Dark Beyond the Stars

by Patrice Fitzgerald

  But they didn’t have thousands of years. Not for this planet; not for this mission. Every year that passed without proper oversight from this ship and its crew would result in the life currently on the planet developing in ways they didn’t want. The mission would be a failure.

  “The facility is damaged, but repairable,” Triumph reported. “If the repair list is re-prioritized, then I estimate six months for repair to return to full capacity. However, I do not suggest re-prioritization.”

  “Six months!” Lulu exclaimed, slapping her hand on the door to Medical. It hadn’t opened as she’d approached, which meant there was an unsafe level of damage inside, or perhaps an unbreathable mix of gases yet to be cleared. “That means a year at least before I get more Loads!”

  “I can’t create more Loads,” Triumph said.

  “Until you get fixed, yes, I get that,” Lulu said, trying to figure out how she was going to do the work of twenty-four people for a year or more. Maybe more bots could help.

  “Lulu, perhaps you don’t understand. My core is fractured. I have lost peripheral cores, including all the Load templates. I have been working to recover them, but it appears that I will not be able to. I have a partial Strand databank, but none of the Loaded Strand databank.” Triumph almost sounded ashamed of itself for losing such an essential part of the mission.

  Lulu turned around to lean against the door to Medical. It was cool against her back, and she could feel the vibration of the bots zipping about inside doing their work. She slid down the door to rest on the floor, still streaked with black marks and gouges from the impact of everything that had hurtled past on its way to the breach.

  No Loads? It was impossible to think of that. If she tanked up regular Strands, she would get only babies. Babies that had to be cared for, taught, and raised before they would be of any use to her. Loads were the only way she could go forward. And it wasn’t just her that would be stuck without Loads to help; it would be this world.

  They had come too far in the development of the rocky, unlivable surface for it to be a candidate for any future version of their ships to consider. Life, no matter how small or isolated, meant it was no good for their work. Humans didn’t destroy life to create a new home when there were so many other planets without life to choose from. Every bit of life on the surface had been placed there with care by the crew of the Triumph, and the generations that came from those life forms were now Lulu’s responsibility. Any ship in the future that happened across this planet would immediately reject it simply because of the life already on it. It would be left as it was, halfway to nowhere, with only a few thousand species of single-celled plants.

  Lulu squeezed her eyes shut, reaching for something good about this situation that she could console herself with. But she came up with nothing. She could find nothing good. She needed Loaded Strands or she would eventually leave this planet in the lurch. It wasn’t fair.

  It didn’t even have a name yet.

  Each of the five thousand Loaded Strands had special skills and could be decanted as an adult, exactly as they were when they were bright-eyed young idealists back on Earth. She needed those people, their personalities and skills. And most of all, she needed more biologists. No, nothing except Loads would do.

  And she had none.

  It was more than heartbreak that weighed her down. It was a failure so profound that it almost couldn’t be taken in. Perhaps it would have been better if she had died along with everyone else during the disaster. What did she have to look forward to now?

  She punched the floor and shook off the hopeless feeling. “No one? Not one Load?” she said.

  There was a pause. It was such a small one that most people wouldn’t have even registered it as a pause at all. But after years of dealing with a computer that could keep track of whole worlds, that could process billions of calculations in the blink of an eye, Lulu had learned to notice its rare pauses— and to know what they meant. They signaled that whatever the computer said next would likely be upsetting to her.

  In that split second, she closed her eyes and prepared herself.

  “It would be incorrect to state that I have no Loads available at all,” Triumph said.

  Lulu opened one eye and gave the speckled speaker patch on the ceiling a narrowed look.

  “What are you saying?” she asked, half-dreading whatever answer the computer would give her.

  “I have you.”

  Chapter Four

  “This is bollocks,” Lulu said as she stripped down inside a newly refurbished medical bay. It had taken a full month of work just to get it back to its current state, which still wasn’t that great. One medical bot, one treatment table, and one brand spanking new Load chair. Ships weren’t even supposed to have a Load chair, but as with everything else, there were overrides and special conditions, and the ship had blueprints for everything—just in case.

  Just in case had happened for Triumph.

  “It is not bollocks, Lulu,” Triumph answered, but without much emotion, which just annoyed her more. The computer was supposed to reflect her, not act like a machine when she most needed a good fight.

  “Just get your progeny to send the Loads more quickly. Quantum freaking buoys, hello! Instantaneous and all that,” Lulu said. She smacked at the little arms on the slider that kept trying to help by shoving little electronic leads at her. “And stop that! I’ve got to get undressed first. I don’t want you poking at me.”

  The slider desisted, its arms folding up to its little round ball of a body near the ceiling, the myriad leads dangling from its claws.

  “Thank you,” Lulu said and folded her clothes, deliberately taking her time. If Triumph was going to be annoying, she would too.

  “You’re welcome. Lulu, we’ve already had this discussion. Quantum buoys are fast, but they are character limited. To transmit even one Load would take an extraordinarily long time, and there are always errors in transmission. And the consequences of contact might be more dangerous than you’ve allowed for.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. It’ll send you the instructions for destruct if it finds out your status. I get it. But I told you what to say instead, didn’t I? You know, a little, tiny white lie.”

  Lulu settled into the chair and waggled her fingers at the slider so it would bring the leads. As much as she wanted to do it herself, there was no way a human could ever hope to get all the various connections right. It would take days, and really, she could only sit here so long. The computer could do it in an hour. But she still didn’t like it.

  “You know I can’t do that. We either risk them sending my program back to me—that’s what I would do, so we can be relatively sure that’s what any other ship would do—or we do this. Which do you want?” Triumph asked, adding a little more personality into the mix.

  “Fine, whatever. Just do it. I can almost feel the mutations happening on the ground out there. I need a huge assist, and soon.”

  Lulu lay back, allowing herself to relax after the slider’s third push on her shoulder. She sighed loudly and gritted her teeth through the innumerable little pokes onto her skin. Leads began to cover her body like a pale version of chickenpox, only made out of plastic and metal instead of irritated skin.

  When at last the leads were all attached, the green flashes of light from the control panel ceased. The slider whirred away and came back just as quickly. Lulu had closed her eyes—only resting them, not napping at all, honest—but opened them when the tiny whoosh of air tickled the skin of her face.

  “Lulu, we’re ready to proceed. May I?” Triumph asked.

  Above her, one slider held the square bit of gray cloth that would go over her face. Over her body, two more sliders held larger versions. Once these were laid down on her, they would join with the lower portions underneath her body and the haptic feedback would begin. She would feel entirely closed off from what was real for a short period of time as her body was tested, loaded, sorted, and eventually digitized, along with he
r neural map.

  The cloth meant for her face was slightly different; it had a screen that would parade an array of imagery and stimuli past her eyes. She knew from distant memory that it would make her nauseated and seasick. She could remember only the first part of this process from her initial Load on Earth, but even that was enough make her swallow hard.

  Lulu breathed deeply, looked around once more, and said, “Remember to feed Charlie if it takes too long.”

  “I will. And he has his fuzzy bear for entertainment,” Triumph answered.

  Lulu smiled, remembering how happy Charlie had been when his specially made slider—Fuzzy Bear—had trundled into the mess after three weeks in repair.

  “Good. Let’s go then. I’ve got work to do,” Lulu said.

  Chapter Five

  As the sixth of the Lulus was lifted from her tank, Lulu tried to repress a shudder. She hated seeing them like this. Seeing herself like this. But she couldn’t stop watching them. The seven months it had taken to wake the first one were the hardest—and the loneliest—of her life. Her desire for company, for someone to talk to—someone who could talk back—had made her spend far too much time here in the tanking facility, waiting for the Lulus to grow.

  Like the five before her, this Lulu was limp in a way that wasn’t natural at all. Even a sleeping person will hold up their heads or move their limbs, but this body was utterly at the mercy of the sliders that lifted her from her tank. Her skin was rosy in a way, but also strangely uniform and pale. No sun had yet touched her, not even the fake sunlight of the ship. But even with the blank expression and the unused appearance of her skin, there was no denying that Lulu was looking at herself.

  It was surreal, completely weird. In any other situation, it would be freak-out worthy. Something like this should never happen. It just wasn’t in the plan. Only one of each Load was allowed at any one time.

  Now, it was necessary.

  It was weird in another way too. Loads never saw other Loads in tanks. Lulu must have already been Loaded back on Earth before that rule was enacted, but Triumph told her that it was determined to be “unhealthy” for Loads to witness others while in their tanks. Lulu was sure there was a good story in there somewhere, but Triumph couldn’t be cajoled into sharing it.

  That rule had changed now because she was alone. Well, alone except for Charlie and, while he was great, he was still a dog. She needed to see other humans, even if they were still Loading. In addition, Triumph had agreed with her that getting used to the idea of so many Lulus meant she needed to be a part of the process from the get-go.

  When it came right down to it, she and Triumph were in uncharted territory. They were making up the rules as they went along.

  As the new Lulu was lifted free of the jelly-like fluid, her head flopped in a way that made Lulu reach a hand to the back of her own neck. The new Lulu’s wet hair swung in dripping clumps as the slider moved her from the tank to the table in preparation for waking. Lulu watched as the slider washed and dried the woman who was her, combed out her now-shiny hair, clipped, snipped, and otherwise put this Lulu into a state very like the one she had been in during her original Load. The goal was to make her “come out” in much the same state as she had “gone in.” Too much change from one instant of experience to the next—no matter how many actual millennia passed between those experiences—was never good for a Load’s mental state.

  Lulu laid the crinkly, silver sheet over the still form, taking a deep breath and readying herself to deal with this person who was exactly like her. More importantly, to deal with her as a new and separate person. With new Lulu’s hair freshly cut and her skin dry and clean, it was amazing to look at her. Lulu remembered when her own skin was unscarred and smooth. The life of a Load wasn’t easy on the skin, and she certainly didn’t look like that now, particularly after their catastrophe.

  “Lulu, can you step into Observation, please? I’m ready to wake Lulu 6 now,” Triumph said, the voice quite gentle and coaxing. The computer had known Lulu since it was nothing more than its original computer core on Earth, so it knew exactly how difficult this was for her. And with just the two of them on this ship for the last six months, it had gotten to know her even better.

  “I’ll explain, just like the others. Got it?” Lulu said as she went to the observation booth. The window darkened slightly as the one-way mirror activated. There was no need to alarm this Lulu immediately.

  “Of course,” Triumph said.

  Waking went well. New Lulu, who would be known as Lulu 6—starting the numbers over again just made sense in their situation—knew her waking phrase and passed all her neurological tests. And just as with the other five, Lulu was surprised to see how differently each of the Lulus acted after that first moment of waking. They were identical during that first minute or two, compliant and eager to pass the waking, but immediately diverged thereafter.

  One cried, racing from table to table and running her hands along their bottom surfaces, feeling for that scratch she’d left under the table in Earth’s simulators to tell any future her that she was really on Earth and not on a ship. That one believed her last memories were some kind of nightmare and didn’t believe she could possibly be on a ship with only other versions of herself.

  She’d gotten over it.

  Another laughed and clapped her hands, delighted by the idea of being around other Lulus. Yet another simply stood up and accidentally peed herself, uttering a string of curses and slapping at the slider that came to clean up the mess.

  Lulu wondered what this Lulu would do.

  It turned out this one was a crier too. Great.

  Lulu sighed and thought about the other eleven tanks in the medical bay, six of them filled with a Lulu nearly ready for decanting and the other five opaqued while the first stages of a new Lulu were completed in darkness. By the end of the day, this newly emptied tank would have a new Lulu inside it, a tiny core that would one day become another one of her.

  She and Triumph were discussing how they could increase the pace of production, maybe even double up the Lulus inside the tanks. It was theoretically possible, requiring only a second set of support and growth harnesses be installed. That would give them more Lulus quicker, but it would also mean Lulu would have to do this duty—confirm this bad news—twice as often. It didn’t matter that these Lulus shared her memory of the destruction of the ship and the loss of the Loads—it was still a lot to take in. And her thoughts hadn’t exactly been rosy in the moments just before she went into the chair.

  She hoped that one of these Lulus could eventually take over this duty. On second thought, she decided, I owe it to them to tell them the truth.

  The new Lulu sat up on the table, her brand new and baby-smooth brow wrinkling as she listened to Triumph get her ready for what she was about to see.

  That was Lulu’s cue. She took a deep breath and opened the door to the observation booth, meeting this new Lulu for the first time. Lulu 6’s eyes widened and traveled up and down Lulu a couple of times, pausing a little on the scars on her hands and face and the thick shock of gray that had appeared in her hair after the accident.

  “Holy fuck,” Lulu 6 said softly.

  “Exactly,” Lulu said.

  Chapter Six

  Three Hundred Years Later

  “I refuse to be called four sixty-eight even one more time,” Lulu 468 said as she stomped her foot on the metal grating of the landing bay. The clang echoed around the sparsely filled bay and made another Lulu at the far end pause and look, curious about the disturbance. She apparently wasn’t interested enough though, because she climbed into her Lander and the sights and sounds of pre-flight checks began.

  Lulu 468 turned back to her compatriots and said, “I’m serious.”

  “Okay, then we’ll call you four hundred and sixty-eight. How’s that?” Lulu 467 said as she dropped a tank of tiny algae eaters into the Lander cargo hold. The bang it made was like the best kind of punctuation, perfectly timed. I
f she wasn’t so annoyed, she might have smiled.

  “Very funny. And I bet you think that was perfect timing to your smart-ass comment, too?” Lulu 468 asked, then waved her hands in annoyance and turned away. “Why am I even asking? I know the answer. I’m just saying that I’d like a real name!”

  Lulu 421, her hair beginning to gray and wrinkles creasing the skin around her eyes, tapped Lulu 467 on the shoulder and said, “You’re angering her for no reason. You’ve both got a lot of years together here still; you should be kinder to each other.”

  Lulu 467 had the good grace to look ashamed, and Lulu 468 made a little noise of distress.

  Lulu 468 said, “I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t fight. You’re right. How are you holding up? We miss 422 as well. She was like a mother to me.”

  “Me too,” Lulu 467 said.

  Lulu 421 nodded, wiped away an escaping tear, and said, “We used to fight like you guys do. But she was my best friend. There’s no one else like your tank-twin, is there?”

  Lulu 467 and Lulu 468 looked at each other for a moment. Irritation they might feel, but 421 was right.

  “I’m sorry, sis,” Lulu 467 said. “Let’s talk to the computer again. Maybe we can get a vote this time. Really, we do need better names. I know the rules, but still.”

  The red light in the landing bay started flashing, and the warning klaxon precluded further conversation. All the Lulus stood by as the Lander at the other end of the bay coasted toward the launch facility, ready to take more tiny critters to the surface.

  Lulu 467 climbed to the top of her Lander to get a better view, and Lulu 468 joined her a moment later. There were no windows here, and very few anywhere in the ship. They relied on screens, but it wasn’t really the same. No matter how realistic it might be, the human eye—and the human soul—could tell the difference between a picture and the real thing. These launches gave them one of the best looks they would ever get.