of interstellar policeman?”

  “I am no longer interfaced with my fighter.”

  Mosby says, “Listen, you—” but Rosenberg drags him by the arm out into the hallway.

  They talk. I cannot quite hear, but I believe I have displeased one or both of them. I am not sure how—it was not my intention.

  Liu, who seems to avoid standing in proximity to Mosby, comes closer again now that Mosby is elsewhere. “Don’t judge all of us based on the likes of Mosby,” he says. “There’s a reason they put a civilian in charge of the expedition.”

  I don’t know who “they” refers to, but I doubt it matters. “I am not here to judge you. The only judgment I am authorized to make is to determine the legitimacy of grievance in interspecies conflict.”

  Liu does something with the muscles in his lips. “I’m sorry, it’s easy to forget you learned our language less than an hour ago. I meant that you must be forming impressions of what our species is like, and Mosby isn’t representative. Not of all of us, anyway.”

  “I will take that under consideration.”

  Rosenberg returns alone. She apologizes for Mosby’s behavior, though I would not have known he behaved inappropriately if she and Liu had not told me. Rosenberg is a leader, but not a killer, and seems to have incomplete authority over Mosby.

  “So,” Rosenberg says as she leans against the exam table next to mine. “You saved our butts out there, and now you’re stuck with us. First of all: thank you. Second, if we could impose upon you further, we could use some help navigating this region of space.”

  Now I am truly confused. “You do not know where you are going?”

  Rosenberg lets out a breath noisily. “The Brights left this ship in our home system a little over thirteen thousand years ago. When we discovered it, their recorded instructions were . . . cryptic, but the nav system came pre-programmed. We’ve been following the course they set for us, but obviously we’re having some trouble with the locals along the way.”

  Her lengthy reply does not actually answer my question. I try to rephrase it to be clearer. “What is the purpose of your journey?”

  “We’re going to Bright space. It’s not clear why they want us to come, but we couldn’t pass up an invitation like this.” She raised a hand as if to indicate the room, or perhaps the ship at large. “I’ve done some poking around in the database to learn about your species, so I know the Sheekah were allies of the Brights once. Would you consider helping them now, even if they’re not here to ask for it?”

  This surprises me. “You do not know?”

  “Know what?”

  “They are gone.”

  “Gone,” Liu interjects loudly, before Rosenberg can answer. I do not understand why he repeats the word—perhaps I misused it.

  “The Brights went extinct,” I clarify. “They developed a genetic anomaly that spread from cell to cell throughout the body, causing widespread genomic degradation, and was, like a pathogen, highly transmissible between individuals. Many Sheekah were infected trying to help them before the Ambassadorial High Council declared quarantine.”

  “Gone,” Rosenberg says and goes silent for a minute. (Does everyone need to say this word?) Something appears to be wrong with her, but I do not know what to do. Eventually, she says, “Did they know they were dying off when they left us the ship?”

  I do a little quick math, converting unfamiliar units of time based on what I gleaned from the ship’s database. “Given the age of the ship, that seems probable.”

  “I guess now we know why they named the ship Legacy.” She puts her hand over her mouth, as if to hold in the words, but I can still hear her clearly. “We have to figure out where we’re going, and why. Would you consider helping Ahmed with the database?”

  I stare, not knowing how to respond. What happens to those I protect after I enf
orce the law has never been my concern. I wonder what it would feel like to be invested in their fate, but all I can feel is the absence of metal against my skin, the ghost-memory of tentacles I no longer possess.

  “I am here,” I say dispassionately. “I will help with what I can.”

  Days pass. I interface again with the Legacy database and develop a rudimentary understanding of the systems architecture. This helps, a little, to alleviate the ache of losing my fighter and my lifepath with it. At least when my mind is occupied, I am not dwelling on how wrong everything feels. I try and fail to explain the database to the technologists, who cannot grasp the Bright way of thinking. Whole sections of the ship are offline and locked down, and I am surprised they made it this far with such limited control.

  I also learn more from the database about these humans; they live short lives, for instance, the equivalent of only nine or ten Sheekah solar cycles. I must seem ancient to them, though among the Sheekah I am considered young. They have so little time—this helps me understand why they seem so desperate to accomplish something, even if they do not know the nature of their task.

  I grow irritated with the technologists. They are always near, bothering me with questions, even though they do not generally understand the answers. After the long cycles of solitude in my fighter, I am unused to tolerating so many individuals in such close proximity. I look for something else to do.

  Instead I help the botanist, Keene, revive some of the plant species, the ones whose genomes indicate they will be harmless to humans. It is tiring but not particularly difficult work; I must grow a temporary interface with which to access the genomic database, and my body requires extra sustenance to provide the molecules with which to shape the seeds. Keene seems very pleased with the results. I care little for reviving extinct species from the Bright homeworld, but it also costs me little, so what does it matter either way? The Brights loved their botany and would not have wanted Legacy to fly with empty solaria. Indeed, from what I learned of the systems architecture, I suspect healthy solaria will prove important for restoring and optimizing certain functions elsewhere on the ship. Not that this matters to me.

  I miss my old self. I think about fixing my fighter, but I can find only some of the tools and none of the spare parts I would need for the task aboard Legacy.

  I consider ending my existence.

  I sit on a bench in the aft solarium, which remains dark and unused and skeletal. In the central solarium Keene’s seeds have begun to sprout, so I come here instead to avoid the curious visitors drawn in by the promise of green growth. Back here, if I hold very still, I can feel the subsonic hum of the main engines vibrating the hull.

  Through the geometric panes of the ceiling and walls, the stars look strangely close, as if the hull were not clear at all but rather painted with the likeness of stars. I stare into space, remembering how this view used to belong to me every hour of every cycle. It’s not the same, of course—these human eyes see such a narrow spectrum—but at least it feels familiar.

  The aft solarium doors breeze open and Liu, the psychologist, enters. I do not look away from the stars but I can tell it is him from the way his soft gait whispers on the deck. He takes a seat next to me on the bench. Humans are highly social and require near-constant interaction and stimulation when conscious.

  “How are you adjusting?” he says.

  I think my habit of sitting here alone disturbs Liu. He does not understand me at all. “I do not know if I wish to adjust.”

  “Look—I know this isn’t where you want to be, but the truth is, we could use your help here. The Legacy database is thirteen thousand years out of date and so huge we can’t find what we’re looking for most of the time anyway. We could use a guide who knows what they’re doing.”

  I lower my gaze to look at him. Humans seem to desire a quite specific quantity of eye contact while communicating—not too much, not too little—though I have not yet mastered the exact proportion. “I am not an ambassador,” I say. “I was trained to be an enforcer of the law. I cannot perform another life.”

  Liu’s brows tighten and draw together. “Life?”

  “Job,” I say, to clarify. I have not yet discerned why they have two words for this concept.

  Liu exhales forcefully and leans back against the bench, stretching his legs. If the gesture means something, it is lost on me. Humans rely heavily on nonverbal communication, much of it subconscious, and it frustrates my efforts to understand them. Or rather, it would frustrate me, if it were important for me to understand them. Which it is not. Because I think I will kill myself today.

  After a while, Liu speaks again. “In the ship’s logs, the Brights say they left us Legacy because they knew we would someday build conservatories.”

  I do not know the word. “Conservatories?”

  “Places where we cultivate plants for aesthetic value.” He points at the solarium ceiling. “The architecture usually looks something like this. Anyway, at the time when they left us the ship, humans had barely started getting a handle on agriculture. We didn’t build conservatories until thousands of years later.”

  “Are plants of great cultural significance to you now?”

  “They’re not central to our society, no. Well—Keene might argue otherwise, but most people don’t think twice about the cultural value of plants.” He lifts his shoulders in an unfamiliar gesture. “I don’t know. Maybe the Brights saw what they wanted to see in us.”

  “As you see what you want to see in me.”

  “The point is,” Liu says, “you hardly ever get the ideal situation you’re hoping for. But if you’re lucky, you find something that will suffice.”

  “I am not an ambassador,” I say again.

  “No, but you’re close enough for us.”

  Maybe I will wait until tomorrow to kill myself.

  Tomorrow comes, but the humans distract me. Over the comm, they say they have desperate need of me in the systems control room. And what does it matter if I delay another hour, another day? So I go to them.

  The systems control room lies buried deep in the ship, in one of the few areas with no view of the stars. The room itself is dimly lit and decagonal, a display and a crude manual interface affixed to each of the walls. Rosenberg and Mosby are there with Ahmed, the chief technologist, and a subordinate technologist whose name I do not recall.

  I move too quietly for them to notice my arrival. (Always, these details I cannot seem to get right. I wear human skin, but it will never fit exactly.) To announce myself, I say, “What has happened?”

  Four pairs of eyes look in my direction. As soon as they register my presence, everyone tries talking at once. Rosenberg and Mosby quickly turn on each other. These humans spend so much time arguing about what to do, it’s amazing they ever get anything done.

  Finally, the rest of them agree to quiet down so Ahmed can speak. “We’re getting power fluctuations all over the ship. Life support keeps trying to shut down—we’ve had to force a restart three times in the past fifteen minutes. No idea what’s causing it.”

  This does not surprise me. The Brights did not design their systems architecture to be solid and immutable, but rather flexible and adaptive. “I will look,” I say.

  I place my palm on an exposed patch of hardware, grow an interface, and begin sifting through the diagnostic reports. Bright diagnostics are so literal they are almost evasive—always describing what is happening, but never hinting at why. I skip past the reports and prod gently at the underlying systems, doing the command equivalent of poking life support with a stick to see if it twitches.

  Life support seems raw and hypersensitive, overreacting to stimulus. The shields seem lethargic, the main engines argumentative.

  I mentally pull back to give my analysis to the waiting humans. “Legacy is experiencing some sort of systems destabilization, possibly triggered by the introduction of plant life in the central solarium. The ship is attempting to re-evaluate resource allocation and r
e-integrate, but systems integration seems to require guidance.” For clarity, I add, “Guidance from a Bright engineer.”

  Predictably, Mosby wants to know if the power to the main cannon can be restored, and Rosenberg starts arguing about prioritization. Humans are a confrontational and violent people, whatever Liu might say to the contrary. Perhaps I understand this better than any trained ambassador could. Sometimes I even see a little of myself in them. Were I still an enforcer, would I not take great care to restore my weapons systems? Of course I would.

  But I tell him, “Systems integration is a very complicated process. I most likely will not be able to complete it at all, let alone to your desired specifications.”

  This silences them. They all stare at me, wide-eyed. Have I somehow misspoken? In a situation like this, am I supposed to ply them with false hope instead of giving an honest status report?

  I do not know the Brights the way an ambassador would; I am too young to even have spoken to anyone with first-hand knowledge of the Brights. I have only a superficial understanding of their thought patterns, and this is a task best reserved for someone who truly knew them. If not for a Bright itself.

  I cannot do what the humans expect of me. And yet, I must try.

  I close my eyes to block the stimulus so I can delve deeper. Soon, I can visualize the interconnected web of the ship’s systems, each hub enmeshed among the others as if held in place with thick, pulsing vines. The offline sectors and systems appear marooned and dark, disconnected from the vital flow of the web.

  Concentrating, I examine the systems more closely. Here: movement, change. And here, and here. Everywhere I scrutinize, the deep structural connections are unraveling, senescing, peeling away like flower petals destined to be supplanted with fruit. It is a process I understand only with academic distance—from my examination of plant genomes, not from personal experience. Still, I recognize the patterns as organic design, organic thinking. Only the Brights would build a ship as convoluted and self-referential as a genome.