by C. Gockel
He erupted through the surface and sucked in a long breath—to reassure himself that he still could.
“James!” Noa screamed.
Treading water, he turned toward her and lifted the gauge. “I found it,” he said, because it was easier than saying, “I don’t seem to need oxygen.”
Splashing in the shallows, Noa said, “You were underwater for eight minutes.” She ran a hand over her head. “How are you even—you don’t have gills—I’d be able to see them.”
He blinked at her, and an image of the implants along the front of the neck some divers and special ops agents sported flitted through his mind. Kicking to the shore, James searched his data banks. “Even without augmentation, humans are capable of staying beneath water for over ten minutes. It just requires training.” It required years of training, packing air just before the dive, and staying motionless underwater. He didn’t share that, though. Ducking his head, he climbed out of the water and shook himself off. The warm air on his skin felt wonderful, his muscles loosened, and he took another deep breath.
Noa didn’t say anything for two long minutes. And then she looked down at the flashlight in her hand, now unlit. “I tried to dive after you, but your flashlight broke. Who doesn’t have a waterproof flashlight?”
James blinked at her. She was soaked through and shivering. “I’ll finish the repairs,” he said, because he could. Disengaging the dampener wasn’t a skill he had, but checking the charge in the ports was basic. He needed to not think about her fragile body in the cold water, trying to save him when he apparently didn’t need saving.
He shook water out of his hair and then glanced down. Before his eyes, patterns were reappearing on his arms and torso. They were leaf-like shapes that were split by tiny veins of paler skin. He ran his hands over them. They had a slight texture, like scales. He tried to remember when he’d received them, and his memory was like a gray wall. He felt colder than he did in the water, though the air was warm. He remembered the Briefing Room, and Bob Wang describing aliens taking over the bodies of augments … he blinked his eyes. An alien of pure energy stuck in an augment would still have to breathe, and a being of pure energy wouldn’t have … scales.
“James, what’s wrong?” Noa said.
“I … ” he stared at the leaf-like patterns becoming noticeably darker. “I can’t remember where these came from.”
Noa shifted on her feet. “Do they hurt?” she asked. Hadn’t she asked that earlier?
“They … ” He felt his skin warming, and the edge of hunger that had begun to bite beneath the surface started to fade. “No.”
Noa took an audible breath. “We need to get out of here, James, both of us.”
James thought of the sweeper ship, the drones that would invariably be coming back. He wanted to tear at his skin with his fingernails, even if the rising patterns felt good. “You’re right,” he said. Turning quickly, he strode to the craft and went to work. As he did, he heard the pteranodon-like birds of the planet call outside the cave, and near his feet water lapped against the shore. But Noa was silent. Which at first was a relief. And then it was a worry. The woman seemed to like to talk. But maybe she was reconsidering her plan?
“All done,” he said unnecessarily. Lowering the seats back into place, he climbed to his feet.
He found Noa staring at him, arms wrapped around herself. “You can drop me off at the northeast junction,” she said.
She had obviously not reconsidered. James’s jaw shifted. He couldn’t force her to do something, but perhaps he could reason with her? “Going to Luddeccea Prime is dangerous … ”
She glared at him. “That isn’t a good reason not to do something that needs to be done.”
James felt heavy, like his neurons were misfiring. “You’ll die.” He blinked at his own words, amazed that was the first thing that came to his mind, not his death, although he was worried about that, too. He gulped.
Noa’s mouth fell open, but instead of arguing, she just panted.
James pressed on. “You’re breathing hard … you’re half-starved … ”
Her face softened.
“It’s too risky,” James said, shaking his head.
“It’s the riskiest course of action,” Noa admitted.
James’s body sagged with relief. He tried unsuccessfully to smile.
“But it has the highest reward,” said Noa. “We get to Time Gate 8, we call the Fleet, they’ll have a cruiser there in minutes. They have ships on standby at other gates just for this sort of thing. We could be completely safe within days, not hunted like rats for potentially months.”
James tried to run estimates of their chance for success … and could not. There were too many unknown variables. And yet, what she said about highest rewards—that was rational. Although saying a lottery had higher rewards than conscientiously saving for fifty years was also rational. He felt a shiver spread like a wave through his body. He imagined her, in a bright white interrogation room, body spilled out over a steel table, her neural interface yanked from her head, her eyes open and empty, and felt his skin prickle at the intensity of the vision. He took a step toward her, fists tightening.
Unmoving, eyes on his hands, Noa whispered, “You have to let me go, James.”
James stopped. Letting her go would be the rational thing to do … it was her decision, he didn’t have to go along with it. He opened his mouth, wanting to say he’d take her to the magni-freight line. “I will go with you to Luddeccea Prime,” he said, the words surprising him with their smoothness. He looked down. He felt like he did when he’d wanted to run away from her the night before. What was wrong with him? He stared at a black puddle on the cave floor. It gave him no answers … just his reflection framed by inky darkness. His reflection faded, and his imagination conjured up Noa in an interrogation room, her port ripped out … to let that happen would be … failure.
“You will?”
His reflection on the surface of the obsidian-like puddle returned, and he lifted his eyes. Noa was smiling wildly, her teeth white against her dark lips. That smile filled his eyes, and his neurons and nanos sang with a sensation of victory. His jaw shifted. Despite the stupidity of what he’d just offered, he wanted to echo the smile with one of his own. He stepped closer to her, as though pulled by a string, and then stopped short. His fists balled at his sides. He wanted more than just that smile—and the realization filled him with frustration that was more than sexual. She was in a profession he didn’t particularly admire, she was too loud, and he was beginning to doubt her sanity.
Noa’s smile disappeared. Her lips parted slightly. He blinked and in the same instant, Noa stepped away. Her wet clothes made her gauntness more apparent. He remembered the image of the smiling woman in his memory. Maybe he was attracted to an idealized Noa that used to be?
Rubbing her arms, Noa stumbled, and it hit him with the force of a blow. “I have spare clothes for you to wear,” he said hastily. She was obviously cold, and ill, and he should have offered them before. She didn’t argue, just said, “We have to hurry,” so softly it was as though she were reminding herself.
After digging out spare clothes for her, he went to grab fresh clothing of his own. Hearing the craft rev a few minutes later, he turned to see that she’d already dressed and hopped into the craft before he’d had time to put on his sweater. He blinked. He had countless memories of waiting for women to get ready, and even making jokes about their lack of expediency. Feeling slightly abashed, he balled his sweater into his fist, and hopped into the craft—not even complaining that Noa was at the wheel.
A few minutes later, they were zipping through the canyon—not over the main river, but along minor tributaries.
“They are probably stopping all vehicles entering the capital,” James said. Part of him hoped that, if he pointed out all the dangers, she’d turn back.
“Yep,” said Noa. “I have a plan.”
The craft darted through a patch of sunlight and James loo
ked down at his arm. His “tattoos” were darkening; where the sunlight flooded in the window of the hover, they were darkest of all. They felt good, and that felt wrong. He studied the veins on the markings. Holding his hand above his arm, he watched as the markings started to fade in the shadow of his hand. Maybe this was an augmentation that had happened after he fell? He felt a cold bolt of panic. He didn’t remember waking up after the doctors wheeled him down the hallway. But no, he’d told his parents he was coming to Luddeccea. That had happened after the accident on Earth … hadn’t it?
“Why are you still not wearing your sweater?”
Noa’s question drew James from his confusing thoughts, and it was, surprisingly, a relief to escape.
“Who doesn’t wear a shirt in the middle of winter?” she continued. “It’s just ...” She gestured at the air between her and himself.
“Is this some breach in etiquette?” James asked. He had memories of people in the Luddeccean countryside not wearing shirts, or much else, in the summer.
“Well, it isn’t exactly high-class,” Noa said. She leaned forward and scowled, eyes straight ahead.
James raised an eyebrow at the look of ire. “Is my naked chest bothering you?” Seeing the tattoos bothered him, but they weren’t obscene.
“I … no … of course not!” Noa stammered.
The transparency of the lie lit a little spark in his mind, a wicked, twisted little spark. She did say she wanted him to help her lighten the mood. “Maybe you are not so much Han Solo as the etiquette and protocol droid?” His lips didn’t turn up at the jibe, though they wanted to.
Noa hunched at the wheel. Her nostrils flared. Her lips turned down. And then up. “Okay, that is actually kind of funny.”
And he felt that same sensation of victory he’d felt earlier when she’d smiled.
“So, here’s my plan,” Noa said, her smile getting broader. “It’s kind of crazy—”
“We are heading into the capital, the fortress of our enemies, the figurative belly of the beast—how much crazier can it get?” And he had strange tattoos, augmented vision, didn’t need oxygen, was too good a shot, and he was too fast—but he couldn’t bring himself to say all of that.
“You’re really getting the hang of this!” Noa laughed.
It took a few moments for James to process that his completely honest question had been interpreted as a joke. Seeing her happy made him happy and that was irritating. “Onward to the Death Star,” he said dryly, apparently unable to help himself.
Noa laughed aloud, and it felt like a victory and a defeat of all that was logical in the universe.
* * *
The Universe was packed. The floor of the Earth night club throbbed with a pounding beat. Normally, these were things Noa enjoyed. But right now they were getting on her nerves. She peered around the corner of the booth she’d commandeered and looked for Tim. He’d gone off to get drinks. They were supposed to meet friends here.
Catching her unspoken question over their shared ethernet connection, Tim spoke into her mind. “I got our drinks, making my way back to the table now.”
Noa squinted, trying to see him. The room was pulsing with blue strobe lights, and bodies were writhing on the dance floor, a step below where the booths were located.
Timothy’s thought came, “Ugh, I just spilled half my beer.”
Noa’s lips pursed. Over the ethernet she said, “I know what’s bugging me. This place is just too damn crowded.” On Earth they were close to people all the time. Humans were inescapable; even in “wilderness areas,” humanity was only a shout away. There were no wilds on Earth. On Luddeccea she was always looking for a crowd; here she wanted space.
“I’m not going to argue. More packed than a starship,” Tim muttered. She thought she saw him holding two beers atop his head, and sent the image to him with a thought.
“Yep, that’s me,” Tim replied, his thoughts a soothing balm in the noise and the crowd. Probably to make her laugh, he spun in place in time with the beat, beers still on his head. She smiled, but over the ethernet chided, “Don’t spill my drink.”
The music stopped suddenly, and the dancers slowed. The flashing strobe light dimmed, and Noa lost sight of Tim. A single man’s voice singing a haunting melody floated through the room:
“We sent our probes out into the dark,
Hoping ours was not an uncommon part,
But the probes came back, and we found out
We are alone in the black, alone in the black … ”
Noa glanced up at the speakers. It was a song she’d heard for the first time a few days ago. Humanity’s inability to find another sentient space-going race was a frequent theme in art on Earth—it was as though timefield bands and having ten settled systems linked a heartbeat away by time gates wasn’t something to celebrate. Earthlings’ romanticized first contact. It might have been Noa’s Luddeccean upbringing, but the prospect of eventual alien contact stirred mixed emotions in her. She wanted to be there the day they met another sentient space-going race—but another part of her realized such a race was equally likely to be friend or foe.
Music throbbed again through the speakers, and the singer’s voice became a wail:
“Dance! Dance! Dance all night!
We have to make our own light!”
… and then his words were overcome by the sounds of an electronic sitar and drums. The strobe light flashed again.
Noa turned in her seat, and caught sight of a man staring at her. Facial tattoos had been in fashion last time she’d been to Earth, now scarification was the thing; you could tell who was an Earther by the raised scars that swirled around their eyes. In another month the scars would be gone, replaced by something else. Noa shook her head, “So much wasted energy,” she thought.
Over the ethernet, Tim quipped, “Keeps the surgi-centers in business.” Noa laughed. The man who’d been staring at her started to point in her direction—maybe because Noa’s scars were natural and not fashionable, maybe because she was a throwback. The man nudged his date—and she scowled at Noa. Rolling her eyes, Noa scanned the crowd. She saw Tim again, just a few paces away, eyes on the drinks he now carried in front of him. In the blue strobe light his pale skin shone like the moon. His blonde hair had been bleached by the sun during training in the Sahara, and it glowed.
Noa smiled at him.
Catching her eyes, Tim smiled back. “Hey, gorgeous,” he whispered in Noa’s mind. He was only two steps away when a man stepped in front of him and shoved him hard. The drinks spilled, and the man’s voice boomed above the sound of the music. “Throwback Purist! What are you doing here?”
Noa was up in an instant, but a crowd of people were already dragging the man away. Tim was glaring and running a hand through his hair when she reached him. A man who’d helped drag the boorish man away blinked between the two of them. “Oh, you’re together. Sorry about that.”
Noa sighed. As if being visibly of one race was only acceptable if you were with someone who was not—or you were with a throwback of a different race. That proved you thought “correctly.” She huffed. Incidents like this one were too common on Earth. On Luddeccea she’d faced racism too; but, in the small farming community where her parents lived, everyone knew her, and she was always accepted there.
“I can’t wait to get back into space,” Tim grumbled over the ethernet, putting a hand on her hip.
She knew what he meant. In the Fleet, racism was practically non-existent. The joke was that the Fleet treated everyone like throwbacks.
She turned to him, a warm feeling in her stomach. She was about to say, “Let’s get out of here,” when he began to fade before her eyes. Noa’s stomach fell, and she realized she was in a dream … dreaming of Tim. “No wait! Timothy!” she said, just wanting to have him for a moment longer, but he just kept fading, the bar scene disappearing with him, until all that was left was darkness.
* * *
Noa blinked. And found darkness, and for a momen
t thought she was still dreaming. “Timothy!” she called. And then she felt the prickle of hay beneath her back, and the side to side sway of the magni-freight car. She almost cried. It had been years since she’d had a dream where Timothy vanished before her eyes like that. Why of all times was she having one now?
She heard hay crunch, and a dim light flickered on. James’s face was suddenly suspended above her, his body too close—and his face too similar to Timothy’s own. That was why she had the dream.
“Noa, are you alright?” he asked, with his too perfect, too Earther intonation.
For a moment, she could only stare at him. His eyes were wide, his brow drawn—he looked worried. She averted her gaze to the hem of the blanket. Sometimes, when she looked at him, she felt she was looking at an impostor, not a real human being.
The car swayed, and Noa looked up at the ceiling as though searching for something she’d lost there. “Stupid hay, it is too prickly,” she said, to say something, anything, that wasn’t about the dream she just had.
James took an audible breath, and then, mimicking Noa’s voice perfectly, said, “This freight car is the perfect way to get to Luddeccea Prime.” No grin tugged at the corners of his lips. Tim would have cracked up halfway through that joke. James wasn’t Timothy, but he wasn’t an impostor, he was himself.
“Shut up,” said Noa, but she smiled, trying to let him know she was grateful that he had changed the subject. He was picking up on the witty banter thing, at last.
James narrowed his eyes. His jaw moved from side to side as though he was trying to grin. “I don’t think you mean that.”
“Yes, I do.” Noa glowered, but it was feigned. In the freight transport container behind them some cows lowed.
“If more than five minutes pass without conversation, you talk. Or prompt me to talk,” James parried.
Raising an eyebrow, Noa put a hand to her chest as though she were affronted. “Are you calling me a chatterbox?”
James looked up at the ceiling as though searching for something hidden in the eaves, just as she had a moment ago.
