Dark Star Calling

by Julia Keller

  She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think.

  She gasped for air, but there was no air.

  She was dying.

  23

  Marie’s Mistake

  Rez slammed the keys on his computer keyboard as fast as he could, desperate to find the right combination of commands that would reverse the last ten seconds.

  “You cut the Tether!” he yelled. “You idiot! You moron! You—”

  “Stop it,” Shura interrupted him. “She’s a robot. She didn’t know what she was doing. Let’s focus on restoring it.”

  “We can’t restore it!” Rez replied, still yelling, but now he’d transferred his wrath from the AstroRob to Shura. He was still fighting the keyboard, too, even though he knew it was useless. “The line’s severed. Violet’s got about two minutes left. Maybe less. Look.”

  Shura was already looking. She didn’t need Rez to tell her that her best friend was in mortal peril. Violet’s body had been resting peacefully just a few seconds before, eyes closed, head tilted back, hands clasped in her lap. Her breathing was deep, regular, and relaxed. Shura had been dutifully monitoring her vital signs: heartbeat, blood pressure, brain wave activity, oxygen levels in the blood. All normal.

  And then Violet’s body had begun to jerk wildly. She flung herself forward and then from side to side, back and forth, back and forth. Her eyes were still closed, but her body shook and writhed. She struggled to breathe. Her hands flew to her neck, and she clutched at it, clawing frantically for air.

  “What’s going on?” Kendall shouted.

  Mickey’s replacement, an AstroRob that Shura had nicknamed Marie in honor of her favorite Old Earth scientist, Marie Curie, was the culprit. She was young, and this was her first assignment. She had mistakenly fed the wrong coordinates into the Consciousness Tether’s energy conversion chamber, causing a spike in the power feed. The Tether had initiated its automatic shutoff protocol.

  Violet’s body was now entirely at the mercy of the environment at the other end of the Tether: a cold, bleak, impossibly distant planet that was totally incapable of supporting human life.

  “Oxygen levels dropping!” Shura called out. “She’s going into shock.”

  “No, no, no.” Rez’s voice edged toward panic. He’d stopped punching buttons. He drew his hands back from the keyboard as if he was afraid of it. He thrust his head in his hands. “I can’t lose anybody else. I can’t. Not after Rachel. I—”

  “Stop it,” Shura admonished him. “We need to focus. Kendall?”

  He was at the tripod, desperately trying to find a way to reinitiate the Tether. He switched out wires and changed circuits, both hands busy with one stratagem after another.

  Violet gasped. Eyes still closed, her body bucked and flailed. Her consciousness was light-years away, but her body was right here—and it was perishing.

  “Marie,” Kendall barked, turning away from the tripod and his useless maneuvers there. “Unlock your CPU. Now.” He began disassembling the AstroRob’s middle coil. “Stand by. I’m taking your power core.”

  Marie’s voice was calm as she gave him directions. “You should select circuits fifteen through seventy-seven. And then one hundred and forty-two through eight hundred and five.” She knew why he was doing what he was doing, and she wanted to guide him quickly to the correct circuits. They both understood that she would not survive the ransacking. She was narrating her own death. “Watch out for the red wires. And don’t let the blue wires touch the green ones.”

  Kendall tore off the sheath that protected the AstroRob’s circuitry. He rooted around in a wilderness of chips and power cells, grabbing what he could grab from the grid levels that Marie had suggested. In cupped hands, he carried the components to the tripod as a shower of sparks popped and fizzed from the AstroRob’s strewn-about parts. He jammed the chips and wires into the spaces between the tripod’s receptors.

  It was crude, it was imprecise, but it was their only chance of saving Violet.

  “Don’t just sit there, Rez!” Kendall shouted. “Get back on your computer. We’ve got to bring the transplanted energy cells online! And fast!”

  Startled, still wiping tears off his face, Rez protested, “But what about the power differential between a robot’s cells and a human being’s if we don’t run a—”

  “Just keep the signal going. I’m making a temporary patch,” Kendall said, cutting him off. “We can splice into the signal at this end and use the cells to transfer it back out to Zander’s planet. If we’re lucky.”

  “Forget luck,” Rez muttered as he scooted his chair back up to the control panel, fingers skittering across the keyboard. He was attacking his panic the only way he knew: by working. “It’ll take a friggin’ miracle. Not luck.”

  “Her vital signs are in free fall!” Shura called out. “Tin Man, get Marie out of the way. I need more space over here.”

  They worked frantically, the four of them, knowing that the next few seconds would mean the difference between life and death for Violet.

  With a series of rapid clicks and a long, loud buzz and then a siren-like yelp, the patch seemed to be taking hold. Violet’s vital signs began to stabilize.

  Shura, Kendall, Rez, and Tin Man all realized they could stop what they were doing. The patch had worked.

  There were no fist bumps, no high fives—just a moment of quiet triumph.

  “Whew,” Tin Man said. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. “I’m sweating. That was too close for—”

  His sentence was cut off by a shrieking alarm on the tripod. Violet’s blood pressure was dropping again. Her arms and legs had resumed their violent shaking.

  “I can’t believe this! It’s happening all over again!” Shura cried out. “The transplanted cells aren’t holding. The toll on her body—she can’t take much more—”

  Kendall took Shura’s shoulders in his hands. He looked into her eyes as he spoke in a rush. “You’re working on a Graygrunge vaccine, right? Didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Yeah. Jumping viruses are a major threat to computers and human beings alike, and so I—”

  “Okay. So there in your medical bag, the one you carry around all the time, do you have any samples of Graygrunge?”

  “Yeah. In case I have a spare moment to work on the vaccine. But they’re sealed up and completely safe. They can’t escape.”

  “Actually,” Kendall said. “I’m hoping they will escape. At least one of them.”

  “What the—”

  From his spot by Violet’s chair, Tin Man’s voice rang out, “Guys, hey, she’s turning blue. You’ve got to hurry!”

  Kendall was still talking to Shura. “Listen. Grab the Graygrunge vial from your bag. Break it open and give it to Rez. Let’s get it in the system.”

  “You want to introduce a virus into our computers?” said an incredulous Shura. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Rez answered before Kendall could. “Wait, I get it. I see what you’re trying to do, Kendall. Graygrunge will infiltrate the system faster than we could ever get a rescue program up and running. It’ll serve as a bridge to carry the signal. A makeshift Consciousness Tether. A temporary fix until our own patch is strong enough to hold. Once Violet’s safe, we can worry about getting rid of our old pal Graygrunge.”

  Shura, digging frantically in her bag, muttered, “I think you’re both nuts, but given Violet’s condition, I’m not really in a position to debate you.” She pulled out a small translucent box. Inside the box was a set of five glass vials. She plucked out the first one on the left. The hand-lettered label said GRAYGRUNGE. Below the words was a skull and crossbones.

  She handed it to Rez. “Better you than me.”

  In seconds, Rez had cracked it open. The tentacles raced along his keyboard and dove into his computer’s central core, reaching and stretching. “And now,” he said as he watched his screen change, “let’s see if the signal is willing to hitch a ride with a virus at the wheel.�
��

  Shura had returned to Violet’s side. She held her friend’s hand. Tin Man was on the other side, and he took Violet’s other hand. Kendall stood behind Rez’s chair, keeping track of the virus as it branched out, linking the broken-off tether to the sections of the computer still in contact with Zander’s planet.

  There was nothing else they could do. The virus bridge would either work or it wouldn’t.

  “How’s she doing?” Rez called over his shoulder.

  “Better!” Shura declared, her voice ragged with relief. “Respiration levels are stabilizing. Blood pressure, too.”

  Violet’s head had settled back against the chair again. The shaking had subsided.

  “Her breathing is still shallow, but at least she’s breathing,” Shura added. And then she fell to her knees, exhausted from the effort of holding herself together through the crisis.

  Kendall started to help her up, but Shura waved him off. “Give me a minute,” she said. “I can’t stand up right now. My knees are kind of wobbly.”

  From across the room, Rez’s voice was a little sheepish. “Um, guys? Sorry I lost my cool. I mean, the crying and all.”

  “You know what, Rez?” Shura replied. “I’m not sure we could still be friends if you hadn’t gotten so upset. This is Violet we’re talking about, and she damn near died. She was seconds from asphyxiation.” The thought was too much for her. Shura had tried to rise while she was speaking, but she slid back down to her knees again. “Still too wobbly.”

  Kendall took a deep breath. “She’s okay for now, but let’s get her back here.”

  “What if she’s not finished?” Rez inquired.

  “Doesn’t matter. That jury-rigged Tether is way too fragile. It could blow any minute.” Kendall looked over at Marie. Tin Man had dragged her into a corner. She was a mess: flat on her back, wires spilling out of the ripped-open coils. The odor of singed circuitry was unmistakable. “Some of those parts can be salvaged,” Kendall said. “I just hope the robot repair crew’s able to fix her up.”

  “Hey, Shura,” Rez said. He was trying to keep his voice at a normal level, but the anxiety was back again. “Now that Violet’s okay and all, any idea how I can get rid of Graygrunge? A few more seconds and the virus will stop being just a friendly little bridge; it’ll start shutting down our systems.”

  Shura came over to him. “Thought you’d never ask.” The prospect of work had restored her.

  She elbowed him away from the keyboard and punched in a strip of code. And then another. One more. With a pffittt sound, Graygrunge whisked off the screen.

  “What was that?” asked a totally impressed Rez.

  “A suppression code. Carting that virus sample around with me really paid off; I’ve made a lot of headway, working on ways to thwart it. I don’t quite have a vaccine yet, but I will. And soon.”

  24

  Fusion

  Violet awoke with a start. Her lungs were burning, but at least they seemed to be functioning again. She took a breath. Not a deep one, but a breath.

  Another.

  She didn’t want to push her luck, but she tried a third.

  All good.

  I’ll never take breathing for granted ever again, she thought as relief swept over her.

  Her arms and legs had returned to her, too, along with that handy capacity to breathe. It all occurred in a finger-snap of time. She felt almost normal again … or as normal as it was possible to feel when one’s hypothetical self was visiting a planet in a distant galaxy and chatting with a being that had temporarily assumed human shape to facilitate conversation.

  “You’re back,” Zander said blandly. “Sonnet was worried.”

  Weren’t you a little bit concerned, too? she was tempted to ask until she remembered that worry was an emotion. Emotions, for now, were Sonnet’s job. Not Zander’s.

  “I’m okay now,” she said. “So what happened?”

  “As nearly as I can determine, the Tether was somehow disrupted, but your friends back on New Earth must have fixed it. And in a timely fashion, too; otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Sonnet would be mourning your loss, and I’d be wondering when they might send the next emissary.”

  Cold, but honest, Violet thought.

  “You must leave very soon,” Zander continued. “But perhaps you might like to witness the opening stages of Fusion.”

  She very much would, but she hesitated. Frankly, the ritual sounded as if it might be … well, at little private. Fusion: There was a definite sexual connotation to the notion of two beings blending into one.

  She’d feel like a voyeur.

  If they don’t bring that up, should I bring that up?

  Yeah. She definitely should.

  “You sure it’s okay?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe you’d better check with Sonnet.” Shame and embarrassment were emotions. Sonnet was the go-to guy/gal for those.

  Zander offered her a curt nod. He was quiet for a moment. She heard whispering and then an answering flurry of whispers from Zander to Sonnet.

  “She doesn’t mind. She said it is fine for you to watch,” Zander said. “The total Fusion will require a much longer period of time, because we must go slowly. These will be great shocks to the system. But Sonnet is quite pleased for you to witness the first step.”

  “Great.”

  She was tempted to ask if any popcorn was available, but held back. Apparently, Mickey had influenced her more than she knew.

  Time passed … maybe. She wasn’t sure. This place did funny things to time, stretching it out and then wadding it back up into a tiny pellet, and then dividing it up into separate pellets, and then consolidating all the little pieces again into a little ball, and then bouncing the ball.

  Zander did not move.

  Just when Violet had convinced herself that he’d changed his mind—no Fusion today, ladies and gentleman—she saw that he’d closed his eyes. Sonnet stepped out from behind his back. She looked all smudgy again; her eyes, too, were closed.

  A soft radiance enveloped the two bodies. A light wind had started up; Violet felt the air grazing her skin.

  Spring, she ruminated. That’s what this feels like—spring on New Earth.

  Something was happening. But there was no crash of cymbals, no flourish of trumpets. Violet had no access to what was really going on here, beyond her own raw observation and basic intuition, both of which seemed to have called in sick today.

  There was barely of a ripple of movement on either creature’s face. It was a quiet epiphany.

  And it was—the realization came to her along with that soft riffle of wind, the one that danced lightly across her skin—the most beautiful moment she had ever been a part of. Somehow she was a part of it, too. She wasn’t just watching.

  Sonnet was thinking for the first time.

  Zander was feeling for the first time.

  For each, it was absolutely enchanting.

  Sonnet’s brain was streaking through billions of fields of stars, and each star was a thought, a theorem, a hunch, a proposition, a certainty: photosynthesis and Brownian motion and penicillin and calculus and longitude and igneous rock and gravity and dark matter.

  Zander’s brain was zipping with equal abandon through billions of fields of other kinds of stars, and each star was a feeling, and each feeling was inspired by a symphony or a soliloquy or a heartbreak or a dance or a dream or the precise angle of sunlight on the face of one’s beloved on a summer day.

  And that, Violet knew, was just the beginning. That was the faintest, briefest taste of the wonders that awaited each one of them, a sumptuous bounty of all the things they had never known before. Once they knew them, they would not be able to live without them, ever again.

  * * *

  Was it over? It seemed to be over, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Okay, yes, it was over. The Zander who spoke to her was himself again. Sonnet had vanished, ducking back behind him. Many more
such sessions would be needed in order for Fusion to hold; Fusion, after all, was a process, not a singularity. Zander had explained that.

  “And now,” he said, “we must conclude your visit. Under the present parameters, you are getting very close to the outermost limit of the safe zone. I have encoded your Tether’s return feed with the latest coordinates for the new star. So it’s time to part. Although…”

  “What’s up?”

  “I have a proposition.”

  “Sure,” Violet said breezily. “Name it.” Maybe he wanted a selfie with the three of them.

  “Stay.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Remain here with us. Teach us more about emotions.”

  Violet was stunned. Was he kidding? “Well, to begin with, there’s the small matter of me not being able to breathe your air. Oh, and being crushed like a bug by your gravity.”

  “We can work around those obstacles. With a single person—not an entire population—it would be possible. We could devise a way to enclose you and protect you from—”

  “Whoa. Time-out. Sorry, Zander; there’s no point in trying to brainstorm this. I’m a New Earth girl, all the way.”

  “But you will be leaving New Earth, anyway. Your world is doomed.”

  “Just the physical part. And that’s the least of it.” Violet hadn’t known she felt this way until she heard herself saying it. Saying it felt good. “What really matters are my friends. Shura and Rez and Kendall and Tin Man. Those guys are the reason why it’s home. So thanks for the invitation, but it’s time for me to go now. We’ve got a lot of work to do back there. Getting ready to relocate and all. God, I’m getting tired just thinking about all that packing.”

  Why wasn’t she more upset about Zander’s news, about the updated timetable for the demise of New Earth? Now she knew: Because no matter where they went, she and her friends would go there together. Home wasn’t a planet. Home wasn’t New Earth or Old Earth. Home was the place where her friends were.