“Sphexa, raise lights to seven.”
Ash carefully lowers his backpack to the now-brighter floor and starts pulling things from it: pliers, loops of cable, wire cutters, microcontrollers; mostly from his own workshop, a few “borrowed” from his dad’s. His hopes are confirmed as he starts carefully severing the plastic encasing the animatronic’s upper forward leg joint. The T-connectors and needle valves he needs are mostly already there, articulated and ready to go, if dusty from disuse since the ride shut down and the Stego stopped making its plodding way back to and from the waterhole.
All he has to do is feed wires into the right places, sealing them in places with dabs of insulated putty, winding them up towards the dinosaur’s knobby head.
“Message from Mei,” Sphexa reports archly. “It’s okay if you’ve changed your mind.”
Mei had nearly cried with happiness when he’d asked them to prom, but had flip-flopped between anxiety and despair ever since, making lists of everything that could go wrong. They’d never exactly fit in, the two of them, the trans kid and the immigrant. Especially not since Mei had come out. Ash could guess what some of the stuff on Mei’s lists was: the glances in the hallway, the jackasses trying to flip up their skirt, being shoved at the water fountain. He got his fair share of it too. The Sphero that went into making Sphexa had been his before someone kicked it down the hallway, snapping it in half.
“Sphexa, reply. Send link to playlist, ‘Cretaceous Rock.’”
“Message sent. Reply from Mei: ‘Hah, hah.’”
Sphexa hovers overhead as he works, the minutes ticking by. As he suspected, the Stego’s skull is mostly empty, its mechanics concentrated in the joints. Ash pulls himself up onto the dinosaur’s back, brushing cobwebs from between its raised plates — a staggered line of them, not paired, totally inaccurate for S. Ungulatus. At least it makes it easy to find a seat.
“Okay, Sphexa,” he says. “Get in there.”
Tablet in hand, he makes minute course corrections on the touchscreen as the robot levers itself into the hollow skull, clicking free of its drone frame. Ash leans forward to plug the final jacks into the ports on Sphexa’s back. Rotors click and valves piston as the connections light up one by one, a whirring hum he can feel through the automaton’s thick plastic hide. The Stegosaurus shifts, lifting one huge foot and then another, testing its restored — and expanded — mobility. Elation warms his chest.
“GPS active,” Sphexa says. “Add destination.”
“Mei’s place.”
“Would you like to add another stop? Suggestion based on calendar: school.”
“Not yet.” Ash pats the dinosaur’s neck. “Let’s go get Mei. Then we’ll see where they want to go.”
He twists his earbuds up into place, tucking them in firmly, and taps the tablet. “Oh, and Sphexa? Play ‘Walk the Dinosaur.’”
This story was first published in ROBOT DINOSAURS! (2018).
Nibedita Sen is a Hugo, Nebula, and Astounding Award-nominated queer Bengali writer from Kolkata, and a graduate of Clarion West 2015 whose fiction and essays have appeared in venues such as Uncanny, Podcastle, Nightmare and Fireside. She lives in NYC with her boo and their sweet, flatulent old cat, enjoys puns and potatoes, and is nearly always hungry. Hit her up on Twitter at @her_nibsen, where she can usually be found yelling about food, anime, and what she’s currently reading.
Content notes can be found at the end of the book.
The Frequency of Compassion
by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
Kaityn Falk loves the dark phase of the moon. It’s quiet. Soothing. Insulated in their spacesuit, comm dimmed, Kaityn sits in the rover and watches the sky. Here on Io 7, a newly discovered satellite in retrograde orbit around a dwarf planet the size of Pluto, they are the only living human in several thousand lightyears. They are here to establish research beacons for star-charting, a risky job for how isolated it is — and Kaityn hasn’t loved anything this much in their life. The exhilaration of travel, the calmness of deep space, the possibility of an ever-unfolding universe.
“Daydreaming again?”
The onboard nav AI, Horatio, is the exception to Kaityn’s preference for silence. Developed with multi-faceted personality modes to stem off homesickness and loner’s fright, the AI is Kaityn’s co-pilot, research assistant, and friend.
“Just dreams,” they reply. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we evolved in a way to survive vacuum and could sail around without spacesuits?”
“Technically, I already can,” Horatio says.
Kaityn laughs. “When I was a kid I wanted to grow giant dragonfly wings in order to zip around in zero-G. I guess hyperdrive is close enough.”
The vast scope of sky, its silken blackness, rocks Kaityn in a serene, wordless lullaby. These few hours between the rotation from dark to light on Io 7 are theirs, and they bask in the solitude. There are plenty of other taxing, long-distance meetings and digital paperwork to dull their enthusiasm of being in space, on the rim of the Milky Way. This time is theirs.
In another two weeks, they will begin the trip to Mars HQ to reorient and decompress from a six-month shift. Kaityn sighs. They don’t like thinking about the inevitable burst of human interaction they will have to bear for half a year before they can travel again.
“You seem melancholy,” Horatio says. The AI’s voice is warm against Kaityn’s ears inside their helmet. “Is something distressing you?”
“Just thinking about how little time we have left on this shift.”
Kaityn is autistic and hyperempathic. When they were young — before they knew they were agender, before they had words for why they always felt so keenly for everyone around them — they coped badly. So much sound, so much light, so many shades of emotion. It was the promise of cold, isolated quiet in space that drew them to the Galactic Exploration for Peace agency. GEP needed people willing to risk the vast expanse on the edges of known space.
Out here, Kaityn can breathe. They can serve humanity without being overwhelmed by everything that makes humans imperfect and wondrous.
“I’m programmed to list the benefits of six months on, six months off duty,” Horatio says, “but I suspect that is unhelpful.”
Kaityn smiles wanly. “I’ll figure out something —”
A bright wisp flickers across their helmet’s viewscreen. It moves too fast for them to define it — but its distress radiates sharp like a needle. Kaityn straightens with a gasp. “Horatio, did you pick that up on scanners?”
“Yes, I did,” Horatio says.
“What’s your take?”
“It touched down two kilometers from your position. Odd energy reading, extremely small mass. There should be no minor satellites in decay orbit.”
“It feels alive.” Kaityn ignites the solar engines and guides the rover along the path Horatio provides via map readouts. “And it’s hurt.”
Their thoughts blur with sudden excitement. Alive. Could this be potential first contact? Protocols rush through their mind. Establish sensory verification if possible: auditory, ocular, olfactory, tactile, light spectrum, mechanical observation, recordable frequencies; identify yourself and designation but do not engage in any negotiation without authorization —
Kaityn’s pulse races. They shouldn’t assume anything: maintaining objectivity is the leading tenet for space exploration. It’s hard when so many ideas are flooding their brain, the adrenaline spike intoxicating.
“Better hurry,” Horatio says. “I’ve just detected ZeroGen Corps’ beacons; their vessel has also picked up the signal.”
Kaityn’s shoulder twitches in surprise, the emotion bleeding fast into sharp fear. “Why are they in this sector? No reports were logged!”
ZeroGen personnel, unlike Kaityn and members of the GEP, always explore with weaponry ready. ZeroGen Corps is a multinational conglomerate for profit-based space exploration. But there are rules, regulations, responsibilities. Any human-piloted expedition or spaceflight is supposed to be logged on
a public records database. If ZeroGen is out here incognito, they are disregarding all safety protocols. Why?
“They are not responding to my hailing request,” Horatio says. “Please proceed with caution.”
Kaityn swallows. “I will.”
The sense of pain grows stronger as Kaityn approaches the signal.
The rover purrs over the rocky surface of the moon. Kaityn remembers playing the old video game series Mass Effect, where they piloted an indestructible ground vehicle. They reveled in flying it off cliffs just to watch the absurdity of low-G and unbreakable shock absorbers. They aren’t nearly as reckless with an actual GEP commissioned rover — especially when they’re driving, and this is reality. Still, in private, Kaityn thinks of their rover as the Mako 2.0.
Dust kicks up behind the treads, and on the radar map, Kaityn notes the signal lit up as a green flare. They park the rover half a kilometer away and strap on their survival/first aid pack.
The vibrations of hurt-lost-scared presses against their consciousness even this far away. They swallow hard, their throat tight.
In space, they have only their own emotions to process. This nervousness is all theirs. Although Kaityn believes AIs have cognition and emotion, Horatio operates on a different frequency from their perception. They asked once if that was intentional to accommodate them. There was a long pause — for Horatio, at least — and then the AI replied: “Yes, I do. I was not programmed to project emotions, merely to observe and respond to them when appropriate.”
“But you’re full of sensors,” Kaityn said, flapping their hands in excitement. “And you do feel — I can tell by the way you operate. We might be similar in that way.”
“Interesting analysis,” Horatio said. “Perhaps we are both outliers from how we were originally programmed.”
Kaityn liked that: another thread of connection between them and Horatio.
Now, Kaityn struggles to rein in their wildly fluctuating emotional response. This could be first contact! The sheer thrill is muted with fear, and the building sense of pain they can’t ignore, like an oncoming migraine.
Kaityn unstraps from the rover and hops out.
Their boots leave quarter-inch tracks in the soft moon dust. Kaityn resists the urge to flop down and roll around, making an angel pattern in the sediment. It isn’t polite to the moon, and they can’t spare the time. They’re reminded of fresh, soft snowfall in North Dakota, where they lived as a child. They would bundle up in a plush jacket, snow pants, mittens, hat — always refusing a scarf for how it itched against their skin — and dash out into their huge yard. After a snowfall, there was a sense of calm and serenity under the vast gray sky. They would flop in the beautiful drifts, gather clumps of snow to make forts or dinosaurs until called back inside when their lips grew numb and their cheeks turned bright red. Winters were never the same for Kaityn when they moved to Chicago at age ten, and there was no peace under the sky.
Kaityn navigates via digital map and their helmet’s built-in spotlights. Mesas sprout up and meld into cliff faces on Io 7’s surface. Their helmet light casts jagged shadows along the gray-blue stone. There: a disturbance in the arid stone. Dust sways like smoke suspended over dimming embers. Something bright and translucent shimmers within a tiny crater, a crack in the stone.
Pain.
It makes Kaityn flinch: the intensity is needle-hot, cascades of glass fragments carried in ice water. Alone. Lost. Help.
“I’m coming,” Kaityn calls aloud, aware that whatever it is, it may not understand vocal resonance or language constructed for human tongues and minds and hands. Protocol states any approach should be made with caution and only as a last resort if visual, verbal, or mechanical hailing signals do not produce a verifiable response. But they can’t wait. They break into a run, the low gravity carrying them in long, effortless leaps across the remaining distance.
“I advise caution,” Horatio says. “Even if unintentional, a distressed life-form may prove dangerous.”
“I know.”
“Overriding internal contact failsafe,” Horatio says. “I will abide by your discretion.”
Kaityn didn’t know the AI could do that, but right now, they are too focused on reaching the life-form and aiding in whatever manner they can.
Kaityn narrows their eyes as they approach, dimming their helmet light to the lowest setting. It takes a second to control their momentum and balance theirself. They hold their hands away from their body, heart pounding, and edge around the last chunk of rock between theirself and the hurt life-form.
It is octagonal light, soft-edged, with undulating ripples along the surface. Perhaps two feet in diameter, with no visible protrusions or indentations. Yet it has mass, for it is partially buried under crumbled rock and dust, and it is hurt.
Kaityn takes slow, deep breaths, centering theirself and trying to control their vocal tone.
“My name is Kaityn Falk,” they say as they edge nearer. GEP protocol dances in their foremost thoughts, ingrained training, and yet the wonder almost closes off their voice. First contact with another being, out here on Io 7. This is real. This is real. “I’m a human from the planet Earth, and I mean you no har —”
The alien shape undulates, its light frequency strobing, and it lets out a sound that is not auditory so much as felt in the bones, in the soul. Kaityn screams as the pain hits them —
— breaking away from the cluster, caught in solar winds, tossed and tumbled against ice and void, snagged in gravity, pulled through atmosphere. Where are the others? So alone. Afraid. Lost? How will others find? No communication thread, broken from stress. Falling, matter denser and sensation-undocumented-not-good —
The sensory overload sends Kaityn reeling back, and they collapse.
* * *
Kaityn is six again, sitting on the porch of their house with their mom, drinking hot cocoa and watching the aurora borealis dapple the sky with spilled gasoline colors.
“I want to fly in space!” Kaityn declares.
Mom laughs. “What would you do in space?”
“Pick up all the colors and put them in a basket and bring them back for you. So you can paint with them!”
“Wow, that’s pretty cool,” Mom says, grinning. “Are there colors up there I can’t find in the art department?”
They nod solemnly. “Those are space colors, Mom. You can’t buy them in the store.”
Mom hugs Kaityn with one arm. “Well, baby, that sounds like a good plan. When you bring me space colors, we’ll paint a picture together.”
Kaityn beams and finishes the melty marshmallows at the bottom of their mug.
Mom never saw them celebrate their twelfth birthday. Car accident. Kaityn stopped drawing; they would never collect space colors, not when their mom couldn’t paint anymore.
* * *
In the cluster, we all are connected by billions of threads. We flow ever outward, sharing thought and wonder and memory. Languages saturate our understanding, rich and intricate; trillions of ways for connection, for empathy, for life. We are vastness, we are unity, we are individual. And there is a hole in ourselves: we are missing one of us. This is hurt, this is pain, this is sorrow. We cannot move forward, towards the beginnings and the ends of the universe, until we find ourself. To abandon one is to abandon the cluster. It is not who we are. We will find ourself, ourselves, for one is no greater or lesser than all.
* * *
Kaityn often chats online with their boyfriend (before he’s their ex) about the possibility of first contact. One day, he says, “You know I support you and all, but what if you were the first person aliens met? Wouldn’t being agender just confuse them?”
Kaityn grasps for words, their mouth empty, their brain feeling sluggish and disconnected.
He presses on, his face close to the screen. “I mean. Wouldn’t it make more sense, if you met an alien, to explain you were a woman? That way when they encounter the rest of humanity, it wouldn’t be as jarring.”
&
nbsp; Kaityn looks at their hands, their whole body flushed with shame. They can’t find a coherent way to explain all that is wrong with his assumptions. Would aliens need to be dual gendered, or even have a concept of gender? Would aliens even need pronouns? All Kaityn’s snappy semantic and scientific theories and explanations vanish like a hard drive crash.
“I’m just saying,” he says. “You’ve got to think of what’s best for humanity. First impressions only come once.”
“I know,” they mumble. It’s in all the training material for GEP, and they’ve downloaded and studied it over and over with giddy excitement. There is such possibility in the stars.
“Kaityn,” he says. At least he consistently uses their correct name. “You know I care about you. I just want to make sure you’re doing what’s right.”
He’s been subtly resistant to their gender and pronoun choices, especially when they legally changed their ID before accepting the position in GEP. Kaityn doesn’t want to confront him about it. He gets defensive and asks why they’re attacking him over such trivial details. It’s his disappointment that always stings the worst.
Kaityn can’t shake off the doubts that are always there, in the back of their mind, insidious and small and prone to springing up when they are least prepared. What if he’s right? Their chances of encountering alien sapient life are billions to one; yet people still win lotteries. It isn’t impossible.
“Okay,” Kaityn says then, and mumbles an excuse about a migraine — their head throbs, their eyes sting from withheld tears — and logs off.
“He was bad for you,” Horatio says later, when they share that painful story when almost drunk. It’s their first week on a solo trip and every time they look at the vast mural of space, they hear their ex’s voice and his… concerns. “He wanted the his-version of you, not your true self.”
“Yep,” Kaityn agrees. “Should have dumped his ass long ago.” Their voice doesn’t have the conviction they want, but it feels good to say aloud nonetheless.
It Gets Even Better Page 12
