by Robert Reed
Thirty-two years was not a long time. Three decades was little different than an afternoon, and that’s why for another century or twenty, locals might still refer to a neighbor as the newcomer.
Such was life onboard the Great Ship.
There were millions of avenues like this one. Some were short enough to walk in a day, while others stretched for thousands of uninterrupted kilometers. Many avenues remained empty, dark and cold as when humans first discovered the Great Ship. But some had been awakened, made habitable to human owners or the oddest alien passengers.
This particular avenue was almost a hundred kilometers long and barely two hundred meters across. And it was tilted. Wastewater made a shallow river that sang its way across a floor of sugar-and-pepper granite. For fifty thousand years, the river had flowed without interruption, etching out a shallow channel. Locals had built bridges at the likely places, and along the banks erected tubs and pots filled with soils that mimicked countless worlds, giving roots and sessile feet happy places to stand. A large pot rested outside the man’s front door—the vessel made of ceramic foam trimmed with polished brass and covering nearly a tenth of a hectare. When he first arrived, the man poisoned the old jungle and planted another. But he wasn’t much of a gardener, apparently. The new foliage hadn’t prospered, weed species and odd volunteers emerging from the ruins.
Along the pot’s edge stood a ragged patch of llano vibra—an alien flower famous for its wild haunting songs. “I should cut that weed out of there,” he would tell neighbors. “I pretty much hate the racket it’s making.” Yet he didn’t kill them or tear out the little voice boxes. And after a decade or two of hearing his complaints, his neighbors began to understand that he secretly enjoyed their complicated, utterly alien melodies.
Most of his neighbors were sentient, fully mobile machines. Early in the voyage, a charitable foundation dedicated to finding homes and livelihoods for freed mechanical slaves leased the avenue. But recently organic species had begun cutting their own apartments into the walls, including a janusian couple downstream, and upstream, an extended family of harum-scarums.
The human was a loner but by no means a hermit.
True solitude was the easiest trick. There were billions of passengers onboard, yet the great bulk of the Ship was full of hollow places and great caves, seas of water and ammonia and methane, as well as moon-sized tanks filled with liquid hydrogen. Most locations were empty. Wilderness was everywhere, cheap and inviting. Indeed, a brief journey by cap-car could take the man to any of six wild places—alien environments and hidden sewage conduits as well as a maze-like cavern that was rumored to never have been mapped. That was one advantage: He had more than one escape route. Another advantage was his neighbors. Machines were always bright in easy ways, fountains of information if you knew how to employ them, but indifferent to the subtleties of organic life.
Pamir lived as a hermit for a time. That was only sensible. Ship captains rarely abandoned their posts, and captains of his rank and great promise never made ruins out of an important facility—regardless whether they had good reasons or not.
But thousands of years had brought changes to his status. By most accounts, the Master Captain had stopped searching for him. Two or three or four possible escapes from the Ship had been recorded, each placing him on one the new colony worlds that humans were building as they traveled through the galaxy. Or maybe he had died in some ugly fashion. The best story put him inside a frigid little cavern. Smugglers had killed his body and sealed it inside a tomb of glass, and after centuries without food or air, the body had stopped trying to heal itself. Pamir was a blind brain trapped inside a frozen carcass, and the smugglers were eventually captured and interrogated by the best in that narrow field. According to coerced testimonies, they confessed to killing the infamous captain, though the precise location of their crime wasn’t known and would never be found.
Pamir spent another few thousand years wandering, changing homes while remaking his face and name. He had worn nearly seventy identities, each elaborate enough to be believed, yet dull enough to escape notice. For good reasons, he found it helpful to wear an air of mystery, letting neighbors invent any odd story to explain the gaps in his biography. Whatever they dreamed up, it fell far from the truth. Machines and men couldn’t imagine the turns and odd blessings of his life. Yet despite all of that, Pamir remained the good captain. A sense of obligation forced him to watch after the passengers and Ship. He might live on the run for the next four hundred millennia, but he would always be committed to this great machine and its precious, nearly countless inhabitants.
Now and again, he did large favors.
Like with the harum-scarums next door. Giants by every measure, adorned with armored plates and spine-encrusted elbows, they were possessed by an arrogance caused by millions of years of wandering among the stars. But this particular family was politically weak, and that was a bad way to be among harum-scarums. They had troubles with an old Mother-of-fathers, and when Pamir saw what was happening, he interceded. Over the course of six months, by means both subtle and decisive, he put an end to the feud. The Mother-of-fathers came to her enemies’ home, walking backwards as a sign of total submission, and with a plaintive voice begged for death, or at the very least, a forgetting of her sordid, graceless crimes.
No one saw Pamir’s hand in this business. If they had, he would have laughed it off, and moments later, he would have vanished, throwing himself into another identity inside a distant avenue.
Large deeds always demanded a complete change of life.
A fresh face.
A slightly rebuilt body.
And another forgettable name.
That was how Pamir lived. And he had come to believe that it wasn’t a particularly bad way to live. Fate or some other woman-deity had given him this wondrous excuse to be alert at all times, to accept nothing as it first appears, helping those who deserved to be helped, and when the time came, remaking himself all over again.
And that time always came…
2
“Hello, my friend.”
“Hello to you.”
“And how are you this evening, my very good friend?”
Pamir was sitting beside the huge ceramic pot, listening to his llano-vibra. With a dry smirk, he mentioned, “I need to void my bowels.”
The machine laughed a little too enthusiastically. Its home was half a kilometer up the avenue, sharing an apartment with twenty other legally sentient AIs who had escaped together from the same long-ago world. The rubber face and bright glass eyes worked themselves into a beaming smile, while a happy voice declared, “I am learning. You cannot shock me so easily with this organic dirty talk.” Then once again, he said, “My friend,” before using the fictitious name.
Pamir nodded, shrugged.
“It is a fine evening, is it not?”
“The best ever,” he deadpanned.
Evening along this avenue was a question of the clock. The machines used the twenty-four hour ship-cycle, but with six hours of total darkness sandwiched between eighteen hours of brilliant, undiluted light. That same minimal aesthetics had kept remodeling to a minimum. The avenue walls were raw granite, save for the little places where organic tenants had applied wood or tile facades. The ceiling was a slick arch made of medium-grade hyperfiber wearing a thin coat of grime and lubricating oils and other residues. The lights were original, as old as the Ship and set in the thin dazzling bands running lengthwise along the ceiling. Evening brought no softening of brilliance or reddening of color. Evening was a precise moment, and when night came…in another few minutes, Pamir realized…there would be three warning flashes, and then a perfect smothering blackness.
The machine continued to smile at him, meaning something by it. Cobalt-blue eyes were glowing, watching the human sit with the singing weeds.
“You want something,” Pamir guessed.
“Much or little. How can one objectively measure one’s wishes?”
/> “What do you want with me? Much, or little?”
“Very little.”
“Define your terms,” Pamir growled.
“There is a woman.”
Pamir said nothing, waiting now.
“A human woman, as it happens.” The face grinned, an honest delight leaking out of a mind no bigger than a fleck of sand. “She has hired me for a service. And the service is to arrange an introduction with you.”
With a flat, unaffected voice, Pamir said, “An introduction.” And through a string of secret nexuses, he brought his security systems up to full alert.
“She wishes to meet you.”
“Why?”
“Because she finds you fascinating, of course.”
“Am I?”
“Oh, yes. Everyone here believes you are most intriguing.” The flexible face spread wide as the mouth grinned, never-used white teeth shining in the last light. “But then again, we are an easily fascinated lot. What is the meaning of existence? What is the purpose of death? Where does slavery end and helplessness begin? And what kind of man lives down the path from my front door? I know his name, and I know nothing.”
“Who’s this woman?” Pamir asked.
The machine refused to answer him directly. “I explained to her what I knew about you. What I positively knew and what I could surmise. And while I was speaking, it occurred to me that after all of these nanoseconds of close proximity, you and I remain strangers.”
The surrounding landscape was unremarkable. Scans told Pamir that every face was known, and the nexus traffic was utterly ordinary, and when he extended his search, nothing was worth the smallest concern. Which made him uneasy. Every long look should find something suspicious.
“The woman admires you.”
“Does she?”
“Without question.” The false body was narrow and quite tall, dressed in a simple cream-colored robe. Four spidery arms emerged from under the folds of fabric, extending and then collapsing across the illusionary chest. “Human emotions are not my strength. But from what she says and what she does not say, I believe she has desired you for a very long time.”
The llano-vibra were falling silent now.
Night was moments away.
“All right,” Pamir said. He stood, boots planting themselves on the hard pale granite. “No offense meant here. But why the hell would she hire you?”
“She is a shy lady,” the machine offered. And then he laughed, deeply amused by his own joke. “No, no. She is not at all shy. In fact, she is a very important soul. Perhaps this is why she demands an intermediary.”
“Important how?”
“In all ways,” his neighbor professed. Then with a genuine envy, he added, “You should feel honored by her attentions.”
A second array of security sensors was waiting. Pamir had never used them, and they were so deeply hidden no one could have noticed their presence. But they needed critical seconds to emerge from their slumber, and another half-second to calibrate and link together. And then, just as the first of three warning flashes rippled along the mirrored ceiling, what should have been obvious finally showed itself to him.
“You’re not just my neighbor,” he told the rubber face.
A second flash passed overhead. Then he saw the shielded cap-car hovering nearby, a platoon of soldiers nestled in its belly.
“Who else stands in that body?” Pamir demanded.
“I shall show you,” the machine replied. Then two of the arms fell away, and the other two reached up, one violent jerk peeling back the rubber mask and the grit-sized brain, plus the elaborate shielding. A face lay behind the face. It was narrow, and in a fashion lovely, and it was austere, and it was allowing itself a knife-like smile as a new voice said to this mysterious man:
“Invite me inside your home.”
“Why should I?” he countered, expecting some kind of murderous threat.
But instead of threatening, Miocene said simply, “Because I would like your help. In a small matter that must remain—I will warn you—our little secret.”
3
Leading an army of captains was the Master Captain, and next in command was her loyal and infamous First Chair. Miocene was second most powerful creature in this spectacular realm. She was tough and brutal, conniving and cold. And of all the impossible crap to happen, this was the worst. Pamir watched his guest peel away the last of her elaborate disguise. The AI was propped outside, set into a diagnostic mode. The soldiers remained hidden by the new darkness and their old tricks. It was just the two of them inside the apartment, which made no sense. If Miocene knew who he was, she would have simply told her soldiers to catch him and abuse him and then drag him to the Ship’s brig.
So she didn’t know who he was.
Maybe.
The First Chair had a sharp face and black hair allowed to go a little white, and her body was tall and lanky and ageless and absolutely poised. She wore a simple uniform, mirrored in the fashion of all captains and decorated with a minimum of epaulets. For a long moment, she stared into the depths of Pamir’s home. Watching for something? No, just having a conversation through a nexus. Then she closed off every link with the outer world, and turning toward her host, she used his present name.
Pamir nodded.
She used his last name.
Again, he nodded.
And then with a question mark riding the end of it, she offered a third name.
He said, “Maybe.”
“It was or wasn’t you?”
“Maybe,” he said again.
She seemed amused. And then, there was nothing funny about any of this. The smile tightened, the mouth nearly vanishing. “I could look farther back in time,” she allowed. “Perhaps I could dig up the moment when you left your original identity behind.”
“Be my guest.”
“I am your guest, so you are safe.” She was taller than Pamir by a long measure—an artifact of his disguise. She moved closer to the wayward captain, saying, “Your origins don’t interest me.”
“Well then,” he said.
And with a wink, he added, “So is it true, madam? Are you really in love with me?”
She laughed abruptly, harshly. Stepping away from him, Miocene studied the apartment again, this time focusing on its furnishings and little decorations. He had a modest home—a single room barely a hundred meters deep and twenty wide, the walls paneled with living wood and the ceiling showing the ruddy evening sky of a random world. With a calm voice, she announced, “I adore your talents, whoever you are.”
“My talents?”
“With the aliens.”
He said nothing.
“That mess with the harum-scarums…you found an elegant solution to a difficult problem. You couldn’t know it at the time, but you helped the Ship and my Master, and by consequence, you’ve earned my thanks.”
“What do you wish from me tonight, madam?”
“Tonight? Nothing. But tomorrow—early in the morning, I would hope—you will please apply your talents to a small matter. A relatively simple business, we can hope. Are you familiar with the J’Jal?”
Pamir held tight to his expression, his stance. Yet he couldn’t help but feel a hard kick to his heart, a well-trained paranoia screaming, “Run! Now!”
“I have some experience with that species,” he allowed. “Yes, madam.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said Miocene.
As a fugitive, Pamir lived among the J’Jal on two separate occasions. Obviously, the First Chair knew much more about his past. The pressing question was if she knew only about his life five faces ago, or if she had seen back sixty-three faces—perilously close to the day when he permanently removed his captain’s uniform.
She knew his real identity, or she didn’t.
Pamir strangled his paranoia and put on a wide grin, shoulders managing a shrug while a calm voice said, “And why should I do this errand for you?”
Miocene had a cold way of smirking. �
�My request isn’t reason enough?”
He held his mouth closed.
“Your neighbors didn’t ask for your aid. Yet you gave it willingly, if rather secretly.” She acted angry though not entirely surprised. Behind those black eyes, calculations were being made, and with a pragmatic tone, she said, “I promise not to investigate your past.”
“Because you already have,” he said.
“To a point, and maybe a little farther than I first implied. But I won’t use my considerable resources any more, if you help me.”
“No,” he said.
She seemed to flinch.
“I don’t know you,” he lied. “But madam, according to your reputation, you are a bitch’s bitch.”
In any given century, how many times did the First Chair hear an insult delivered to her face? Yet the tall woman absorbed the blow with poise, and then she mentioned a figure of money. “In an open account, and at your disposal,” she said. “Use the funds as you wish, and when you’ve finished, use some or all of the remaining wealth to vanish again. And you should hope to do a better job of it this time.”
She was offering a tidy fortune.
But why would the second most powerful entity on the Ship dangle such a prize before him? Pamir considered triggering hidden machines. He went as far as activating a tiny nexus, using it to bring a battery of weapons into play. With a thought, he could temporarily kill Miocene. Then he would slip out of the apartment through one of three hidden routes, and with luck, escape the pursuing soldiers. And within a day, or two at most, he would be living a new existence in some other avenue…or better, he would stand alone in one of the very solitary places where he had stockpiled supplies.
Once again, Miocene confessed, “This is a confidential matter.”
In other words, this was not official business for the First Chair.
“More to the point,” she said, “you won’t help me as much as you will come to the aid of another soul.”
Pamir deactivated the weapons, for the moment.
“Who deserves my help?”
