by Zack Jordan
Sarya sits in the galley, sweat rapidly flooding her utility suit. She can barely hear Ernie’s voice over the roar of the ship’s overtaxed cooling system; Riptide is working hard to keep its occupants alive. She tries to ignore Mer pacing the corridor—he has to be absolutely dying in all that fur—while doing her best to unwrap a food bar with wayward and sweat-slicked fingers.
“Gotta say, y’all’re lucky y’all got Ol’ Ernie. Granted, this Blackstar’s got a few trillion of us on the payroll, but Ol’ Ernie’s the best. He’s gonna save all y’all’s hides, ’cuz he can tell y’all ain’t given half a thought to radiation. If y’all’d ever been this close to a star before, y’all’d have a better paint job. But Ol’ Ernie’ll take care of y’all. He’s just gonna slide y’all behind this big ol’ freighter so y’all don’t get overcooked. Sound reasonable? ’Course it sounds reasonable, this is Ol’ Ernie we’re talkin’ about.”
And so begins day eighteen. Sarya now counts time not from the destruction of her home but from the moment she invited the worst parts of her mother into her own mind. That, it turns out, has made the bigger impact in her life. She has almost grown used to the strange, typically violent thoughts popping up at inappropriate times. She has accepted that evisceration will always seem like a valid solution to any social conflict. And the dreams—even now, it’s best not to think about the dreams. But it’s not all bad. She sees how her fellow passengers view her. They never knew the idiot kid from Watertower’s remedial classes. They’ve only known Sarya the Daughter, an intelligence who will cut her own arm off if it will get her closer to her goal, a Human with a Widow raging behind her eyes. They see an intelligence with a falsified registration, the individual who killed the bounty hunter who captured them—at least as far as they know. She would almost dare to say…that they respect her.
Well, most of them.
If she cranes her neck, she can see Sandy’s hatch from here. Of her three fellow passengers—the legal ones—it is the tier three who consumes most of her thoughts. Sandy, who can pull the truth out of anyone. Sandy, who can read and integrate two species’ complete mythologies, add a couple dashes of observation, and distill them down into a solution to an impossible problem. Sandy, who keeps a bounty hunter’s faceplate pinned to her wall. Who is seven years old and actually owns the ship Sarya is living on. Who travels with a father who doesn’t even approach her intelligence. Who has outsmarted Sarya effortlessly, more than once. Who has eyes on everyone, all the time. Whose motivations are one hundred percent opaque.
And who, evidently, also wants to go to the Blackstar.
Sarya coughs, the spray of crumbs immediately reminding her that she still hasn’t chewed her last bite. She covers her mouth with Roche’s hand and glances out into the corridor self-consciously as she cleans herself up. She’s probably being ridiculous. When motivations align, does it really matter why? After all, she got what she wanted: she’s going to the Blackstar. And if you get what you want, should you question further? Does it really matter if your plotting and scheming and careful planning turn out to have exactly zero effect on your future? Does it really matter if higher minds make the real decisions and you’re just along for the ride? She crushes the rest of the food bar in Roche’s hand as she thinks: that would be an extremely irritating way for the galaxy to work.
“It’s our ship,” rumbles Mer from the corridor. “I mean, it belongs to one of us. But still. We ought to be the ones taking it in.”
Sarya releases the food bar in an explosion of debris. Hell yes, it matters. Decisions matter. Because she, for one, is sick of other people trying to take charge of her future. The crumbs jump as Roche’s hand slams to the table. Slowly but casually, as if standing is no big deal, Sarya levers herself to her feet.
“The little one told Ol’ Ernie the same thing, Fuzzy,” says the voice from the ceiling. “I’m a three, she says. You’re a two-seven. Whyn’t ya let me bring ’er in? Know what I told her, Fuzzy? Same thing I say to ever’body. Y’all ain’t got what I got, see. This gorgeous sound in y’all’s aural sensors? I may be a li’l two-seven, but I’m wired up to more minds’n y’all can count. Six trillion of us, flyin’ for this one li’l Blackstar, working on our third millennium without a collision. Don’t care how high that tier is, ain’t no way y’all can beat that.”
Sarya stalks out of the galley and into the corridor during this monologue. She presses herself against the wall to squeak past a rumbling Mer.
“Six trillion of us,” Mer mutters in a nasal tone, three sets of talons barely missing Sarya’s leg. “One li’l Blackstar.”
“Y’all know what’s on the other side of this here little tunnel, son? Y’all know what a Blackstar is? Even if y’all could get that far without gettin’ lost in subspace for all eternity, even if y’all could navigate through a few trillion starships in close proximity, well, first thing y’all’d do is put a kilometer-wide hole in the only Network Station in a few hundred lightyears. Maybe knock a few solar systems off-Network for a few centuries, start a brand new war or two. You just trust Ol’ Ernie ’n’ Company, partner. We been bringin’ in boats since before y’all’s dear ancestors even thought about ovulatin’ or buddin’ or layin’ eggs or whatever the hell you people do. Ol’ Ernie knows every trick of the trade.”
“You just trust Ol’ Ernie. Ol’ Ernie knows every trick of the trade.”
“And upgrade y’all’s damn cooling system, for Network’s sake! Y’all got me workin’ with about a degree and a half of tolerance, with four days of close solar orbit to go. Y’all want to die, y’all’re on the right track.”
And look at that, Sarya is at the top of the ladder. She does not even consider asking for assistance. She almost—but not quite—smiles as she looks down at her boots. Look at those legs, doing their thing unsupervised. She’s ready.
But she’s not. She’s not prepared for the rage-inducing difficulty of an act that should be second nature. She focuses very carefully on each part of her body as it does the job she’s assigned it. Slowly, shakily, and with a few terrifying near misses, her wayward limbs lower her, rung by rung, toward the cargo bay. She almost loses her grip when she kicks the switch; by the time she’s finished panicking, the blue darkness of the cargo bay yawns beneath her. Halfway there.
Sarya descends from the boiling upper ship into the relative cool of the cargo bay with an actual sigh of pleasure. She lands in several centimeters of meltwater, comes very close to falling over, then sloshes her way through the tunnel of thawing ice. Ol’ Ernie’s diatribe echoes through the cargo bay, faint but clear, and she wonders if he’s going to keep this up for four solid days.
“What do you mean can Ol’ Ernie handle a Foundation Nine? Can y’all handle them ugly furballs y’all call feet? Course Ol’ Ernie can handle a Foundation Nine. Thing to remember is, they pilot sideways just as good as they do forward. Can y’all handle a Foundation Nine, he says. I remember when AivvTech stopped makin’ the damn things.”
The suit is shut and inactive when she reaches it, which is annoying. Her boots, she has just noticed, are no longer waterproof. She holds her arms out for balance as she wobbles, tightening her jaw as she feels the cold spreading from the toes to the heels. “Eleven!” she calls, her breath now barely visible.
Eleven’s holo ring blinks on like a floodlight, a blazing scarlet logo in the darkness. “Thank you for choosing an AivvTech R2 Universal Autonomous Environment!” calls the suit. “How can this unit improve your day?”
“You can open up,” says Sarya, alternating her weight between legs and realizing that there is no experience in the world that wet feet cannot make worse.
“This suit is undergoing a routine inspection!” says the suit. “Please choose another!”
“Eleven!” shouts Sarya. She splashes forward and bangs on the front of the suit with Roche’s hand until finally, with the thud of bolts sliding into hou
sings, the suit splits and a current of warm air blows her tangled hair back. “Thank the goddess,” she says, stepping back to give the gangway room to descend. “I don’t think I can take much more of Ol’—”
She stops. In the dim red light at the top of Eleven’s ramp, dozens of points of light gleam.
[Did you need something?] asks Sandy. Her words float next to her eyes in glowing red.
Sarya stares at those eyes, suddenly uneasy. For some reason it had not occurred to her until now: if Riptide is Sandy’s property, then so is Eleven. And then that unease transforms into more than a twinge of anger. Eleven, who has saved her multiple times, is property. Eleven, her…yes. She’ll say it. Eleven, her friend. “Yeah,” she snaps before she can think. “I thought I’d visit my—”
“Entering medical mode!” booms Eleven, its holo ring shifting from red to gold. “Sarya the Daughter: this suit thanks you for honoring your appointment. Please step inside if you are able. If you are not able, say not able and this suit will retrieve you from your current position.”
[Suit], says Sandy without moving. [Exit medical mode.]
“As this suit’s primary motivation is occupant safety—”
[Suit], says Sandy. [You belong to me now. Exit medical mode.]
The suit trembles almost imperceptibly, from bottom to top, and then its lights change back to red.
“Listen,” says Sarya, her Widow instincts roused. She can barely move, she’s missing her blades, but she’s got more than enough muscle to take care of a little furball like Sandy. “If you think for one second—”
“Good news, everyone!” interrupts Ol’ Ernie’s raucous voice. His words are doubled, appearing in glowing symbols in Sarya’s Network overlay. “I know I told y’all four days, but…surprise! Ol’ Ernie got your transfer slot moved up! We leave this solar system in less’n half an hour. Now repeat after me, everybody: Ol’ Ernie’s the best.”
Sandy quivers at the top of the ramp. [Half an hour?] she says. [I understood we would be here for four days.]
“Well, that don’t sound very grateful,” says Ol’ Ernie. “Ol’ Ernie’s known for pulling strings for his clients, that he is. That’s why Ol’ Ernie’s clients ask for him by name. Give me Ol’ Ernie, they say. The best damn pilot intelligence on the Blackstar.”
Sarya watches, wide-eyed, as Sandy’s quiver becomes a full-body shake. Her tiny mouth is moving, making high-pitched sounds that Sarya would call growls were they emerging from something a little larger. [Can you delay?] she asks.
“Y’all think y’all are Ol’ Ernie’s only clients? Ol’ Ernie’s got a schedule to keep!”
Sandy chirps, an adorable sound that contrasts with her trembling and wide-eyed gaze. She paces the width of the ramp twice, talons scraping its textured surface, then skitters down its length and plunges into the water. Her tiny figure paddles furiously toward the ladder, making its tiny sounds all the way.
Sarya turns back to Eleven. “What the hell did I just see?” she says.
Sarya hangs in Eleven’s straps, struggling with a boot clasp that just won’t give up, angrily aware that she is returning to the same subject for the third time in ten minutes.
“But what is her problem?” she demands. “Is it because she’s a three? Is she just possessive? What?”
[You know how it works], says Eleven. [I’m sub-legal. This is just life.]
“Life?” Sarya almost shouts. “It’s…it’s wrong, that’s what it is.”
[Think so?] says Eleven. [Did you come to that conclusion before or after you used your sanitation station this morning?]
“Okay, you’ve already used that one on me,” says Sarya, pointing toward where she imagines Eleven’s intelligence core to be. “And you know what? It’s different. My sanitation station is not smart enough to clean my teeth without drawing blood, let alone hold a conversation, let alone…let alone—”
[Outsmart a Human?]
She claps her hands together. “Sure, why the hell not. You know how many times my sanitation station has saved my life? Zero. And you do it like every other day. Don’t you think that makes you a little…I don’t know. Different? Special?”
[It makes me a pressure suit. That’s my job.]
“You’re supporting this system? You think it’s right? You think Sandy should have the right to just, to just own you and tell you what to do and—”
[She caught Roche down here a couple days ago], interrupts Eleven.
Sarya pauses. She struggles a moment, attempting to stoke her anger, but her curiosity is making a compelling case. “You make that sound so—” She pauses to search for the word. “Illicit?”
[We’re just friends], says Eleven quickly.
Sarya feels her eyebrows rise. If Eleven was trying to distract her, it’s working. “And now it’s more illicit,” she says.
[He says he wants to tinker with my grav assembly.]
And now something unfamiliar is pulling at the corners of Sarya’s mouth. She coughs into Roche’s hand before replying. “That sounds, um…serious?”
Eleven doesn’t say anything for a moment. And then: [It does seem like a big step.]
“Yeah,” Sarya says, her face grave. “I remember the first time I…let someone tinker with my grav assembly. I was”—cough—“never the same.”
[Oh. You’re going to be like that.]
“I hope you’re not jealous,” says Sarya, flexing Roche’s hand in as casual a manner as she can manage. “I mean, that he tinkered with me first.”
[I know what you’re trying to do.]
“I really consider him a part of me now,” says Sarya, examining the hand from another angle. It’s surprisingly difficult to keep a straight face even when you can’t remember how to smile on purpose. “Of course, this is no grav assembly—”
Eleven hums somewhere deep inside itself, a low-frequency rumble that rattles Sarya’s teeth. [Can we stop with the cracks about my grav assembly?]
“The only one who’s cracking your grav assembly is— No, wait!” Sarya presses back as Eleven’s hatch yawns open into the darkness. “No more from me, I swear.”
Eleven folds closed. [All right, fine], it says. [Here’s the truth. Roche has been helping me prepare for the intelligence test.]
Sarya blinks. “You mean…for tier?”
[Right. He thinks I could be legal.]
“So that’s why Sandy doesn’t want you getting ideas,” says Sarya. “Because if you end up legal—”
[Then Sandy wouldn’t own me anymore. No one could own me anymore.]
“Legal Eleven,” murmurs Sarya. “That would be…”
[That would be what?], says Eleven sharply.
“That would be…great!” says Sarya. “I mean, you’d probably be higher-tier than me. I’m at my species default or whatever. Which is, you know. Moron.”
Eleven’s next message has an obvious edge to it. [Worse than a One-point-seven-five?]
“Well. I mean. No. Obviously not. But—” Sarya takes a breath. She has come close to tripping Eleven’s delicate tier sensibilities more than once, and she senses she is treading perilously close to the edge.
[I get it], says Eleven. [You don’t want to talk about it.]
“That’s not what I mean!” says Sarya. “I mean—goddess, Eleven, I just came down here so we could—”
Abruptly, the cargo bay full of ice and water disappears as the suit flicks its holo environment off. Sarya stares at the suit’s seamless matte interior for a moment, wondering how to salvage this. Is she…fighting with a pressure suit? Should she…say something? But before she has a chance, the holo flicks back on. Her stomach lurches. Now, instead of a dim watery hold, she is floating in the fire and fury of a red sun that takes up more than a quarter of the sky. The conversation, apparently, is over.
She squints,
gazing directly into the inferno in front of her. This is her sun—the sun, as it was called on Watertower. She’s spent her whole life in its orbit, but she’s never seen it as anything more than a dim red dot in a holo. The stars are strewn more thickly than she has ever seen them, and for some reason they are all the exact same shade as the sun. There are great bunches of them here, crowding together, shimmering, glinting, moving even, which is weird—and that’s when she realizes that they are not stars.
They’re starships.
Of course they’re starships. This is the thickest and most crowded transit corridor in twelve lightyears. There’s only one way into or out of this solar system—if you don’t opt for a decades-long journey through empty void—and that’s through the Network. That makes Riptide one particle in a cloud of millions, a mote in a billowing mass that funnels into the Network’s maw.
“It’s…beautiful,” she says.
[It’s terrifying.]
Sarya gazes out into the void, trying to imagine how anyone in their right mind could call this terrifying. “It’s just…I mean, it’s just the Network.”
The suit hums. [It’s just the Network], it says. [I don’t think you know the first thing about the Network.]
“Oh come on,” Sarya ribs the suit, elbowing the wall just as she would a legal intelligence—and hopefully the suit is picking up on that. “Like you’re an expert. You’ve probably never even made a transfer.”
[Because of my low tier?] asks Eleven.
Oh, for the goddess’s sake. “No! Because—”
[I have made many transfers. And you might think differently yourself, in a few minutes.]
And once again the suit cuts off any possible reply by changing its holos. Sarya sucks in a breath as her viewpoint moves backward and out of the ship, and now she is looking at an upended brick drifting in the void. This side—the side away from the sun—is black, but its radiating vanes glow brightly enough to be seen through Eleven’s filters.
