You can't say how you know, but she wants to live.
You want to live.
Jump rounds fired point blank at the zero bubble would disintegrate on impact. Flat band comm lines can't penetrate it. It glides unperturbed along its orbit. In time, at the speed you're going, Skulldugger will pass within eyeball range of the Tivhari fleet when you round the pole toward the equator. The orbits should coincide.
You stare into space then look at the Tivhari.
She, too, is looking out. Cloudy grey nictitating membranes window-shade back and forth over her beady black eyes, then she focuses on you.
You tell yourself she was thinking of home, if Tivhari have such a concept.
She retrieves the rag she used to wipe her cockpit glass, dabs an arm-point into it, then scratches the glass in a deliberate motion. When she is done she has etched a copy of the man stenciled on Skulldugger's hull. She leans back into her cockpit, and spasmodic convulsions wrack her. It is a moment before you realize she is laughing.
Sweat beads on your upper lip.
Her convulsions die away to minor after-shocks, shell-hard caps cover her eyes, and her body swells and shrinks with the easy deep breathing of sleep.
It was a trap, all of it; the bait too tempting for the corps to overlook. It is why there were so many more Tivhari ships than expected. The Tivhari have more—no telling how many more. You no more know where they come from than they know where you come from. What the corps destroyed so far could be only a fraction, their forward troops. Pride blinded those who designed the assault wave, let them think you had the Tivhari on the run, that they were desperate while they led you to space they can reach without impediment.
It is not your fault. You did not tip them off.
Suddenly, you find yourself staring out into the far, thin expanse—you ignored Magdalena Base Five, people, your people. They had thanked God for your arrival.
Though Tivhari evolve uniquely on each planet where their seeds find a home, they all grow toward a common form. And they look after their own, no matter how different they've become. It is why they fought so ferociously when humans discovered they penetrated beyond the fringe—retreat meant they left theirs behind.
You blink tears from your eyes. The cockpit has dimmed, the interface liquid gone unmixed.
One deep breath leads to another. And another. And another. Your hands cramp from hyperventilation. Your calves bunch in hardened, painful knots. Your hindbrain tells you it is stupid. Tivhari are man-sized f leas. You wedge pauses between breaths. The pauses lengthen until you're breathing normally and your hands uncurl.
You are giving the Tivhari too much credit. Many smarter people than you have considered the scenario and decided to put you where you are. They had you in mind. They would not make a mistake. You don't know everything. It is not your job, never was. You know what you know, amalgamated and true. Your job was to repel the Tivhari.
Now, your job is to survive.
You sleeve your arms back into the contact gloves. It is the most comfortable position within Skulldugger. You snap your fingers, gambol your wrists, pinch thumb to pointer. Skulldugger remains unresponsive. The interface liquid glows sapphire, bubbles, and vents ozone.
You are distinctly aware Skulldugger can fly to rendezvous if unmanned, has done so before.
Your hindbrain senses panic stirring and puts you to sleep. You do not fight it; it has kept you alive so far. Your dreams are not kind to you. Skulldugger has rounded Melville IV's pole when you wake.
The Tivhari points at you, then below you at the planet. You. The planet. You do not know how long she has been doing this. Her gestures grow emphatic, sharp, stabbing. As far as Skulldugger is concerned, the zero bubble shrank the universe to the dimensions of your cockpit. Her 3-D field dome is blank. Your viewer is locked in place.
Experimentally, you switch off Skulldugger's view stabilizer, and the few stars ornamenting the vacuum shake.
The Tivhari points at you, the planet.
Your orbit is degrading.
The zero bubble is slowly falling into Melville IV's upper atmosphere, bumping on its rough edges.
The Tivhari's mouth fingers part. Her cockpit glass fogs. She is screaming at you, a warning. If you do not release the bubble soon, best case scenario, when you do the atmosphere will tear at you. If you manage to remain intact and right yourself, you'll have to dodge volcanic flares to escape. Your orbit won't last four days. You are a good pilot, but if you wait it out, you will pay for your stubbornness with your life.
She adds a phase to her gestures, points, points, then raises her chitinous arms away from her controls. She is making a deal. She will not attack. She is conceding.
Your hindbrain vibrates with caution. It is a trick. Saying she will not attack means she could. Point blank, a pinwheel round may not have room to unfurl, but it'd do the trick.
You are at war.
She is afraid.
The battle with the Tivhari f leet slowly sweeps into view. You switch on Skulldugger's view stabilizer, yet it is hard to tell who is winning. There are so many ships, and everything is moving. Currents within the melee grow apparent. Small clouds of Tivhari chase individual corps fighters, who dart among the seed ships. With each of their passes, dots of fire perforate seed ship hulls. Among them, you spot an iridescent yellow dot, the major. He has arrived with reinforcements. His tail of Tivhari is greater than all the others, more defined. He has made them mad.
You pull free from the contact gloves and pound the dome of your cockpit, then remember the Tivhari cannot see you. She ends her pointing and intently watches the battle.
One of the corps fighters explodes. Its comet tail of pursuers feathers away to join the others. You watch the Tivhari for reaction. Shell-hard caps close over her eyes. She leans back into her cockpit.
You hold a hand over the button. Your hindbrain quickens for you to push it. Your hand shakes.
It was not as much of a trap as you suspected. Tivhari wouldn't wantonly sacrifice seed ships. If it was a trap, they would've f led. They are making a stand. Your wing needs you, if only to draw pursuers away from those still armed, to give them a more sporting chance. When worse comes to worst, you can kamikaze.
The battle passes from view.
The Tivhari opens her eyes, stares into the void, then stares at you. She taps the man-shaped stencil etched on her cockpit glass.
At times, corps pilots have been pursued by Tivhari as their fighters jumped back toward rendezvous. Rendezvous is never less than five jumps, and after four, if the fighter still pings nonfriendlies, it alters course for a completely abandoned sector of space, then self-destructs. Your hindbrain pulses this is to be your fate. You will wait until you pass the fight again, then get as many to follow as you can. It is honorable. It lures Tivhari away from core planets, away from the battle, and damages them distant from repair.
Arid pain needles behind your eyes, creeps up the back of your neck to clench like a tightening fist at the base of your skull. You draw a thick tongue across dry lips. You try not to think of water.
You switch off Skulldugger's view stabilizer. The few stars shake.
Smoke replaces them. It is everywhere. Melville IV's atmosphere has swallowed the zero bubble. The Tivhari sits up, braces her arms against the walls of her cockpit. She doesn't have the option of view stabilization. It is all coming at her raw; her brain tells her she is being rattled, though the zero bubble protects her. She darts her gaze around her cockpit dome. You find yourself doing the same. You have waited too long, your fall faster than anticipated. You should have listened.
Suddenly, you are free of the smoke, the few stars returned. It was an escaping plume, nothing more.
You laugh until tears wet your cheeks, then wipe them dry. The Tivhari's nictitating membranes squeegee milky fluid from her glistening black eyes.
She has tears.
You look toward the black of the void, and your mind skates away. By the time
you look back at the Tivhari, she has scratched the man-shaped stencil from her cockpit glass. You don't know when she did this. Apologies shouldn't go unnoticed.
Your eyes are drawn to the void.
You try not to think of turkey legs with smoky barbeque sauce, of almond honey. Steak. It is inappropriate. Weak.
When the battle sweeps into view, it is on the opposite side of Skulldugger than it was on first pass. The zero bubble has slowed, delayed your arrival. It is difficult to see details.
The number of seed ships has dwindled to maybe a dozen-plus, the rest fled or collapsed. Your wing and the major's reinforcements have dwindled, too. A single iridescent yellow corps fighter is starkly identifiable, chased by a thick swarm of Tivhari. Explosions firework within the swarm. A seed ship vanishes. Another jerks like a balloon that has had its string cut, and rises/falls toward Melville IV. The yellow dot weaves among the lumbering seed ships, wringing the trailing swarm between them and producing a long, thin tail. The yellow dot turns to face the swarm, darts into it, and lights up the churning, coalescing mass from within. It does not make it out the far side.
Milky fluid streams from the Tivhari's black eyes.
You pull free from the contact gloves and pound your cockpit's ceiling. She doesn't get to cry. You are screaming, raving, your voice hoarse, throat raw, when the remaining battle passes from view.
You will kill her. You will crash the zero bubble into Melville IV's volcanic sea, let it sink to the bottom, then press release. The weight of the ocean will bear down on you both. This is why you didn't press the button for release. You are not afraid. You are making a point.
It is a relief to know what you are here to do.
You will not give her the satisfaction of her tears. She will suffer for each one. Her suffering will match your own and exceed it, for knowing she does not control it. The major deserves as much.
The dry fist squeezing the base of your skull grows claws. You are aware of how your tongue's placement against your teeth makes you salivate. You do not think about water.
Melville IV's atmosphere blots out the stars, then passes, blots out, passes. Traverses through atmosphere grow more regular. You are no longer bouncing off, but descending in earnest.
The Tivhari protrudes her throat tube, dabs an arm-point into its orifice, and etches the stenciled shape of a Tivhari on her cockpit glass. She understands. She is going to die. She leans back into her cockpit and watches the stars strobe by.
You cannot spot the fight on the next pass of the equator. You consider for a moment the zero bubble has slowed so your orbits no longer coincide, then shiver. You are being too hopeful. Both sides have left, their points made, the site a battleground, never a home.
You are being dramatic and sentimental. One more Tivhari won't make a difference. Only to you. And you are alone.
You are not being a pilot.
You are distinctly aware there is no winning. There is only life.
The atmospheric plumes widen. The zero bubble spends more time in atmosphere than out. There is no opal-strewn galactic arm, no fringe, no beyond. The bubble is everything. Soon, it will be nothing.
The zero bubble emerges from the atmosphere. A stunning volcanic flare towers ahead of you like a wall the size of God. You will collide with it. You will pass into it. You have taken it too far.
The flare consumes you. It is impossibly bright. You are falling into it. You will miss the sea and instead land in the heart of upheaval. You will burn. There will be no pressure.
You are babbling apologies to the Tivhari when the zero bubble emerges out the far side of the flare, falling in a calm shaft of air like the eye of a storm.
Your hindbrain senses panic and smothers it with fatigue. As though fighting to wake from a dream, you hit the button for release.
You plunge your arms into the contact gloves. The Tivhari tumbles from view.
Concentrate fuel to thrusters, full thrust.
Skulldugger rattles and bucks. Nothing is permanent. Everything is shifting, transforming, dissipating, growing together. It is thinning, darkening, loosening, breaking apart. It is nothing, everything. Suddenly, the black void spreads before you. You have escaped.
Above Melville IV, you form your hands into the sign for peace and ping for friendlies. The planet is silent. You fly a circle over where you emerged and widen your search in a swirling pattern. You try not to think of water.
Skulldugger wails with alarms, and jolts the interface liquid so it glows ruby. You have been locked on. You point Skulldugger's nose at the approaching Tivhari and go limp in the grav-cradle. It is her. She is more determined than you. She is a weapon.
The Tivhari blows past, close enough to spit, and fires a pinwheel round off into space, then is gone, jumped away.
You snap your fingers, firing a single sun harmlessly into the far, thin expanse. You wish she would've seen. You snap them again. Nothing.
You press your palms together as though in prayer, and Skulldugger jumps for rendezvous.
You are weeping uncontrollably when the new acting major places his hand on your shoulder and helps you from Skulldugger into the station's hangar.
"Good job," the new major tells you.
He leads you from the hangar to a well-lit room in the center of the station. The room is so long you cannot see its end. Uniform rows of tables with synaptic drips feeding into clear-paneled incubators recede into the distance. Each incubator contains a baby boy. The major hands you off to one of the men attending to the incubators. He looks like you. You think you recognize him. If he is who you think he is, his hair has grown out some since last you saw him. It is surprising to see him. They have let him keep his pilot casuals. He has regained some weight, but still is lean.
He leads you to one of the incubators. "They like to be touched," he says, and sleeves his clean hands into the contact gloves fitted into the side of the incubator. He strokes the baby boy's head, then takes a tiny hand between his thumb and pointer. The hand clenches in reflex. "Good job," he whispers to the baby.
His hand movements are gentle and slow, the manic, rapid control gestures gone from them.
He looks at you and smiles, his eyes softened and calm. "They grow better with human touch. They even grow faster."
You are distinctly aware everything in the station can be melted down and repurposed.
He removes his arms from the incubator and gestures for you to try.
Your hindbrain tells you it's okay. It is a baby. You sleeve into the contact gloves and touch the baby boy's hand. It clenches around your finger, its strength surprising. You smile and look at the man, who smiles back and nods like you should continue. You touch the baby boy's hand. Again, tiny pink digits close around your finger, the response simple, beautiful, and ingrained. Your arms are tingling and cool, like you're glowing.
"Good job," you whisper to the baby boy.
It'll take time, but you're sure the Corps will win.
* * *
Vladimir Chong Chooses to Die
Lavie Tidhar | 4657 words
The clinic was cool and calm, a pine-scented oasis in the heart of Central Station. Cool calm white walls. Cool calm air conditioning humming, coolly and calmly. Vladimir Chong hated it immediately. He did not find it soothing. He did not find it calming. It was a white room; it resembled too much the inside of his own head.
"Mr. Chong?" The nurse was a woman he recalled with exactness. Benevolence Jones, cousin of Miriam Jones who was his boy Boris's childhood sweetheart. He remembered Benevolence as a child with thin woven dread-locks and a wicked smile, a few years younger than his own boy, trailing after her cousin Miriam in adoration. Now she was a matronly woman in starched white and dreadlocks thicker and fewer. She smelled of soap. "The mortality consultant will see you now," she said.
Vlad nodded. He got up. There was nothing wrong with his motor functions. He followed her to the consultant's office. Vlad could remember with perfect recall hundreds of such
offices. They always looked the same. They could have easily been the same room, with the same person sitting behind them. He was not afraid of death. He could remember death. His father, Weiwei, had died at home. Vlad could remember it several ways. He could remember his father's own dying moment—broken sentences forming in the brain, the touch of the pillow hurting strangely, the look in his boy's eyes, a sense of wonder, filling him, momentarily, then blackness, a slow encroachment that swallowed whatever last sentence he had meant to say.
He could remember it from his mother's memories, though he seldom went into them, preferred to segment them separately, when he still could. She was sitting by the bed, not crying, then fetching tea, cookies, looking after the guests coming in and out, visiting the deathbed of Weiwei. She spared time for her boy, for little Vlady, too, and her memories were all intermingled of the moment her husband died, her hand on Vlady's short hair, her eyes on Weiwei who seemed to be struggling to say something then stopped, and was very still.
He could remember it his own way, though it was an early memory, and confused. Wetness. Lips moving like a fish's, without sound. The smell of floor cleaner. Accidentally brushing against the cool metal leg of R. Brother Patch-It, the robo-priest, who stood by the bed and spoke the words of the Way of Robot, though Weiwei was not a practitioner of that, nor any other, religion.
"Mr. Chong?"
The mortality consultant was a tall thin North Tel Aviv Jew. "I'm Dr. Graff," he said.
Vlad nodded politely. Dr. Graff gestured to a chair. "Please, sit down."
Vlad sat, remembering like an echo, like reflections multiplying between two mirrors. A universe of Chongs sitting down at doctor's offices throughout the years. His mother when she sat down and the doctor said, "I'm afraid the news is not good." His father after a work injury when he had shattered his leg bones falling in his exoskeleton from the uncompleted fourth level of Central Station. Boris when he was five and his node was infected by a hostile malware virus with rudimentary intelligence. His sister's boy's eldest when they took him to the hospital in Tel Aviv, worried about his heart. And on and on, though none, yet, in a life termination clinic. He, Vlad, son of Weiwei, father of Boris, was the first of the line to visit one of those.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact - 2014-08 Page 13
