Tolstoy

by Tasha Black

  “I am a salvage drone,” BFF19 repeated. “My directive is to protect the chattel of the Stargazer.”

  Leo’s handsome face twisted with displeasure, but Anna put a hand on his arm to silence him.

  “The chattel of the Stargazer is in danger,” she told the drone. “If we don’t get help we could be destroyed by that… thing.”

  BFF19 slapped her corners down and refolded herself into a narrower shape.

  “We need your help,” Anna said softly.

  “I am a salvage drone,” BFF19 repeated, this time more gently. “I rely on human direction and problem-solving.”

  “Like hell you do,” Leo said. “You knew how to find the baby.”

  “That was mere use of my indices,” BFF19 said.

  “You knew why I was distracted today,” Anna said, hoping she would not have to refresh her robotic companion’s memory with the particulars.

  “Data gathered from other instances and used to approximate your situation,” BFF19 said. “Information in, information out.”

  “How do you think we solve problems?” Anna asked.

  “You are human,” BFF19 said simply.

  “Yes, but we infer things the same way you do,” Anna said. “We use past data to predict future outcomes too. We just call it experience.”

  The little drone sank in the air a bit, coming to eye level with Anna and then tilting slowly until she was upside down.

  “You can do this, BFF19,” Anna told her.

  “I suppose it would mean another promotion,” the drone hinted.

  Anna tried not to smile.

  “If you get to the Stargazer, you can have whatever promotion you want,” Leo said.

  The drone fluttered in a way Anna hadn’t seen before. Her extremities folded in and out seemingly without reason.

  “Are you frightened?” she asked.

  “Only a fool is not afraid,” BFF19 retorted.

  “Fair enough,” Anna said. “I’m afraid too. But I know you can do this.”

  “Unseal the pod,” BFF19 said.

  Leo leaned in and tapped the indentation on the nearest pod.

  “What exactly should I say to Mama?” BFF19 asked.

  “Tell her that I’m on the ship with a priceless treasure, the infant clone of the famous author Tolstoy, but someone - something - is trying to take him from me and I’m unarmed,” Anna said carefully. “Tell her I need her to come get him now before we lose him.”

  “Got it,” BFF19 said. She folded herself into a shape like a diamond, and each of her gleaming facets seemed to glow. “Keep her safe, barbarian.”

  Leo made a choking sound, but nodded.

  “See you on the other side,” Anna told the little robot, with a lump in her throat.

  “On the other side of what?” BFF19 asked.

  “It’s just something people used to say where I come from,” Anna explained. “I mean, see you on the Stargazer.”

  BFF19 made a whirring sound and dove into the pod.

  Leo sealed it again.

  The glass door lowered in front of the pod and a countdown appeared on the glass.

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

  The pod slipped downward and Anna could just make out a sliver of stars before the exit sealed again.

  “Come on,” Leo said, taking her by the hand.

  They moved to the portal window and watched as the shining egg grew smaller and smaller.

  18

  Leo

  Leo looked out the window at the beauty of the stars, one hand wrapped around his mate’s, the other cradling the pod containing the baby they had been scrambling to protect.

  Together, they watched as the little robot piloted the escape pod, sure and steady into the starlight.

  All would be well for their little family. Though she was new to this world, Anna clearly had a gift for navigating it. She was brave and earnest, a natural born leader. Hell, she even had that pedantic little drone ready to shed its prime directive to help her. If Leo had half her self-control he would be proud.

  Something cold and slick invaded his consciousness. It smelled musty, almost like the mold that used to grow in the condensate pan of his grandmother’s old skiff when they couldn’t afford to service it often enough.

  He spun on his heel, letting go of Anna’s hand and placing his arm against her, holding her back, from what he did not yet know.

  Between the corridor where they stood and the snowy forest something huge and vaguely humanoid was silhouetted. It was enormous, with broad inky shoulders and arms that ended in fingers of smoke that swirled and pulsated strangely.

  “Leo,” Anna murmured, her voice low and fearful.

  But joy burst unbidden in his chest.

  It’s not me.

  But there was no time to celebrate the knowledge that he was not the one who had threatened his mate and child.

  The thing was approaching, fingers trailing out behind it, head tilted in an inquisitive way.

  He glanced behind him, knowing there was no way out. They were trapped between the portal window and the escape pods.

  “Leo,” Anna said again, reaching into her pocket and drawing out that silly privateer’s tagger.

  “Put that away,” Leo murmured, pressing Tolstoy’s pod into her hands instead. “Wait until I make my move, then run.”

  “I’ll help you fight it,” she retorted. “I fought it off before.”

  “I can face it without help,” he said. “And you need to keep Tolstoy safe. When the moment is right, run.”

  “How will I know when the moment is right?” she asked.

  “Oh, you’ll know,” he said.

  This wasn’t how he planned to reveal his gifts to his mate, but he didn’t have much choice. He just hoped she would forgive him.

  The thing was getting closer, and one of its arms was now rounded at its center. Leo realized it was imitating Anna holding the baby.

  A shiver of revulsion went down his spine.

  A shiver of something else followed it.

  For once Leo didn’t fight the change that crawled under his skin. He closed his eyes and gave in.

  “Run, Anna,” he whispered with the last of his breath as his lips stretched tight across his cheeks and burst upward, revealing teeth he knew were long as knives and twice as sharp.

  His spine was stretching longer, longer, longer still, until it ruptured his muscle and shot out behind him, weighing him down even as the top of him towered taller and taller.

  The smoky thing in front of him rose up like a sinister mirror, the rounded head shape elongating into an imitation of a snout. The way it mimicked him was maddening. He felt fire boil in his chest even as his blood went cold.

  A small sound from below drew his attention.

  Anna.

  She stared up at him, her eyes black moons of horror. Her hands were clutched so tightly around the baby’s pod that her knuckles had gone white.

  He tried to say her name but all that came out was a hideous moan.

  She ran then, just as he had wanted her to.

  But he hadn’t wanted her to run from him.

  Mate, he cried inwardly, but she did not turn back.

  The pain was exquisite.

  Then the thing before him swiped at him experimentally, leaving a trail of burning ice across his chest.

  He bellowed again and lost himself to the need for vengeance, the need to annihilate anything that threatened his mate and child.

  He leaned forward, stretching his jaw open wide to catch the thing in his teeth, but when he bit down, it was like trying to use scissors to cut fog.

  He tried again to land a meaningful blow, to no avail.

  This was going to be harder than he thought.

  19

  Anna

  Anna ran as fast as she could. She did not notice the extra gravity or Tolstoy’s weight in her arms. Her mind could only hold the command to run, to run as fast as her legs would carry her.

  She rounded t
he carpeted hall, keeping the biodome on her right and did not stop until the whole forest was between her and…

  And what?

  She had no idea.

  Whatever it was had been Leo until a moment ago - six feet, five inches of warm, muscular demigod.

  Now he was…

  You know what.

  It just didn’t make sense.

  Iridescent scales, leathery wings, and those teeth…

  She could still see the gleaming of those endless incisors and the coldness in his hooded yellow eyes.

  He was a dragon.

  But there was no such thing as dragons. Not even in outer space.

  At least, not as far as she knew.

  It hit her again, harder than ever before, that she had been lost for a long time. There was no telling what might be possible in this new era, no safe corner for a woman like herself who had come from a static time and place.

  A sense of despair settled over her like a blanket and she rested her forehead against the cool glass of the biodome.

  On the other side of the glass, snow fell on the trees.

  “We’re all that’s left,” she whispered to them.

  Branches swayed in the artificial breeze, as if in answer.

  Anna was overwhelmed by the need to touch them, to commune with these last reminders of her home.

  She hurried off to the nearest emergency stairs, Tolstoy tucked under her arm.

  BFF19 had warned her against going inside the dome with the climate controls glitching.

  On the other hand, she was running out of places to go with the sinister cloudy creature and an angry monster out there. Given the choice, she would rather die of exposure than be eaten, or worse.

  At least Tolstoy would be safe in his pod.

  Her feet clattered on the stairs and she focused on not falling and not making too much noise.

  It was better than thinking about shining scales and teeth as long as chop sticks.

  At last she reached the lowest level of the ship.

  The glass doors leading into the biodome were before her, tendrils of ivy snaking out between the panes, as if to beckon her.

  She took a moment to secure Tolstoy back in her pack.

  Then she grasped the lever. It was cold to the touch, but she turned it anyway.

  A rush of frigid air buffeted her as the door swung open.

  From somewhere many flights above came a terrible roar.

  She stepped inside and sealed the doors behind her, not worrying about how to get out again.

  20

  Leo

  Leo roared again, his anguish over his lost mate mixed up in the searing cold pain of the smoky thing that was trying to absorb him.

  At least he had distracted it long enough for his mate and child to run.

  He could still see the fear in her eyes.

  He felt the fire creeping into his chest again and this time was powerless to stop it.

  Never in a contained place, never near combustibles, never where anyone could be harmed…

  His teacher’s words bounced uselessly in his head as an ocean of flames spilled over his jaws and enveloped the shadowy creature that had wound its tendrils around his hips.

  For one horrible instant it wrapped itself more tightly around him and he felt himself succumbing.

  Then it slackened, and he actually felt it withdrawing from inside him, tiny shoots of relief spreading through him until it was gone.

  He managed to stop the waves of fire, but barely. He was still seeing red with pain and fear and anger.

  Get someplace quiet and cool.

  He looked around, saw the forest in the biodome before him, snow frosting the treetops, and went to it.

  His heart begged him to find his mate, but he refused to touch the bond between them.

  He had seen the way she looked at him.

  It was over.

  And it was the worst kind of irony, that in the moment of joy at learning that he was not the evil creature, he had also seen himself as she did.

  And in her eyes, he was a monster.

  A stab of agony, more painful than anything the creature had inflicted, shot through him at the thought that he’d lost her.

  She’s human, he told himself sternly. I love her through the bond, but she is no different from the others - soft, entitled, incompatible. It is better that she saw me now for what I am. Better that we ended our madness before it was too late.

  But some small part of him told him it was already too late.

  It had been too late the moment he’d first set eyes on her.

  He reached the entrance to the biodome and froze in his tracks.

  Anna knelt between the two lampposts that led into the trees, Tolstoy secured in the pack at her back, her face lowered into her hands as she cried.

  Of all the places for her to go, she had chosen the one where he needed to be.

  He placed one hand against the door, then removed it again.

  He did not wish to disturb or frighten her.

  There had to be another way.

  21

  Anna

  Anna cried.

  She cried for the loss of a mate and partner - something she had never known she wanted until the instant she realized she needed Leo more than her next breath.

  She cried for her family, and a whole world lost to her, centuries away.

  And she cried for little Tolstoy, who might become a famous author in the new frontier one day, but who was now an innocent baby, cursed to sleep endlessly in a pod where no one could touch or hold him.

  This universe was a cold place, one that would be better navigated by a calculating person, someone who could hold herself distant as the stars.

  But Anna had been raised by a noisy family in an apartment over a cafe. There was no aloofness in her. She was an anachronism in this century - a cavewoman, unfrozen from an iceberg and brought back to life with just enough awareness to realize her loss, but not enough to join a new society.

  She cried on until the tears stopped coming, and the hollow feeling in her chest eased a little.

  A warm breeze tousled her hair, and she looked up to see a single crocus peeking out of the snow.

  Another one poked out of the crystalline blanket before her eyes, and then another.

  Suddenly, the air was filled with the dulcet sound of raindrops as the snow melted, fat teardrops twinkling like diamonds as they splashed into the rivulets of melting ice on the ground.

  Tender green shoots of grass thrust up from the loamy soil with a liveliness that implied a celebration.

  Anna stood and watched as the branches budded before her eyes and tiny green tips burst from the knotted stems.

  There was so much beauty here.

  An impossible sense of hope warmed Anna’s chest, though she knew what was happening around her was nothing more than the machinations of a weather machine gone off schedule.

  It felt miraculous.

  It felt worthy of wonder.

  And as she watched the buds flower, Anna realized that maybe this had always been her strength. She had always been able to see the good in things, whether it was a risky space cadet program, an origami scavenger droid, a glitching biodome… maybe even an alien who turned into a dragon to protect her and the baby she had come to think of as her own.

  Movement caught the corner of her eye and she turned.

  A tiny white butterfly drifted among the blossoms of a nearby cherry tree.

  An animal.

  She hadn’t seen any other traces of non-plant life aboard the ship.

  There were still no signs of even the smallest of insects, besides this little guy.

  Anna watched it, following the seemingly random movements of its delicate wings, until it fluttered out of sight behind a stand of cedars.

  She dashed after it, knowing she would probably frighten it away but unable to help herself.

  But when she emerged on the other side of the trees it was gone.
>
  She looked around and caught her breath.

  A small rabbit watched her from just a few feet away. Its soft gray fur was flecked with black and white, tender ears lifted high so that she could see the delicate pink veining. It observed her for a moment with clever black button eyes, then hopped into the underbrush.

  Anna followed it, inhaling the earthy soil and the lighter fragrance of the wildflowers.

  She emerged from the thicket by the side of a creek. The rabbit was nowhere to be found.

  At first she thought she was alone. Then something moved in the shadows and she found herself fixed in the amber gaze of a brilliant red fox.

  The creature met her gaze for a long moment with an air of easy confidence, then lowered his muzzle to drink from the stream.

  Anna watched him, rapt. He was the most beautiful animal she had ever seen. And there was something familiar about him. He was not like the skittish orange foxes she used to see occasionally in the college woods back in Tarker’s Hollow.

  He lifted his muzzle from the water, droplets streaming from his whiskers and sparkling as they fell back into the water. Then he turned and trotted through the trees.

  Determined not to lose this, the most interesting of all the animals so far, Anna raced after him, the makeshift papoose with the baby pod not slowing her in the least.

  Anna had to push herself to the max to keep up as the glorious creature flew through the trees, his elegant posture maintained through every leap and turn of his clever paws, so that his brush-like tail stayed level.

  The dark of the forest was giving way, light filtering through the green leafy canopy as she approached a clearing. When a circle of light appeared at the edge of her vision, the fox pulled away.

  There was an odd moment when his silhouette seemed to stretch upward, just before she lost sight of him.

  Anna slowed to a jog, then walked slowly to the edge of the trees.

  Warm light suffused a meadow of purple clover. The scent was heavenly.

  She stepped out and let her eyes adjust to the brightness for a moment. Something stood where she had seen the fox. But it was too big.