by Tim Wirkus
I laid down an ace of forks next to the dwindling round deck. We played the entire round in silence. Sister Beatriz took the trick.
“I suppose that all I was trying to say,” Sister Beatriz said as we tallied our points from the first triad, “was that once we arrive in the afterlife, if it exists, we will never cease to be. Our post-mortal existence will stretch on forever. I don’t know. The thought of such an infinite future leaves me feeling claustrophobic. A little short of breath. With no exit and no end, eternal life could be a very small cage indeed.”
“But what if it’s mostly pleasant?” I said.
She said it was that mostly that scared her, that even small deprivations played out endlessly become a hell of their own. Tapping the edges of her cards against the table, she cast her eyes downward.
I could sense that the moment of potential revelation had long passed. If Sister Beatriz had a secret to confess, she wouldn’t be doing so this evening.
“Did you meet your bid?” she said, looking up from her score pad.
“Yes,” I said. “You?”
She shook her head and I gathered all the cards. Still clumsy after all these years, I awkwardly shuffled the deck.
“I’d also be lying if I said I take comfort in the notion of death as oblivion,” said Sister Beatriz. “But it also doesn’t scare me more than an inescapable eternity. I don’t know.” She rubbed at a smudge on the table with her long middle finger. “Who knows what happens when we die?”
I dealt the opening hand.
“Either way,” I said, thinking of the approaching Delegarchic troops, “we’ll find out soon enough.”
She frowned at her cards and said, “That’s not a foregone conclusion, you know.”
I looked over the ten cards in my hand and calculated the points I would bid for.
“Do you really believe that?” I said, penciling the figure onto my score pad.
“Yes,” she said. “I do. There’s every chance that we’ll be playing two-handed oubliette again at this time next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, and on until we die of more natural causes.”
As it happens, she’s not entirely wrong. A chance for escape does exist. I mentioned earlier in this monograph that, on receiving the teleprint from the office of the Delegarchs, we deployed a galaxy cruiser with six specially trained cenobites inside. I can divulge no significant details about their mission, except to say that if all goes according to plan—and there’s certainly no guarantee that it will—then a relief party with a ship capable of transporting us all to safety should—should—arrive here at the Cenobium before Delegarchic forces do. As I said, such a possibility is a remote one, and I refuse to allow hope, that winged menace, to find purchase in my heart.
“Still, though,” I said, arranging the cards in my hand, “this could be our last game.”
She shrugged and opened with the deuce of spoons.
Arranging and rearranging the cards in my hand, I tried hard not to picture the impending spacecraft, packed to capacity with armed Delegarchic troops.
“Do you feel ready to die?” I said, not sure what I wanted her answer to be.
She considered this as I lay down the three of spoons.
“Given the choice, I would prefer to live longer,” she said. “And truly, I believe that we will. But if we die, I have no real regrets about how I’ve spent the time I’ve been given. Do you?”
Though they shouldn’t have, both her answer and her follow-up question rattled me. I thought of secrets and corrosion and remorse. Sister Beatriz played the four of forks. I composed my thoughts.
“There are certain things I’d like to clarify before I die,” I said. “To get out into the open.”
“Is this to do with your monograph?” she said.
This was not to do with my monograph. This was to do with something far more personal, but I simply said, “Yes. The monograph.”
If the words rang false, Sister Beatriz either didn’t notice or chose to let them pass. Instead, she played the thief of forks and took the trick.
What I didn’t tell Sister Beatriz is that when one contemplates one’s own death, one reconsiders long-held decisions to keep certain sentiments to oneself, sentiments that, if disclosed, could render a once easy friendship an uneasy one, or worse yet, a non-friendship. There’s nothing I value more than my relationship with Sister Beatriz, and isn’t having part of what one yearns for better than having none of it? Close though we are, I remain uncertain as to how Sister Beatriz might receive such a revelation, and while I have no desire to imperil our friendship, I’m also loath to leave this life behind without first revealing that secret chamber of my heart to the person who resides within it.
ELEVEN
• • •
Despite what she’d said to de Bronk, Sertôrian knew that the unconscious woman hanging from the top of the Bulgakov Apparatus could not be Rosa. No matter how closely this strange being resembled her sister, the fact remained that Rosa had been killed years earlier when a necrotic missile launched by a rogue Klothian battleship obliterated a holo-theater in the busiest neighborhood of Rosa’s hometown on Mars, a civilian target whose destruction violated dozens of tri-imperial codes of war and signaled the dawn of a frightening period of political chaos.
That person in the harness, then, if it was a person, could only be a superficial replica. Its resemblance to Rosa—a cruel joke perpetrated in the poorest taste—slighted the dead woman’s memory. Why, Sertôrian wondered, would the Bulgakov Collective have devoted their considerable genius to the creation of a device that produced such a disgusting product? Just then, as if she had read Sertôrian’s thoughts, the woman opened her eyes.
Lifting her head to take in her surroundings, the woman appeared confused and slightly worried. When she saw the three shipmates standing around the perimeter of the cage, however, her eyes grew bright and confident, and her chapped lips stretched into an angular smile.
“It worked,” she said, and as soon as she had spoken the words, the cables fixing the woman to the top of the cage lowered her at a regal pace to the floor of the Apparatus. When her feet touched the plastic base, her legs flexed, testing her weight. Wobbling only slightly, the woman held herself upright. After a few seconds, the wobbling ceased and she stood before Sertôrian, Valenti, and de Bronk in fixed, marmoreal grandeur.
Still smiling, she gazed at Sertôrian, maintaining uncomfortable eye contact as she unfastened the straps and ties of the harness. The woman held herself like a feared and respected monarch, her posture suggesting that anyone who failed to genuflect in her presence would do so at their own peril. Sertôrian felt equal parts horror, wonder, and disgust as she looked into the eyes of this pseudo-Rosa.
Once freed from her restraints, the woman strode forward until she stood mere inches from Sertôrian, separated only by the thin bars of the cage. With the added height of the plastic base below her, the woman towered over the three shipmates. Sertôrian fought back an urge to bow.
The woman licked her lips with a bright, pointed tongue—a tongue far longer and sharper, Sertôrian was nearly certain, than her sister Rosa’s had ever been. Otherwise, the resemblance was nearly perfect, better than perfect, in fact; she looked fifteen years older than the last time Sertôrian had seen her, with the ever so slight sags and wrinkles of the woman’s face and body accounting for the decade and a half that had passed between the sisters’ last encounter.
“Hello, Irena,” said the woman.
It was Rosa’s deep, throaty voice, more distinctively hers than this body, even, and Sertôrian couldn’t help but respond with: “Rosa. Hello.”
As if unfrozen by the exchange, Ava Valenti pushed past Sertôrian to stand closer to the woman inside the Bulgakov Apparatus. Valenti feigned nonchalance, or perhaps she was truly unflapped.
“I have to say,” said Val
enti, peering clinically at the woman, “I’m beyond impressed. The product appears very nearly human.”
Valenti’s cold condescension raised Sertôrian’s hackles, even though she found the woman in the cage at least as uncanny as Valenti did. The emotional effect of the resemblance to Rosa—her face, and more than anything, her voice—was hard to shake.
Ignoring Valenti, the woman walked magisterially to the door of the cage and began to undo the mechanism that held it closed. Sertôrian wanted to stop her, to hold the door shut with the weight of her body, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. As the woman unfastened the hasp, however, the metal recoiled at her touch, re-twisting itself shut and locking her inside the Apparatus. She tried again and again to open it, and each time, the metal squirmed beneath her fingers, resisting her increasingly frantic efforts with a lightning responsiveness of its own. Her queenly carriage dissolved into animal-like panic.
“Irena,” said the woman, failing to keep the fear altogether out of her voice. “Open the door for me, would you?”
“No,” said de Bronk, his elderly voice cracking. He had been silent to this point, mouth agape and eyes wide. Now his wrinkled face creased itself even further into an expression of anger and dismay.
Sertôrian was about to tell him that she had no intention of opening the door, but before she could, the old soldier emitted a long, rattling yell—half moan, half growl.
“This is all wrong,” he choked out.
“De Bronk,” said Valenti.
“This is all wrong,” he said again, his voice strained and guttural. “All my life I dreamed of the Bulgakov Apparatus. But it was not this.” He pointed an accusing arm at the cage, refusing to turn his head to look at it. “That thing inside there is not what I expected. It’s not what I expected, Captain. This is not what—”
“All right, de Bronk,” said Sertôrian. “Pull yourself together.”
Instead, de Bronk let out another long low growl.
“De Bronk,” said Sertôrian.
He took a deep, shuddering breath and fell silent. Sertôrian and Valenti exchanged a quick, worried glance.
“This is all wrong,” de Bronk repeated one more time.
Sertôrian, Valenti, and the woman in the cage watched de Bronk shuffle off toward the tarp and their gear. Though usually as robust as a person half his age, he looked every bit the frail octogenarian as he curled up in a spare blanket, shaking his head and moaning.
Almost as rattled by her shipmate’s collapse as by the appearance of this Rosa doppelgänger, Sertôrian turned her back on the Bulgakov Apparatus, staring off into the shadowy depths of the forest while she took a moment to collect herself.
“Captain,” said Valenti, sounding cool and clinical again. “I’d like to ask that thing in the cage a few questions. With your permission, of course.”
Sertôrian turned around, but before she could answer, the woman inside the Bulgakov Apparatus said, “You can ask me whatever you like, but I’d feel a lot better about all of this if I had some clothes to wear.”
Within the greater strangeness of the situation, Sertôrian had failed to register the woman’s nakedness, and up to this point it hadn’t seemed to bother the woman either. But a new vulnerability had entered the woman’s voice, and even though Sertôrian knew she should mistrust this new rhetorical tack, the woman’s plaintiveness impelled her to action. Beyond that, Sertôrian was glad for a clear-cut task to focus on in this otherwise bewildering situation. She and Valenti scrounged through their gear for spare scraps of clothes, ignoring the now sleeping body of de Bronk. They handed what they found through the bars of the cage, allowing the woman to functionally, if not fashionably, attire herself in torn camo pants and a threadbare sweater.
“Thank you,” said the woman, sounding even more like Rosa. “Now, are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
After a moment of confusion, Sertôrian realized the woman meant Valenti.
“This is Star-Guard Ava Valenti,” said Sertôrian, “my next-in-command. Valenti, this is . . .”
She caught herself before introducing the woman as her sister, but the figure in the cage stepped in without missing a beat.
“Rosa Sertôrian,” said the woman.
“Fascinating,” said Valenti. She pulled a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder from her knapsack and aimed its microphone at the woman, who, for her part, sat down cross-legged at the edge of the cage.
“Why do you think this door won’t open for you?” said Valenti, nodding at the Bulgakov Apparatus and beginning her line of questioning with no further preamble.
The woman licked her dry lips with her pointed tongue.
“Security measure, perhaps,” she said.
“Do you pose a threat to us then?” said Valenti.
The woman smiled her sharp, angular smile. “No.”
“Then why are you smiling like that?”
Though Sertôrian objected to Valenti’s condescending tone, the questions had merit. The woman’s smile had taken on a sly, predatory gleam, producing a double discomfort for Sertôrian; not only was it unsettling in itself, but it was also unpleasantly familiar. How many times had she seen that very expression on Rosa’s face as an outward sign of her sister’s tightly contained and potent rage? Was that what this woman felt right now? If so, she had good reason. How could she not be infuriated by Valenti’s condescension and Sertôrian’s apparent detachment?
“Well?” said Valenti.
“I’m smiling because I can help you,” said the woman.
“Is that right?” said Valenti.
“It is,” said the woman, her smile gone, impatience manifesting in the tightness of her voice.
“And what could we possibly need your help with?” said Valenti.
The woman stood up and, disregarding Valenti’s question, turned to Sertôrian.
“Irena,” said the woman. “You need to let me out of this cage.”
Sertôrian didn’t move. Not sure whether she felt more anger, fear, disgust, or most horrifying of all, affinity with this woman, Sertôrian didn’t trust herself to respond out loud, fearing her voice would betray her trembling uncertainty.
“What do we need your help with?” repeated Valenti, like a parent humoring a stubbornly mendacious child.
“Irena,” said the woman, her nostrils flaring.
“Answer Valenti’s question, please,” said Sertôrian, the please slipping out as the pseudo-Rosa’s face took on a dangerous, stormy expression. The woman’s gleaming eyes swept over Sertôrian’s face.
“Fine,” said the woman, her face relaxing. She leaned forward against the bars of the cage and beckoned Sertôrian closer.
“You can tell me from there,” said Sertôrian.
The woman smiled. Was there a smugness there now, a satisfaction that her victims had finally opened their mouths to receive the deadly bait?
“I can get you off this planet,” said the woman.
Valenti snorted at this claim, and Sertôrian felt an involuntary surge of hope. If this were true, the woman inside the Bulgakov Apparatus had the power to resolve most, if not all, of the three shipmates’ most pressing problems. But it had to be a lie.
“How?” said Sertôrian.
“There are things I understand now,” said the woman, “that I didn’t before I died.”
“Like what?” said Valenti, lifting her tape recorder.
“Nothing I can put into words,” said the woman. “Although if I had to describe it, I’d say I now have an intuitive understanding of the hidden workings of the universe.”
Sertôrian felt her disgust waning by just a sliver, replaced by a proportional admiration for the woman’s audacity.
“I see,” said Valenti. “And how, specifically, will that help you get us off this planet.”
The woman shook
her head, lips pursed.
“I can’t really explain it,” she said. “I’d have to show you.”
“Which means we’d have to let you out of the Bulgakov Apparatus,” said Valenti.
“That’s right,” said the woman.
“Then I’d say we’ve reached an impasse,” said Valenti.
“I can promise you,” said the woman, “that you have more to lose by keeping me locked up than I do.”
“Is that right?” said Valenti, starting to lose her cool.
“Irena,” said the woman, looking over Valenti’s shoulder, more relaxed now that she was gaining the upper hand. “Who’s the one making decisions here? Are you going to let me out of this cage, or do I have to respond to more of your friend’s inane questions?”
“I have a question for you, actually,” said Sertôrian, increasingly intrigued by the woman’s daring gambit. “You said you were dead before this?”
“That’s right,” said the woman patiently.
“What was it like?” said Sertôrian.
The woman appeared to think carefully about this, her brow furrowed, her lips pressed together.
“Let me guess,” said Valenti. “It’s not something you can put into words.”
“I can certainly explain it,” said the woman. “But I don’t think you’ll believe me.”
“Go ahead,” said Sertôrian. “I’m listening.”
The woman took a moment to compose herself.
“I remember I was buying a bucket of popcorn at the concession stand of the holo-theater,” she began, “when the room was filled with a horrible white light.” The woman closed her eyes, either straining to remember or flinching at the picture in her mind. “I looked up and the ceiling had torn open. I was looking at night sky, and then there was this scraping, screeching explosion. Or maybe the explosion came first. Everything happened so quickly that it’s hard for me to remember. Next thing I knew, though, I was on the ground, feeling kind of dizzy, and my clothes were very wet and very warm. At first I thought it was urine, but then I looked down and realized it was blood, lots of blood coming from my leg and my gut, and from there I guess I died pretty quickly. Which was like falling asleep—the dying, I mean. No great surprise there, but the feeling of sleep lasted only for a moment.
