_-* Tasks Remaining: 270 *-_
“Hello there,” a voice says.
I leap to my feet, hand to my chest. “You scared me, Kodiak.”
“Still staring moodily out into space while you think about your sister, I see,” he says. “Come on, you’re going for a run.”
I look longingly out into space. Sometime soon, Saturn will come into view. Minerva will come into view. But not for weeks. I nod.
“Running really fast is like the Dimokratía version of psychotherapy, huh?” I say as we head into the Aurora.
I get on the treadmill and fiddle with the knot on the elastic, but it’s at an awkward angle. My spine is definitely not happy with what I’m trying to do.
“Hold still,” Kodiak says. He attaches a carabiner to my shorts. The backs of his fingers run along my hip, the skin of my abdomen. “Have you really never worked out this way?”
“It’s not like there’s no gravity on board,” I say. “This strapping-into-a-treadmill thing is all a little too Dimokratía-tough-guy, if you ask me.”
“But don’t you want to strain against something instead of sitting around worrying about your sister? Never mind, all done.” He steps back to take in his handiwork. “Try now.”
Without warning, he presses start on the treadmill. I stagger into a walking pace, arms flailing. Kodiak chuckles.
It’s like there are strong hands pulling me down. Not fighting me, but begging me to rest instead of struggle, to lie down with them. Kodiak might be onto something—it feels nice to fight something. “I think I can see the appeal,” I huff.
“Breathless already?” Kodiak asks. “You should come use my treadmill more often.”
“Okay, okay, let’s all settle down,” I say.
“Still thinking about her?” he asks.
As I walk forward, the stars continue to wheel behind the window of the revolving ship. It’s like I’m marching into a moving target. Like I’m the one making the ship move. “You’re referring to my marooned sister, waiting for us all alone on Titan? Yeah. I’m still thinking about her.”
“Yes,” Kodiak says. “That must be hard.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. The unaccustomed sympathy. “Look, if there’s anyone who’s not going to let herself be found dead, it’s Minerva Cusk,” I say briskly.
Kodiak nods. “I would like someday for people to say such a thing about Kodiak Celius.”
“You are pretty sturdy,” I say, wincing. Awkward.
Kodiak taps a button, and my walk turns into a run.
“Your heart rate has risen to the optimal zone for cardiovascular improvement,” OS says.
“Thank you,” I puff. “Everyone’s looking out for my health. It’s, um, very reassuring.”
“OS,” Kodiak says, positioning himself so he’s in the narrow space between the treadmill and the window, so he can look into my eyes as he speaks. Now I have the inspiration of wheeling stars and blue-black hair, starlight glinting on brow. “Let’s try this again. OS, what can you tell us about the offline room inside the Aurora?”
I give him a sharp look. We haven’t discussed openly broaching this issue again with OS.
“I have a programmed blindness toward that room, and Rover cannot reach it, either. I would like you to allow Rover access, so it can be returned to its original state,” OS says.
Kodiak presses a button. I start running harder to keep from falling. “We know that,” Kodiak says. “What I’m asking is how it came to be.”
“It was a mistake,” OS says. “I should not be blind toward any part of the ship. That is dangerous.”
“Sure. Got it. But who made the mistake?”
“It was long before you began serving on this ship.”
“How long?”
“You need not worry about this.”
“Hey, personal trainer, how about we don’t push it,” I say to Kodiak. “I don’t think OS wants to talk about this right now.”
Kodiak hits the button to make me run faster.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 245 *-_
Kodiak hasn’t shown up for mealtime. I’ve already heated him up a manicotti and everything. I break our usual rules and carry Kodiak’s cooling food through the Endeavor, up through the zero g and into the Aurora.
“Kodiak?” I call as I wander through.
The spaceship is like an empty hotel. Eeriness is always there waiting, rising to the surface the moment we depart from our routines. I go up on my tiptoes as I step through his ship. “Kodiak?”
Space hums back.
I turn the corner of the blind room and there he is, hunched over the receiver, headphones on his ears.
“Kodiak?” I say. If he’s heard me, there’s no sign.
I ease around him, so my feet are in his view. He sees my toes and, so quickly that he must have done it on reflex, he’s laid his palm on the top of my foot.
He nods to the floor beside him. I lower my ass to the ground, sitting cross-legged so his hand is pinned between my foot and thigh. He looks up at me, face slack and eyes glazed. “What is it?” I mouth.
Kodiak removes one of the headphones and places it over my ear. He hovers that hand over the dial, as if to keep the signal tuned in through force of will.
There’s a voice, but it’s nearly impossible to make out. I put my hands over my ears and close my eyes. Now I can understand the words. A mechanical voice. No attempt at a voice skin.
“—ansmission 6,340,108. 8.5069° S, 115.2625° E. Please respond. I will trek to this location every one hundred and eighty days to look for answers. Am I alone here? Tell me if I am not alone. 13:40:57, March 11, 8102 Common Era. Transmission 6,340,109. 8.5069° S, 115.2625° E. Please respond. I will trek to this location every one hundred and eighty days to look for answers. Am I alone here? Tell me if I am not alone. 13:41:19, March 11, 8102 Common Era. Transmission 6,340,110—”
I remove the headphone. “What the hell is this?”
“I’ve been listening to it for the last half hour,” Kodiak says. “I still don’t know. It hasn’t changed, except for the numbers ticking up. I timed it, by the way. They’re going up in real time.”
“It’s clearly some automated transmission,” I say. “An emergency beacon.”
“Do you think it could be from Minerva?” Kodiak asks.
I hadn’t even considered that, which makes me realize my gut answer is no. “Knowing my sister, I think she’d use her own voice,” I say. “And those coordinates don’t reflect any location on Titan.”
“Sure,” Kodiak says, avoiding my eyes.
My scalp tingles. It’s suddenly freezing in here. “And the dates . . .”
Kodiak nods, searching my eyes.
“The dates . . . ,” I try to continue.
“Come from almost six thousand years in the future.”
“. . . which means someone is playing a prank on us,” I say.
Kodiak nods, relief flooding his face. “It’s the only explanation I could come up with, too.”
“I mean, any asshole with a transmitter can send whatever they want into space.”
“That is unfortunately true,” OS adds, its voice passing in from outside the blind room. “I agree that there is nothing to worry about here.”
I catch Kodiak’s eye. We’ve kept our voices a bare whisper. We’d assumed that there was no such thing as privacy from OS, even in the blind room. Now we have confirmation.
Two missing suits. Forgotten launches. A broken violin bridge. A blind room with a jury-rigged receiver, sending us “broadcasts” from a post-civilization—and maybe post-human—future.
I look at Kodiak, taking solace in the warmth of the hand that’s still on top of my foot. At least you’re real.
“Kodiak,” I say. He looks at me, fear in his eyes. What I’ve come to realize is the Kodiak version of fear; I would once have mistaken it for anger. “I . . .”
His shirt is motionless over the planes of his chest. He’s holding his breath. I wond
er if he realizes he’s not breathing. I point to the pouch on the floor beside me. “I brought you manicotti.”
Kodiak sees it, then stares up at me steadily, as if trying to measure just how crazy I am. Then he takes in a big breath and cracks a smile, shaking his head. “You know I like the manicotti.”
I nudge the polycarb pouch closer to him. “I do.”
He takes the pouch, passing it from hand to hand, testing its heat. While he begins to eat, I try to figure out what to say next. It’s all so impossible. How can I know anything is real? There’s no good answer to that.
“OS, what year is it?” I ask.
“You have been on your voyage for nine months and twenty-four days. Adding that to your departure date makes this year 2472 on Earth.”
“We have . . . information that seems to indicate that the year is—what is it again, Kodiak?”
“Eighty-one-zero-two,” Kodiak says around a mouthful of manicotti.
“Eighty-one-zero-two. And that few people are still alive on Earth. Maybe no one? Is that true?”
“My information sources indicate that it is not currently true, no.”
“But it might be true in the future?”
“That is possible, of course. Any arrangement of molecules is possible. Knowing that, are you still dedicated to accomplishing the mission’s directive, Spacefarer Cusk?” OS asks. My mother’s tone is studied, neutral. Ominously formal.
I pause. I have to choose my words carefully.
Unfortunately, Kodiak is the next to speak. “I’m not so sure.”
“We’re sure,” I say quickly.
“What even is the directive?” Kodiak asks, casting his pouch to one side.
“To rescue Minerva Cusk,” OS answers.
“Rescue her or investigate her death, you mean,” Kodiak says.
“I detect suspicion in your vocal register. That I choose to frame your mission in terms that will positively influence your morale does not mean that I’m engaging in deceit.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” I say, shooting Kodiak a harsh look.
“I don’t think you have a good explanation for what we just heard, OS,” Kodiak says.
“Do you have a good explanation for what you just heard?” OS asks.
Kodiak shakes his head.
“I suggest you put it out of your mind, then,” OS says.
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Kodiak grumbles as he returns to his dinner.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 80 *-_
At first, it felt like I had to cajole Kodiak into spending time with me. Now, the mounting strangenesses of our voyage have drawn him close. He finishes his morning runs in my half of the ship, watching the wheeling stars through the giant window of 06.
Then he starts dropping in when he’s not even on his morning run. Once, I’m lying in my sleeping chamber, thinking about his thighs and calves filling his jumpsuit, when I hear steps in the next room over. I scramble to cover myself in a sheet before he comes in.
“Good afternoon, shipmate,” he says.
“Hey,” I squeak. I tent my knees, so that there’s no evidence of what I was up to.
He leans against the doorway. “I was just poking through the ship, trying to see if I could figure out anything new. Did you notice the wall surface around the yellow portal?”
I sit up straight, then realize what I’ve revealed and return to my slouch. “I have!” I say. “Could you give me, um, I sort of need a sec.”
His eyes wander down my body, then he launches off the doorframe so hard that he bounces off the other side. “Oh! Sorry. Yes. I’ll be over there, um, over somewhere.” He staggers out of the room.
I chuckle to myself as I get dressed. This wasn’t that unusual a situation back in the Cusk Academy. But I gather that the group barracks in Dimokratía were a different sort of place. I wonder what Kodiak would do with the information that it was him I’d been thinking about.
I find him before the yellow portal, tapping the wall around it. “Hi,” he says without looking at me. His face is still flushed. “So this is unusual, right, this discoloration?”
“The ship could have launched with a repaired portal. And missing two spacesuits.”
“And with an off-grid blind room,” Kodiak finishes. “Sure it could have. It could also be powered by a pod of narwhals.”
“Did you just make a joke, Spacefarer Kodiak Celius?” I ask.
He jumps into the zero g, floating before the portal while he taps the wall. “It even sounds different,” he reports. “Softer and thinner.” He presses his fingertips into the surface. They leave dents that slowly plump back out.
I jump up to float beside him. “I think you’re right.”
“OS, open the yellow portal,” Kodiak calls.
“There is no need for you to access the engine room right now. For your safety, I will not allow you in.”
Suddenly Kodiak reaches back and punches the wall. The impact is great enough to send him shooting across the open space. He kicks off the orange portal and returns to the yellow.
“Spacefarer Celius, I cannot allow you to damage the ship,” OS says. Rover has appeared, arms outstretched, waving in invisible currents.
“Noted,” Kodiak says. He rears back and punches again.
“Holy shit!” I say, wisely.
“Spacefarer Celius,” OS warns.
Rover zips nearer, flailing its arms.
“Keep Rover away,” Kodiak barks at me as he floats back to the yellow portal and again slams his fist into the surrounding wall. This time it shatters, polymers tinkling to the ground. While Rover zips in his direction, Kodiak lifts himself up into the opening, avoiding the yellow portal entirely by shimmying one shoulder and then the other into the organs of the ship.
“What are you doing?” I cry as Kodiak disappears to the waist. Rover continues its approach. I move to block it, holding on to the handle of the yellow portal so my body is in the robot’s way. “Stop,” I say.
But Rover does not stop. It skirts right up to me and reaches out an arm. Before I know what’s happening, an arc of blue light zaps me.
The jolt hits me right on the forehead. My mind is all noise and ferocious, prying light. I lose track of the next seconds, then come to in gravity, on the ground. Rover is midway up the wall, like a demon in some exorcism reel, one arm toward me and the other in the direction of the broken wall. Kodiak has disappeared into the ship’s interior.
“OS,” I call, “disengage Rover.”
“For your own safety, I cannot allow you to compromise the ship’s integrity.”
“You just shocked me!”
“I did.”
“Kodiak, stay up there, Rover’s right below,” I warn.
“Not a problem,” Kodiak calls down, his voice echoing tinnily. He’s far off inside the ship. “Are you coming?”
“I don’t think Rover is a fan of that idea.” As if to emphasize my words, it taps its little robot claws. I wonder how many volts it can channel into those shocks, if what I received was just a warning.
“I’m heading toward the engine,” Kodiak says. “I might not be able to get my shoulders through some of these spaces. Hold on, I’m going to find a route around.”
“Be careful!” I call after him, before leveling my focus on Rover. “OS, is there some reason that you needed to print a new frame for the yellow portal?”
“The ship mechanicals aren’t designed for human habitation. Only in the very center of the engine is there sufficient radiation shielding. Kodiak is endangering himself needlessly by exploring in there. You should convince him to return.”
I consider what to say next. “I think you’re right, OS. I want to convince him to turn back. But it’s hard from down here. How about you get Rover to stand down, so that I can go bring Kodiak back.”
I hear a distant banging, and watery splashes. Dockyard sounds. “There’s a cistern of some sort back here,” Kodiak shouts. He’s far away indeed. A chill runs ov
er me.
“You shouldn’t go any farther,” I call, softly enough that I hope Kodiak can’t hear me, loudly enough that OS shouldn’t find it suspicious.
“I want to bring him back,” I tell OS when Kodiak doesn’t reply. “Please let me.”
“You may go,” my mother’s voice says.
It gives me a surprising tremor of guilt, to lie to her voice like this. But here’s Rover zipping along the wall, heading out of the room. Leaving me alone.
The yellow portal opens.
I click on my headlamp and slither in, moving shoulder by shoulder and hip by hip. “I’m on my way, Kodiak!” I call. If he got his broad shoulders through here, I can pass.
“Take your time,” he calls back. “I don’t want you hurting yourself. And besides, there’s something . . .”
“Something what?” I call.
No answer.
I free myself of the wires, and by thinking about Kodiak waiting for me manage to continue floating forward instead of backing out.
“It’s pretty cold in here, huh?” I call.
There’s still no answer.
Whenever I pause in the open air, the chill draws down around me. I wish I could pull my body up alongside Kodiak’s. That we could keep each other warm.
As I float closer to the engine, I train my headlamp on its smooth surfaces. Deep in the center of the cylinder, shielded by its thick metal, is what looks almost like an old-fashioned dry cleaner’s rack, a circular rail with polycarb-wrapped bags draped along it. Each is filled with something bulbous and weighty. Meaty.
Kodiak’s in front, facing away from me. “Is everything okay?” I call.
“Don’t come any nearer,” he says. “Stop.”
“Why?” I ease closer.
My feet scuff against some object in the zero gravity. I’m surrounded by small globes of an oily fluid. I work my way forward cautiously, to Kodiak’s side.
A face.
“By the lords,” I exclaim. “What is that?”
“It’s . . . you,” Kodiak whispers.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. All the same, my hair stands on end as I look closer.
It’s a body wrapped in polycarb, sealed in its juices, mouth open and eyes sunken and closed. It is the exact size of me. Without Kodiak’s steady presence, I might have run screaming away. But he’s clearly been staring at this thing for a while and doesn’t show any sign of fear. Just horror.
The Darkness Outside Us Page 14