The Apex Book of World SF

by Mahvesh Murad

  The best that she could do was to use her remaining time as effectively as she was able to.

  When I’m done here, I’ll freeze myself. But this time I’ll set the…final cryogenic procedure.

  If you found us and it’s not too late… Well, we might talk again.

  The original shaft was destroyed by the quake, but she used the remaining probe, continued drilling with a maximum achievable speed, and kept measuring the ice layer via the ultrasonics. While these processes were running, Theodora tried to find out more about Peregrine. She was able to get spectroscopic readings which suggested that its surface consisted mainly of titanium; however, she couldn’t read all the spectral characteristics; the alloy seemed to have too many components.

  She also obtained more results on the thickness of the ice crust. The probe got almost two kilometers deep. Its results suggested that a liquid ocean beneath the layer might be possible—maybe fifteen, maybe twenty kilometers deeper than she was now. Theodora knew she’d never live to see a definitive answer; but these measurements might still be useful for someone else. If they could intercept her message.

  She tried several times to send the data back to Earth, but she knew the chances too well to be even a little optimistic, although she salvaged a bigger antenna from Nerivik 2. But the transmitter was still rather weak and the aim far too inadequate. Without reaching relay stations, her message would become a cosmic noise, nothing more. The most reliable way to let the humanity see the data someday was to store them here in as many copies as she could and hope it would suffice. She didn’t have much of an option.

  She kept thinking about the alien ship. If her dating was correct and it landed here a quarter of a billion years ago, it would vaguely coincide with the Great Permian-Triassic Extinction Event. It was usually attributed mostly to geological factors, but there was a possibility of a contribution of other effects—a disturbance of the Oort cloud and more comets sent to the inner solar system afterward would do. She was recently able to measure how long Peregrine had been exposed to cosmic radiation and it seemed to be just several hundred years unless there was a mistake or some factor she didn’t know about. There was no chance any ship like this could have come here from another star system in such extremely short time—unless the star was really close at the time. It started to make more and more sense to Theodora, although all she had was still just a speculation.

  “And it will remain a speculation until someone else finds us,” she said aloud, glancing at Peregrine. “But they will. You’ll see.”

  However, she wasn’t so sure. Would the company send a new expedition after they realize that Theodora and Dimitri were not going to ever call back? It depended mostly on the budget; she was rather pessimistic. And about other companies or countries, she couldn’t even guess. But Sedna’s distance would grow each year. Before another mission could be sufficiently prepared and launched, years would probably pass. And other years during its voyage. Then even more years on the way back.

  She had to admit to herself the possibility that no one was going to discover them soon—maybe not until the next perihelion. So far away in the future she couldn’t even imagine it.

  She looked at the other ship and touched the dark metal surface. But still closer than how long you had to wait…

  “You were shipwrecked here, too, am I right?” Theodora managed a little smile. “Pity that we cannot talk about what happened to us. I’d really like to hear your story. And it looks like we’re gonna be stuck here together for a while.” Her smile grew wider yet more sorrowful at the same time. “Probably for a long while.”

  I hope you found us and heard our story, whoever you are. I really wish you did.

  “Very interesting,” said Manuel. “We must report these findings to the Consortium immediately.”

  Without waiting for an approval from Chiara or Jurriaan, he started mentally assembling a compact data transmission with the help of Orpheus. In a few minutes, they were prepared to send it.

  Nor Chiara, nor Jurriaan objected.

  When he was done, Manuel sent them a mental note of what he intended to do next.

  “No!” burst out Chiara. “You cannot! They don’t deserve this kind of treatment. They died far too long ago for this procedure to be a success. You won’t revive them; you’ll get pathetic fragments if anything at all! They were heroes. They died heroes. You cannot do this to them.”

  “It has a considerable scientific value. These bodies were preserved in an almost intact ice, sufficiently deep for shielding most of the radiation. We have never tried to revive bodies this old—and in such a good condition. We must do it.”

  “He’s right,” interjected Jurriaan. Chiara looked at him in surprise. It was probably the first thing he had said on this voyage that didn’t involve his music.

  She was outvoted. Even Orpheus expressed a support for Manuel’s proposal, although the Consortium didn’t give AIs full voting rights.

  She left the cabin silently.

  It took Manuel several days of an unceasing effort just to prepare the bodies. He filled them with nanobots and went through the results. He kept them under constant temperature and atmosphere. He retrieved what he could from the long dead ship about their medical records.

  And then he began performing the procedure. He carefully opened the skulls, exposed the brains, and started repairing them. There wasn’t much useful material left after eleven thousand years. But with the help of cutting edge designed bacteria and the nans, there was still a chance of doing a decent scan.

  After another week, he started with that.

  Chiara finally felt at peace. From their rendezvous with Sedna, she felt more filled with various emotions every day and finally she thought she couldn’t bear it anymore. As she stepped inside Orpheus after the last scheduled visit of the surface of Sedna, she knew it was time.

  Inside her cabin, she lay down calmly and let Orpheus pump a precisely mixed cocktail of modulators into her brain. Then Chiara entered her Dreamland.

  She designed this environment herself some decades ago in order to facilitate the process of creating new musical themes and ideas from her emotions and memories as effectively as she could. And Chiara felt that the story of the ancient alien ship, Theodora, Dimitri, and Sedna would make wonderful musical variations. Then it will be primarily Jurriaan’s task to assemble hers and Manuel’s pieces, often dramatically different, into a symphony such as the world has never heard. Such that will make them famous even beyond the Jovian Consortium, possibly both among the Traditionalists and the Transitioned. They will all remember them.

  Chiara smiled and drifted away from a normal consciousness.

  During her stay in the Dreamland, Orpheus slowly abandoned the orbit of Sedna and set on a trajectory leading back to the territory of the Jovian Consortium. Another expedition, triggered by their reports back, was already on their way to Sedna, eager to find out more, especially about the alien ship and to drill through the ice crust into the possible inner ocean.

  Chiara, Manuel, and Jurriaan had little equipment to explore the ship safely—but they didn’t regret it. They had everything they needed. Now was the time to start assembling it all together carefully, piece by piece, like putting back a shattered antique vase.

  Even Manuel didn’t regret going away from this discovery. He had the bodies—and trying to revive their personalities now kept most of his attention. A few days after their departure from Sedna, he finished the procedure.

  Chiara was awake again at the time, the burden of new feelings longing to be transformed into music gone. She didn’t mind now what Manuel had done; it would be pointless to feel anything about it after she had already created her part of the masterpiece.

  Manuel first activated the simulation of Dimitri’s personality.

  “Where am I? Dora…Dora…Dora,” it repeated like a stuck gramophone record.

  “His brain suffered more damage than hers after he died,” Manuel admitted. “She
had time to go through a fairly common cryopreservation procedure. However…”

  “I’m stuck here. Our reactor broke down and the ship tore apart. There is too much damage. My husband is dead… But we found something, I have to pass this message on… But I feel disoriented, what have I finished? Where am I? What’s happening?” After a while, the female voice started again: “Have I said this already? I don’t know. I’m stuck here. Our reactor broke down…”

  “They are both mere fragments, a little memories from before death, a few emotions, and almost no useful cognitive capacity. I couldn’t have retrieved more. Nevertheless, this is still a giant leap forward. Theoretically, we shouldn’t have been able to retrieve this much after more than eleven thousand years.”

  Chiara listened to the feeble voices of the dead and was suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow. It chimed every piece of her body and her mind was full of it. It was almost unbearable. And it was also beautiful.

  “It is great indeed,” she whispered.

  She didn’t have to say more. Jurriaan learned her thoughts through the open channel. She knew he was thinking the same. He listened all the time. In his mind and with help of Orpheus, he kept listening to the recordings obtained by Manuel, shifting them, changing frequencies, changing them…making them into a melody.

  “Keep a few of their words in it, will you?” Chiara spoke softly. “Please.”

  I will. They’ll make a great introduction. They will give the listeners a sense of the ages long gone and of personalities of former humans. And he immersed into his composition once again. She knew better than to interrupt him now. In a few days or weeks, he will be done; he’ll have gone through all her and Manuel’s musical suggestions and come up with a draft of the symphony. Then it will take feedback from her and Manuel to complete it. But Jurriaan will have the final say in it. He is, after all, the Composer.

  And after that, they should come up with a proper name. A Symphony of Ice and Dust, perhaps? And maybe they should add a subtitle. Ghosts of Theodora and Dimitri Live On Forever? No, certainly not; far too pompous and unsuitable for a largely classical piece. Voices of the Dead? A Song of the Shipwrecked?

  Or simply: A Tribute.

  The Lady of the Soler Colony

  Rocío Rincón

  Translated by James & Marian Womack

  Rocío Rincón is a writer and reviewer who lives in Barcelona. Her work has been published in Timey Wimeys, The Best of Spanish Steampunk, Brujas: IV Antología de Relatos Fantásticos, and elsewhere.

  HIS TIN FINGERS against my bedstead, metal against metal, like rain on the pipes. That was how my brother woke me every morning for the seven years we worked at the Soler textile colony.

  This was also how he woke me the day that the colony collapsed like an old empire, sunk in water, rubble and thick lludllitz, ridiculous under the implacable eyes of The Lady.

  Guillem seemed to start each day with his body perfectly prepared for work, while I rubbed my eyes in front of the day’s gruel, sometimes served with butter and sometimes with honey. Leaving the street where the workers’ houses were, everyone stood in line for the communal bathroom in the corridor, then stood in line to get into the factory, then stood in line for the foreman to make a note of us as we came in. Most people’s faces showed sleepiness and resignation, but not my brother’s. For those seven years, Guillem always went ahead, pulling on my hand as we went to the factory, his eyes bright and a smile on his face because he was going to see The Lady.

  Although they were all around twenty metres tall, and their sarcophagi were made from the same darkened, slightly iridescent metal, each one of the Ladies of the nine Catalan colonies was unique. The Lady of the Saltmartí Colony was like a Roman statue, with wide inexpressive pupil-less eyes. She stood high over her factory in a regal pose, wearing a pleated tunic from which sprang thick stems and thorns, like those of a rose bush. The Lady of the Espader Colony, nicknamed La Teresina, had her eyes closed and her mouth open, as if she was singing, and from her tunic came many long arms, with hands to help and bless all those who looked upon her.

  Our Lady, The Lady, was a little different: younger, curvier, with an insolent expression, and curls that snaked around her face in the shape of a heart. Perhaps because of this, because she was so pretty, Mossèn Francesc didn’t make us sing all that many hymns to her, nor did he allow us to swap cards with her picture at the gate to the church. The poor Mossèn, the colony’s priest, reminded us regularly that The Lady’s official name was Carmen, named after the patron saint of seafarers, but The Lady did not seem like someone to whom one should pray. She stood like a fisherwoman, with one hand on her waist and the other held out, beckoning. She shrugged the shoulder that lifted up out of her swooping shirt, raised an eyebrow like a star, and her close-lipped smile twisted one side of her mouth. She wore a bell skirt over her wide hips, and tentacles and seaweed grew from her belly, then changed into tubes which carried the steam into the factory’s workings. Complicated and crude workings that in no way resembled the delicate shape of The Lady.

  It is not good, a cult based round a machine, the Mossèn had said to Señor Roval, the teacher, on the morning when the roof of the factory exploded in a rain of glass and broken ceramic. When the Mossèn had taken the last of the workers from the colony to Olistany station, the teacher had sunk under the weight of so much worship, so much machinery, so much lludllitz.

  For all that the Mossèn didn’t like it, hymns were sung to The Lady in the workers’ accommodation, round the stove, far from mass. Her picture was pinned at the head of all our beds. Families recalled, in whispers, the first time they had heard her soft moaning, in the first days of the colony, when we didn’t even have a bakery. Back then we didn’t have a night watchman, and the first foreman, a man with a sarcastic smile, had attempted to force himself on a girl. That night, The Lady’s singing had woken the neighbours. The Lady sang most often on rainy nights, when the water came in through the little skylight and poured over her curls, her cheeks, down her breast. Her voice, that warm reverberation that sometimes was a ditty and sometimes was a sob, sounded to us like justice.

  Only once had The Lady sung while the sun was out, the day my brother lost his hand, when the factory had been operating for scarcely three months. Guillem, who couldn’t have been more than eight years old, was watching the thread on the shuttles, to know when he should put in more. I remember that with the noise of the machines and the shouts of the workers nobody heard my brother screaming until an urgent noise came from the body of the Lady herself. Mother was the first to see my brother’s bloodied fingers, staining everything they touched, ruining the cloth. When they finally got my brother out from under the loom, separating threads of cotton, flesh, and metal, the Lady’s voice died away with the sound of a fading bell. A few minutes more and Guillem would have lost his arm.

  The Guillem of those days, the one I remember with affection, rarely frowned. The Guillem of today never smiles, except to himself or at clients. He is not sweet now, but affectionate, and everything that he seems to find important is too far away, or else hurts Mother.

  After the surgery, Guillem had to spend several months in bed, as no one knew if his body would accept the metal prosthesis. However, he would spend the afternoons out with Señora Soler’s little metal horse, and she would position him on its back with an almost maternal air. Back then the owners had not yet returned to Barcelona, and Señora Soler, the young señora, would walk through the colony with her flounced white dress and her blonde chignon and ringlets. Señora Soler was pregnant and said that coaches and trains made her dizzy and that she was too tired to walk. That was why they had brought one of those fashionable horses over from Africa, with its large metallic hindquarters, long pastel-coloured mane, and golden eyelashes. It seemed like a gigantic toy, which rather than trotting moved with erratic and tentative paces, halfway between a mad dance and a dressage leap. It was such an advanced model that its tin heart even beat, although it did
occasionally bolt for no reason. There was a stable boy whose only job was to spend hours winding it up, just in case Señora Soler wanted to go out riding at dawn, or at teatime, or before going to bed. On horseback she would ride every Sunday between the church and Olistany, the nearest village. She was like a little girl, too delicate for the colony and for that belly, much younger than the workers who were bent over with age. She had no calluses on her hands and nothing to worry about.

  She was one of those delicate spirits, the kind that rich people can allow themselves to be. She would have cried to see that candyfloss-coloured mane dyed with a strong-smelling black liquid. She would have cried more than for Señor Roval, I believe, to have seen her horse fall to the ground, with its once-powerful hooves moving clumsily. Mother saw the horse on the day we left as well, its belly cut open revealing the bright coggy metal guts. She did not say anything at the time, but I know that she held tighter onto Guillem’s good hand.

  One time Señora Soler came to our house to speak with Mother, after one of her rides with Guillem. We children had to go outside to play, and when I came back I saw Mother crying discreetly, with dignity, as she packed the bags for us to leave. When we reached Señor Soler’s house, the one who was crying was the owner’s wife. We stayed in the colony, as if nothing had happened, but Mother spent weeks sunk into a stubborn silence, her jaw tense. Señora Soler now only took the horse out once a week to ride to Olistany, and after she had given birth she went back to Barcelona.

  When Guillem went back to work at the factory he no longer had to keep an eye on the shuttles, he had been set to work at one of the looms. My brother had changed, he went to work every morning with a new determination. He rested his new hand on The Lady’s skirt, on that metal which seemed as warm as human skin. When the factory was running at full speed and the operator who ran The Lady went in through the little side door to see that everything was running well beneath her skirts, steam would come out of the irises of The Lady’s eyes, through holes little larger than a penny. Guillem always saw when this happened and frowned, as if he were seeing an animal that was being made to work too hard. I had joined the mechanics at that time and I also noticed The Lady more, as she was the only machine in the whole colony that I was not allowed anywhere near.