Dark Beyond the Stars

by Patrice Fitzgerald

  “Triumph, give me a status on the ship,” Lulu commanded. Stranded or not, she was alive and needed information. And now that she was thinking, she wanted to work—and to do that, she needed the correct information.

  The computer responded quickly. “Primary damage control systems intact, primary life support module breached, biological ecosystem module damaged but unbreached. Manufacturing module damaged, spine support beyond junction thirty-four compromised.”

  “What about everything else? Research? Collection? Landing?” Lulu asked. The computer had given her a short list of positive things—things that still existed. She had expected the opposite; the computer should have given her a list of what was damaged. That could only mean that this catastrophe was even worse than it felt from inside the capsule—and it felt pretty serious.

  Was it too much?

  “Are we recoverable?” she asked quickly, not waiting for the computer to answer her previous queries. If they weren’t recoverable, then the next thing that should happen would be a complete self-destruct, taking her and anything else that might have survived into oblivion. Her fists tightened, her body clenching as if in preparation for the blast, which was silly really, since it would be so profound an explosion that she would feel nothing. Nothing larger than a grain of sand would be left. Lulu really did not want that to happen.

  “I cannot initiate appropriate protocols. My primary core is fractured. I have attempted self-destruct without result,” said the computer. “Do you still require the status of the other modules?”

  Lulu sucked in a sharp breath, feeling suddenly dizzy again, almost as if she’d returned to breathing thin air. Self-destruct meant that Triumph has already assessed their entire mission a failure, unrecoverable, without sufficient chance of success to merit the risk of leaving the ship exposed where some other life form might come across its remains in the future. While she’d been tugging on a sleeve or latching a helmet, Triumph had been coldly—and without consultation—deciding the time was right to kill her.

  Fucker. Fucking, fucker computer.

  “Don’t keep trying! I’m right here. I’m not throwing in the towel,” Lulu shouted, pulling up her suit’s controls so she could get a look at their situation for herself. If self-destruction was the computer’s solution, then she needed to orient herself, get to a Lander—if any survived—and get to the surface and well away from this suicidal machine. They had labs and habs on the surface that could support the current crop of two dozen workers easily. The planet was still barren, but the habs weren’t.

  The small monitor on her suit’s arm lit up, the blue glow strangely comforting, but that was as far as the boot-up went. Her suit computer apparently hadn’t survived her headlong flight into the capsule and all the impacts along the way. She slammed her palm onto the useless screen, causing her body to shift in the weightlessness, and she scrambled to regain purchase against the wall of the capsule.

  Triumph said, “There is no point in further attempts at this time. I will attempt to re-consolidate core prior to the next self-destruct initiation.”

  Lulu yanked on the strap she clung to, putting her face close to the speaker inside the capsule. “Forget that! Do you hear me? You will not initiate any further attempts at self-destruct. Where are the other Loads? Are there any other survivors?”

  “There are no other responses, and my remaining core connections register only one other bio-signature. It is in the ecosystem module,” said Triumph.

  “Human? Who?” Lulu asked, trying to remember if there had been anyone on duty in the arboretum this morning. Anyone other than a machine, anyway.

  “Beagle.”

  Charlie! How could Lulu have forgotten about the poor dog? What must he be thinking right now?

  “What’s his condition?” she asked, moving around the capsule by grabbing the straps and pulling herself along. She could only hope that the controls for the capsule still worked. Without a computer in here to capture visuals on the continuing destruction—and the capsule floating around in the midst of it—she needed to get somewhere safe. And soon.

  “He’s barking. A lot. He is not responding to standard soothing routines,” Triumph said, a little of its former conversational intonations and quirks returning. Did that mean the worst was over?

  She pushed down the crushing emotions she felt at the lack of human survivors. She would face that later. At least she wasn’t alone. It would take six months or so to tank up replacements for her compatriots, but she would have the dog in the meantime. That was something.

  “We’ll work it out, Triumph. Just get my module pulled back in and let’s get to work. And no more trying for a self-destruct. Do you understand me?”

  Lulu yanked the cover off the control panel, reaching for the manipulators and checking her distance from the ship. Time was a-wasting and there was a lot to do.

  Chapter Two

  It was far, far worse than a simple cascading impact brought about by the explosion of one of the mining vessels. It was a catastrophe of such magnitude that she almost couldn’t accept the reality of what she saw. The ship wasn’t entirely destroyed, but it might as well have been. It had been reduced practically to its initial configuration, its pared-down form. It was more like the core of the ship she had seen—or rather, the original Earthly Lulu had seen—being built so many unknown thousands of years ago. It wasn’t fit for humans or anything else. Not on a long-term basis, anyway.

  Lulu closed her eyes against the sights. It was like this now, but it wouldn’t stay that way. It could rebuild itself given time, as long as the basic systems remained. The manufacturing facility was largely intact, and that was the most important part of the ship when it came right down to it. In Lulu’s view, a functional manufacturing facility made the mission recoverable. And she thought she had convinced the computer of that as well. At least, it seemed like it agreed with her. She’d have to stay on her toes, ready to catch any signs that the ship no longer agreed.

  Fixing the breach in the hab module was Lulu’s first priority. All the systems she needed to aid the ship in its recovery were located inside that module. Plus, well, that’s where she lived.

  Triumph capitulated after almost no argument, which boded well. She knew Triumph would stop obeying her if its complicated logic chains decided she was acting against their goals.

  Hours later, she stripped off her suit and kicked the emergency capsule door shut at the sight of the wreckage in the hab. This was her home, and it bore almost no resemblance to the comfortable place she’d escaped from less than a day ago.

  Even now, with any actual openings into space patched or covered, the place was still in the process of falling apart. With every step, more of the broken tile broke free beneath her feet. Above her head, wires and lights dangled and swung as the ship righted itself. The metal walls had peeled back into razor sharp curls, and even the hatch to the arboretum was buckled and scorched by fire. Almost everything not bolted down had blown out the gaping hole in the bulkhead, which was now hastily covered by a repair bot’s flat underside while it welded a new plate into place.

  Lulu took a deep breath, tasting the burned plastic and hot metal in the newly replenished air. She closed her eyes for a count of three, centering herself, reaching for calm. She had to appear as composed as was humanly possible. Triumph was going along with her for now, but if she appeared hopeless, who knew what might happen? The ship had tried to self-destruct once already, and there was no guarantee it wouldn’t try again if she gave in to despair.

  “Triumph, let’s get that arboretum door fixed first. We’ve got a beagle to rescue,” Lulu said, trying to find a single unmangled speaker to direct her speech toward.

  She spun when the computer spoke to her from behind. A slider was using its manipulator arms to navigate the buckled deck, no longer capable of using the rails in the ceiling. It was a little creepy to see it scuttling along more like a spider than the bots she knew.

  The friendly g
reen light on the slider’s rounded top lit up as it said, “There are no working microphones or speakers in this area. This unit will stay with you in order to communicate more effectively. I’m working on getting to the arboretum. There are almost as many holes in the ship as I’ve got arms.”

  Lulu leaned on one hip, crunching some broken tile underfoot, and tilted her head at the slider/scuttler. Despite everything that had happened, she almost sighed in relief to hear the human-like conversational tone. “Did you just make a joke?” she asked.

  “I did not.”

  Lulu watched as the bot used two of its manipulators to gather up some of the debris into a pile. A trail of similar piles marked the path it had taken into this part of the hab. The bot’s little round dome swiveled to point its camera at the pile, then swiveled back toward her. The computer might not be human, but it sure knew how to give hints.

  “Fine,” she said, looking at the mess. “I’ll help.”

  Lulu bent to tug a trash bin from inside the compartment where it was tucked—the irony of their trash remaining safe while all the important stuff got sucked into space was not lost on her—and began chucking broken tiles and assorted debris into it. She glanced up at the bot, which was already making another pile a foot away from the last, and asked, “How long until we get the arboretum open?”

  One of the bot’s free arms straightened and pointed toward the gray underside of the repair bot sealing the hole in the hab. A distinct thunk came from that direction and the bot said, “The hab is sealed. I estimate another hour.”

  Looking once more at the destruction around her, Lulu blew out a breath and bent back to the task of clearing up the wreckage of her home. The bot worked silently beside her.

  Chapter Three

  As soon as the arboretum entrance was fixed—or at least repaired enough that it could be safely opened—Charlie bounded out with a howl, letting Lulu know in his beagle-ish way that he had missed her. Aside from some serious scrapes along the bottom of his paw pads, probably from frantic attempts to get the door open, he seemed fine. Traumatized, of course, but physically fine.

  “Hey, buddy,” Lulu cooed as she gathered him into her arms for a cuddle. She needed it almost as much as he did, and there was no question that dog cuddle therapy was almost the best therapy there was.

  After he calmed, his naturally curious nose began sniffing around. The former breach drew him like a beacon, and he whined his distress as he sniffed the bulkhead that had so recently been open to space. The sliders had already cleaned the wide smears of blood and other body matter from the edges of the former jagged opening, but Charlie’s nose was stronger than their cleaning solution. It broke Lulu’s heart to know that he was smelling the deaths of all the people he knew except her.

  “It’s okay, Charlie. Come here, boy,” Lulu said in her most coaxing and soothing voice. He trotted back over, but his ears were hanging low, and it would take a blind person to miss the confused sadness in his eyes. “Let’s go get a bacon,” she said, using the best lure known in the beagle lexicon.

  It worked, and he howled and jumped as they walked toward the crew mess. She gave him the bacon, which wasn’t actually bacon at all, but rather an obscene mixture of specialized algae—SpecNA—and other entirely false flavorings. But he loved it, thought it was a treat, and on top of that it was good for him. She grabbed his bed and a few toys from the stateroom of the last Load to have their turn with Charlie and hauled it all into the mess. She fitted the doggie grate to the opening so he would stay put. At least from here he would have the mess and the recreation area to roam in while still being able to see out. Her stateroom was tiny and closed in, not to mention completely wrecked.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I have to go and fix stuff. I’ve got to see about tanking up some new friends for you. Or rather, tanking up some new versions of your old friends. How about that?” she asked him, giving him a good scratch behind the ears.

  I wonder if he’ll be able to tell the difference between the new versions and the old ones? Do we smell any different?

  Charlie, for his part, seemed enthusiastic about the idea—if the volume of his “arrrooo” was any indication. She gave him one final pat and then left the mess, the sheer weight of all the things that she needed to do pulling the smile from her face like a sudden increase in gravity.

  “Triumph, any further life signs?” she asked as she navigated her way around the wreckage of her life toward the laboratory section.

  “Negative. I can continue to scan, but the probability is approaching certainty that there are no other survivors. Do you wish me to continue?”

  Lulu sighed, terribly disappointed. She wasn’t exactly sad at the loss of her friends, since she hadn’t exactly lost them. They were safely tucked into the computer banks of the ship, ready to be born again exactly as they were the last time they woke up. Even Lulu herself was a replacement for a Lulu who had died in an accident on the surface a few months after this generation had been decanted for their work. In fact, eighty-three Lulus—she knew of their existence mostly through her own number, eighty-four—had preceded her in this mission. These were the facts of life aboard this vessel: serial immortality and endless work.

  But if she wasn’t sad, she was disappointed, because of the impact the temporary loss of her friends would have on their work. Together, they had successfully ushered the planet they orbited to the stage at which life was being introduced. True, the life on the planet was so far almost exclusively limited to single-celled primary producers—beings whose evolutionary duty was to liberate oxygen and begin laying the foundation for organic soil with their bodies—but this was a critical juncture, one that would require constant monitoring, adjusting, and guidance, and that meant they could really use all hands on deck and in top form. Yet it would now take six months to replicate two dozen new crewmembers, tank them, and wake them. And even then, it would be months more before the same synergy they had possessed just hours ago was renewed. If ever.

  This was going to suck.

  “Cease scans, Triumph. Let’s focus on reconsolidation. Continue to use the landers and whatever else you’ve still got to get materials to manufacturing. We need matter to rebuild. Get your mining balls into a safe orbit as well. We’ll need everything they’ve got in their pods.”

  “I’m doing that now, Lulu,” Triumph responded. “I’m also working on the damage to manufacturing facilities. I do have my core plant, so I can rebuild peripheral manufacturing facilities. I suggest we focus on that.”

  Lulu was relieved to hear the computer using the human-like speech of normal life. That meant it was back into a proper mission mode, rather than emergency mode. If she had to compare the computer to a human, she would say it was like a human going back to a normal tone of voice after yelling for a while.

  “Fine, yes. But I want to get all the new Loads tanked ASAP. We’re going to lose a lot of work here as it is, and we can’t afford to waste time with that. I’ll need bio fast, so tank up Heather, Graham, and everyone else from my core work group into the first tanks. Everyone is going to be needed to make sure all mutations on the surface are within specifications. Plus we’ve got to get about a thousand species of feeders for all those little critters down there. We can’t wait for that or we’ll never get the mutations under control.”

  As Lulu issued instructions, she went through the ruin that was her lab. The breach in this module had nearly destroyed her entire facility. The hundreds of vials, cultures, and DNA prints waiting their turn at culture were gone. They were probably hurtling away from the wreckage even now due to the initial thrust out of the hab. The thought passed through her mind that maybe they could send a mining ball after them on the same trajectory and see what could be retrieved. Of course, that was a ridiculous thought and she pushed it away.

  She would be starting over. Luckily, the designs for all her slightly-different-from-Earth versions of this planet’s life resided on the computer. It was simple labo
r really. The computer would help.

  “Triumph, did you get my last instruction? We need to tank the Loads,” Lulu said. She lifted the latch on one of the cabinets and a river of broken glass flowed out. Even behind doors that stayed closed, there was destruction.

  The slider appeared around the cabinet at the sound of the glass, a disposal bin in its arms. Lulu paused then, a broken beaker in her hand. It wasn’t like the computer not to answer.

  “We need to tank Loads. Is there a problem?” she asked.

  “At this time, I can’t do that,” the ship responded.

  “Why not? Is the facility damaged?” Lulu asked. As she set down the beaker and walked rapidly in the direction of Medical and its tanking facilities, she tried to think back to the list of things that were still intact. Had Medical been on that list? Medical being gone, or substantially damaged, would be bad. Really bad.

  These ships were forever rebuilding themselves. That was their design and their strong suit. They didn’t zip at high speed between stars because that sort of tech simply never came about. They went as fast as was possible, but it sometimes still took centuries to get to a new world, so it was critical that they were able to collect materials and rebuild themselves as time went on. These ships would travel to a new star as only stripped-down versions of themselves, park at a likely world, then take up to a dozen more centuries to set up mining facilities and collect enough materials to replicate themselves and send those new, pared-down versions on their way to the next world.

  The first human would not be tanked until all of that happened. The common element to all of these tasks was speed… as in no speed… as in super slow. All told, the process could take thousands of years.