by C. Gockel
“Happy thoughts,” said 6T9.
Time Gate 1 chuckled. “You can connect to Bracelet or James anytime you want. But 6T9, a warning—not all the gates believe the Dark is dangerous to us, and not all gates keep their servers secure.”
6T9 translated that—not all androids’ thoughts were necessarily “private.” Before he could dwell on it, another consciousness met him in the mindscape. “6T9!” Bracelet exclaimed. “Oh, you have an avatar! I want one, too!” The mindscape in front of 6T9 shimmered, and he was staring at Volka, and she was staring at nothing. She was semi-translucent, like a ghost. He had a moment of blinding panic. Was this some sort of code, a eulogy? “Bracelet, what has happened to Volka?”
“She’s fine!” chirped Bracelet from the Ghost Volka’s wrist. 6T9’s Q-comm fired and his eyebrows hiked. Bracelet had made her avatar herself and Volka. He supposed it made sense. Without Volka, Bracelet didn’t have feet. She had, he noticed, made herself especially shiny on Ghost Volka’s wrist.
“Ahem,” Bracelet said. “I’m down here.”
6T9 hadn’t realized his eyes had shifted back to Volka’s face. Bracelet had lit it from below, as though Volka held a candle. Her eyes glowed faintly, though the upper half of her face was indistinct and shadowed. He wanted to focus on those features, to fill in the details with his own memories, but, with difficulty, 6T9 looked down at Bracelet, and then he had an idea.
“Bracelet, maybe the three of us—Volka, you, and I—can have a conversation?” He thought of all the Marines around her. “Maybe a private conversation?”
“Ooh! Yes, give me a minute.” Bracelet’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ll ask her very quietly.”
6T9’s eyes rose to the eyes of Ghost Volka, and he remembered the kiss in the kitchen. His sensory receptors fired at the memory of her body next to his, and where their bodies had touched, for a moment, he was warm.
“Sixty?” Volka’s voice filled the mindscape, and suddenly her features were distinct and clear. She was bowed over him, as though his head were laying on her lap—exactly what Bracelet would see if Volka held the device up to her face. She’d taken off her helmet, also… “You’re in the bathroom?” he asked. Volka rubbed an ear tiredly. “Bracelet said you wanted privacy. It’s nice to hear your voice.”
She didn’t sound happy, despite that comment.
“No sign of the ships?” he guessed.
She shook her head. “Sundancer has taken us a few places...they were all...dark...and empty and cold. The scientists said it was the very edges of the universe. She is very sad, hurt that she keeps disappointing us, I think. She keeps projecting an image of a fisher-ptery over still water. Sometimes a fish leaps, and the ptery dives after it where the ripples start and finds it at the bottom. But then the imagery repeats, and the pond is smooth, and the fisher-ptery just circles aimlessly over the water.”
“They left too long ago,” 6T9 said. “She can’t follow the ripples in time.”
Volka’s lips formed a grim line. “That’s what Carl says. I’ve heard outside the universe there is no time, and I wonder why we can’t just leave it and find them. If there is no time, doesn’t everything happen at once? Aren’t they still in the process of free-gating forever and ever, and shouldn’t she be able to find them?” Her ears curled back sadly.
“I’m not sure if that is a question for philosophers or physicists or both.” His Q-comm was humming white and warm. “Fisher-pterys are creatures of air that can dive into water. Maybe Sundancer is a creature of time that can only briefly dive beyond it?”
Volka’s ears perked and she gazed down in rapt attention. “The edge of the universe, where we are now, is sort of like the edge of the pond of time, isn’t it? I like that explanation.”
“Metaphors are inherently fallacies,” Bracelet complained. “I don’t think—”
6T9 cut the machine off. “Bracelet, it’s beyond all our computing power. We have to make do with metaphors for now.”
“It’s inaccurate,” Bracelet huffed.
Volka rubbed Bracelet’s side, bit her lip, looked away, and closed her eyes. “Fifty ships, Sixty. Fifty free-gating ships filled with infected scientists who can build more ships.”
“Free-gating…You’ve coined a new phrase,” 6T9 said, trying to say something that wasn’t dismal.
Volka didn’t smile. Closing her eyes, she bowed over Bracelet. “It was all for nothing. We rescued Okoro, and it didn’t matter. We went to the research facilities, and it didn’t matter. We failed, Sixty.”
For a moment, his circuits went dark, but then his Q-comm sparked. “We did not fail! Nothing we have done was for nothing, Volka.”
Lifting her eyes, she blinked at him.
“Volka,” he whispered. “We saved Okoro and we saved Central. Okoro would have died on Shinar. Central would have died right here—completely unknown…” He blinked. His hands went to his torso, and he felt the weight of Eliza’s ashes beneath his suit. No one would have mourned Central. They never would have known that she existed. The idea made his circuits go briefly offline.
“That would be terrible, about Okoro…and especially about Central,” Volka said, sparking his circuits. “No one would have even known she’d even been alive.” The words echoed his own thoughts, but she said them without any feeling.
His Q-comm fired. “Volka, we have saved the two minds in the universe most likely to understand how Reich achieved gateless travel. Okoro has the understanding. Central has the data. There will be a Q-comm among the ships in the squadron on their way here. Central and Okoro will be connected very soon.”
Volka’s ears came forward.
“Volka, we saved hope,” he assured her, and saying the words, he heard the truth in them, and actually smiled.
She smiled back…tentatively.
His smile turned wry. “Also, coming here, we’ve let the Republic know the danger. They know to be on guard for ships that appear suddenly out of nowhere. They do keep track of who goes through gates, and they’ll be able to cross-reference any ships that arrive at ports and know where they came from.”
“They keep track of ships that cross through public gates, but not private gates,” Bracelet supplied with unhelpful cheer.
Volka scowled, but then 6T9’s external sensors flashed. He found himself looking away from her, as though he could see the source of the disturbance in the mindscape.
“What’s wrong?” Volka asked.
In the mindscape “Happy Birthday” began to play.
He scowled. “It’s the malfunctioning ColdSWEEPER ‘bot. Give me a moment.” He was barely aware of her nodding as he brought his focus back to the mechanical room. Hovering in the door, ColdSWEEPER was holding the severed torso of an enormous space suit in its pincer arms.
Finishing up the song, it declared, “I found you, Jocelyn. Now it’s your turn to find me!”
Humming cheerfully, ColdSWEEPER dropped the torso on a worktable and hovered over to a cabinet. “Now I just have to administer the antidote—”
“Antidote?” 6T9 demanded. He noted that where the arms and legs of the suit had been severed there was an airtight seal. The helmet of the suit was still attached, and the inside was frosted over.
ColdSWEEPER swiveled to him. “She’s been administered a proprietary hibernation serum that has allowed her body to safely drop to 1 C. The antidote will slowly revive her as I charge up the suit and warm it to an acceptable temperature.”
Ripping the hardlink from Central and forcing himself to his feet, 6T9 creaked toward the damaged suit. He peered into a bit of the helmet not coated in frost. There was a tiny child inside, her head turned to the side. Her skin was deathly sallow, but her eyelids were gently closed, as in sleep. Her hands clutched a much-loved stuffed pink bunny.
“She’s alive?” 6T9 gasped.
“Oh, yes,” said ColdSWEEPER.
6T9 stared into the damaged envirosuit, and sure enough, saw a half a millimeter of frost creep up the insi
de of the helmet with the slow, minuscule exhale of the child’s breath. His Q-comm hummed white. The suit hadn’t been damaged, it had been modified. Her parents, or someone who cared, had detached the arms and legs so that it would use less power so that it could keep her at 1 C for a little bit longer than it would have been able to with the added mass of legs and arms.
6T9 reached out over the ether and pinged everyone. “There is a survivor. A child in an envirosuit. There may be more.” He touched the surface of the suit. It was bulkier than the one 6T9 wore and as cold as the room, holding all its precious heat inside. “There will be no heat signatures. Anyone within will be in a hibernation state, life signs hard to detect.” He sent all the visual data on Jocelyn to the team, and Young said, “We saw a family suited up a click back—we thought they were dead.”
“I saw a kid,” said Ramirez.
With cold, unsteady hands, 6T9 jacked into the suit with the hardlink he’d used for Central. The child’s suit was at 25 percent charge. “Get to them as fast as you can; their suits will be running out of power.”
“We’ll sweep back through the areas we’ve secured,” Young replied. “See if Central can help in regions where she’s got visual sensors.”
“Right,” 6T9 said. To ColdSWEEPER, he said, “Do not revive her yet.”
The ‘bot, hovering toward him with a needle in its pincers, said, “Yes, sir.”
6T9’s Q-comm fired. “I bet you know all the best hide and seek places.”
“I do, sir!” ColdSWEEPER whistled. “Even ones outside the normal game parameters.” The machine swept closer to 6T9 and whispered, “Sometimes the older children found the confines of the mechanical room too limiting. I never told on them when they went places they weren’t supposed to go. I like finding people.”
The machine had no idea what had gone on here. But if anyone survived, it would be because of ColdSWEEPER. “Other children are playing hide and seek with their parents. Maybe even people who’ve never joined the game before. Go find them, ColdSWEEPER.”
Instead of leaving, the machine whirred in the air toward Jocelyn.
“She’ll be fine,” 6T9 said.
“You do have a great deal of experience in medical care,” ColdSWEEPER said but didn’t move. Did it have a special connection to the child? Even a machine like ColdSWEEPER learned by experience. Had something she’d done reprogrammed it?
“I’ll be sure she stays safe,” 6T9 added.
“If she wakes up—” ColdSWEEPER said.
“I will call you. I know she will want you to sing her ‘Happy Birthday,’” 6T9 said. She’d need a familiar face—or machine. “Go find any others.”
Whirling to the door, ColdSWEEPER took off.
6T9 looked down at the girl one more time. Despite her sallow skin, and wispy, disheveled dark hair, she was beautiful—perfect, in fact. Or maybe it was just the shock of finding such a fragile life here that made her seem especially precious. He carried the child back to the outlet and jacked her suit in to recharge it.
And then he reached out to Bracelet. His mind passed through the gray of the mindscape in a flash, and he was staring up at Volka again. She hadn’t left the aft compartment and was staring down at Bracelet, her lips parted.
Before she could ask, he said, “We found a survivor. A child.”
Volka’s eyes went wide, her ears came forward, and her jaw dropped.
6T9 relayed the visual data from his eidetic memory. “Show her, Bracelet.”
Holo light flickered across Volka’s face. “We’re coming back, now. I don’t care what sort of argument the scientists are having!” Tears shone in the corners of her eyes. Volka was a slayer of deer, pirates, Guardsmen, and the infected of any age and species. She was also the protector of lost children. Not just little Jocelyn, but also BOY4 aboard the Copperhead, the child they’d protected during the riot on New Grande, the children who’d moved into her house on Luddeccea, and FET12.
Volka was both deadly and a protector of the most innocent…was it really a contradiction?
“Thank you, Sixty, for reminding me that there is hope.” She bit her lip. “Oh, she is beautiful. We will be there soon. I will see you soon.” She vanished.
Central spoke across the hardlink. “I have re-established connection with one of our orbiting satellites. Galactic Fleet vessels are approaching…and your strange vessel has arrived.”
6T9’s circuits sparked as he thought of being reunited with Volka again. Young pinged the local team via the ether. “Bringing the family into the mechanical room. I think they might be alive.”
6T9’s circuits lit—he was happy—even though he knew that he was going to be too busy to be reunited with Volka for a long while.
It was hours before Volka saw Sixty again.
Fleet brought a small medical shuttle with them, and the Marines had to take all the survivors aboard. Then they all had to go through decon.
When Fleet finally attached the plastitubing to Sundancer’s hull, Volka found herself peering down through the opening on Sundancer’s bridge. Sundancer and the med shuttle were orbiting Reich’s planet. Farther from System 5’s sun than Pluto was from Sol, it was very dark outside, and the plastitubing was a dark gray splotch below Sundancer’s pearly white hull.
“At last, Carl,” she said into the werfle’s mind. The werfle was asleep on her arm, still in his sausage suit. He only snored in response. Volka yawned, despite herself. “How long has it been since I’ve had a full night’s sleep?” she murmured.
“I can give you a packet of instant coffee if you want?” said Jerome.
Volka was about to politely decline, but Bracelet shouted, “Don’t touch it!” with the same sort of alarm Volka normally associated with, “He’s got a phaser!”
Volka blinked. Rhinehart cocked her head. Jerome’s eyebrows shot up.
Bracelet sniffed. “You haven’t slept since Luddeccea. Caffeine won’t help that. If I had a carbon-based operating system like yours, I would go back to the aft compartment and shut down immediately.”
Catching the brief shimmer of an envirosuit emerging from the Nightingale, Volka said, “But I can’t go to sleep now. Here they come.”
There were some mutters of “finally,” as though the guys aboard had been put out by the others’ absence, but there was no feeling behind the word. It was a lame joke. The feeling around her from the Marines was a…heaviness…it sat between Volka’s shoulders. She didn’t quite understand it.
The person emerging from the med shuttle kicked off the other ship’s deck. They were fully suited, and she couldn’t make out their face in the darkness between the ships. Her visor was up, but from here, they smelled like everyone on the team and no one in particular. Another shimmer appeared, and another. They floated in slow motion toward Sundancer. A hand fell on Volka’s shoulder and a weight of emotion she didn’t expect…was it concern? “Give ‘em room,” said Rhinehart.
The heaviness of feeling didn’t match the words. Volka backed up, and the first of the away team reached Sundancer. He put his hands on the bridge and then pulled himself up, like a person pulling themselves out of a swimming pool. His face was turned away from Volka, but she thought it might be Ramirez because whoever it was smelled more like him than anyone else. As two more of the away team pulled themselves up, she inhaled, instinctively, trying to find out…and then wavered on her feet.
She knew she was aboard Sundancer. She knew Rhinehart was right behind her, and Carl was in her arms. She could see the shining suited men launching themselves up onto the bridge...but she also saw bodies, frosted over, crumpled on the floors of long dark corridors. She saw other bodies frozen upright, with expressions of pain and fear on their faces. The bridge dimmed, or maybe it was just her heart. The Marines were bringing with them the memories of the Reich compound. Somebody said, “You’ve been holding us up!” The words were shocking, incongruous with the feelings of the speaker. She blinked at the man and heard him say, “Snap out of i
t, Ramirez, come on,” though his lips weren’t moving.
“I remember seeing my first dead kid,” said Rhinehart. Volka looked over her shoulder at the woman. “Wish I could think of a good joke, damn it. Poor suckers.” The words were in Rhinehart’s voice, but they hadn’t been spoken aloud.
Volka released a shaky breath. She was telepathically hearing and seeing the thoughts of the people around her. Volka tried to focus on what was real, and what was just telepathy, and couldn’t. Maybe she should have gone back to the aft compartment and slept. She scrunched her eyes shut and saw the perfect little girl with the bunny Sixty had shown her, but this time the little girl was lying on a medical bed. She still had the bunny, though. One of the huge robots she’d seen in Jerome’s tablet was hovering beside her, though it didn’t seem to be a medical robot. There was a family too, similarly asleep, and feelings that were…bitter and sweet, prideful and sorrowful and—
“Volka?”
Sixty’s voice cut through her mental clamor like a cool breeze. She opened her eyes and found him standing close. His helmet was on, but his visor was up so she could see—and more importantly—smell him. His hands were on her upper arms, and she felt the weight of them, but not of any emotions tied to them. She exhaled, and maybe even smiled a little. She was dazed with all the voices and images she’d just seen. “You’re back.”
The bridge was noisy now, and he dropped his helmet, so it just barely clicked against hers—to be heard, or just to be close. “Yes.” She inhaled deeply and only smelled him, not other people’s feelings, and she sighed because she was happy and relieved.
James’s voice rolled between them. “Volka, we need to go back to Gate 1.”
“Yes, of—”
Behind her, someone said, “adorable little pink bunny just like Mr. Bernie. I think I still have him somewhere, or maybe I left him with my mom. Argh, I’ll probably cry if she threw him out—” Volka froze. Had she heard that? No, a pink bunny was involved—it must have been someone’s mental monologue, although Marines sometimes could be more forthright about that sort of thing.