Best of Beyond the Stars

by Patrice Fitzgerald

  I hope you enjoyed the story!

  Carindi

  by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  EI’PIO WAS ALONE.

  She could still hear the screams echoing back through the tunnel of memory. It had been madness, pure chaos, followed by the darkest, deepest silence she had ever known.

  A plague had rioted through the Oblignatus, affecting everyone but her, presumably because she was the only crewmember aboard who wasn’t sectilian. Every last one of her colleagues had been damaged so severely that that their thoughts and mental patterns were no longer recognizable to her‌—‌then they’d met dusk wherever they happened to be.

  She didn’t like to think about it, yet she couldn’t stop. There was nothing else to occupy her mind. Her water-filled enclosure spanned the core of the city-sized ship. For days, she’d jetted from one end to the other attempting‌—‌repeatedly, thoroughly‌—‌to reach out, mind to mind, searching, but had found only empty silence. In a ship meant to house ten thousand sectilians, only one individual in the ship’s community had survived.

  Her.

  What she wanted above all else was to return to Sectilius, to her people, but that was impossible. The infernal yoke kept her from moving the ship, no matter how hard she railed against it. There was no officer left to issue the command to release it. In all her long life as a devoted fleet officer‌—‌completely above reproach‌—‌this had never been a concern, but now it maddened her.

  The yoke wasn’t a physical restraint. It was a combination of code and electronic devices embedded in a secret location of the ship. It kept her, or any other kuboderan navigator, from moving the ship without authorization. Apparently the ship’s designers had never considered the current scenario.

  The ship was too deep in the Kirik Nebula for a message to penetrate to any nearby colonies. They’d been on a research and exploration mission and had come across a red giant in the final stages before supernova. The Quasador Dux decided it was a rare opportunity to observe the phenomenon. They would leave probes in orbit while they conducted other research at a safer distance.

  The last maneuver they’d performed had taken them on a close approach to the red giant. They’d intended to remain in the danger zone just long enough make the drop, but the plague had hit at the worst possible time, effectively stranding them in the orbit intended for the probes.

  Even if someone came looking, the Oblignatus was nowhere near its designated research coordinates. After a few weeks, the possibility of rescue seemed remote.

  Ei’Pio watched the data closely. The star had burned through all of its hydrogen and helium and was at the end of the carbon-fusion stage. Carbon levels inside it were diminishing steadily. She calculated that she would have thirteen to fourteen years to wait before the core collapsed and the star went supernova.

  Eventually she’d come to contemplate suicide. It was an unspeakable act, but the taboo against suicide was predicated upon one’s usefulness to society‌—‌one’s duty to others. So what did it matter now? Who would censure her or threaten her with reconditioning if she dared have such dark thoughts?

  Her anxiety had become a palpable thing. Why live on, waiting for the inevitable, living in a perpetual countdown? What life was there for her without anyone to serve, without anyone with whom to commune?

  She lost herself in a fugue, her mind wandering from one treasured memory to another, each one given to her by those forever gone to her. She neglected her duties. Why care for a ship full of the dead?

  She drifted in the depths of unrelenting stillness. Not eating. Not caring. Limbs heavy with depression. Brains aching from pain that went well beyond physical. Barely moving, drifting wherever the swirling, artificial current carried her.

  Then something in her digital ocular implant caught her attention. It was just the smallest inconsistency. She’d almost missed it. Curiosity stirred within her.

  Her senses slowly sharpened as she focused on this irregularity. When she realized what she was actually looking at, the morbid sluggishness vanished. She jetted restlessly from one end of her enclosure to the other, checking and double-checking the sensor readings. There was a single life sign, but it was minuscule and muted. It was no wonder she’d missed it in the early days of anguish.

  Her limbs quivered. She pulsed water through her mantle erratically. She couldn’t help but hope, though she knew it was probably just a shambling zombie that’d had a delayed reaction to the disease and hadn’t yet expired.

  She would do whatever she could to save them, though she had no idea what the plague vector had been. Her people had simply transformed into violent beasts and then stopped functioning altogether, until they perished of thirst and hunger.

  Just one survivor could change everything.

  Ei’Pio fluttered tentatively against the mind of this individual, braced for crazed thoughts, dull thoughts, or the barest semblance of thought. Braced for another senseless death.

  But to her surprise, this person was intact, whole, and... starving.

  Even at the surface level of anipraxia, misery flooded Ei’Pio’s senses. There were fragmented impressions of gnawing hunger, disbelief, abject terror‌—‌and then a bout of all-consuming sobbing that led to the unconscious oblivion of sleep.

  This person had suffered the same level of loss that she had herself‌—‌perhaps even more, if that was possible. She or he desperately needed Ei’Pio’s help.

  She discerned something else in this shallow contact. Strangely, this individual had not developed a capacity for anipraxic communication. That was exceedingly rare in any ship community. Occasionally an objector served in the fleet, but Ei’Pio knew there weren’t any objectors aboard the mission to the Kirik Nebula. She had no idea who this person was.

  Ei’Pio scoured internal sensor readings and camera coverage and soon discovered that the individual was inside a suit of sectilian power armor. That explained the faintness of the bio-signature. The suits were shielded. Had the suit isolated the survivor from the plague the same way she had been spared?

  Once Ei’Pio realized this, her primary objective was to communicate with this person, to let them know they weren’t alone‌—‌that he or she could take command of the ship and return them to Sectilius space.

  As the only surviving member of the quorum, Ei’Pio could appoint the survivor as the Quasador Dux of the Oblignatus and download the command-and-control engram set into his or her brain. That would allow the ship’s computer to recognize them as the highest-ranking officer‌—‌then she or he had only to issue the command to return to Sectilius and the yoke would be released.

  They would be able to move the ship.

  They could go home.

  She didn’t yet know anything about this person‌—‌name, gender, or occupation, but it seemed wrong to continue to refer to him or her in the abstract. It would take time to establish communication and learn those important details. In the interim, she would refer to the stranger as male, an entirely random gender assignment, and give him the name Suparo, which meant survivor.

  Establishing communication between herself and Suparo wasn’t as simple as one sectilian opening his or her mouth and speaking to another sectilian. Ei’Pio was unable to communicate that way. A small portion of his untouched brain had to be stimulated in a very concentrated and specific way to encourage the development of the set of dormant structures that allowed anipraxic communication. Ei’Pio had done this many times in the past, whenever new crewmembers had come aboard.

  This time was different.

  Normally when she inducted someone into the circle of anipraxia, there was resistance. The changes could be painful, though Ei’Pio did her best to minimize that, and often an individual had an inner layer of reluctance that was an additional barrier to the process, even though they had chosen this lifestyle.

  Suparo was sleeping deeply when she began the process, but soon awoke. He did not resist at all‌—‌he seemed very receptive to the alte
ration, seemed quite inquisitive about it, in fact. Suparo seemed to recognize that someone was there to help, that someone was communicating somehow. That was unusual.

  Something about his mind didn’t follow a typical pattern. It felt open, malleable. It was easy to precipitate the conversion that would facilitate anipraxia. Ei’Pio began to sift through his surface memories while she waited for the changes to manifest. She wanted to figure out who this was. His childhood memories were unusually pronounced and extraordinarily vivid, but also jumbled and formless‌—‌running and laughter and being cradled in another’s arms...

  Suparo pulled Ei’Pio’s tendrils of thought deeper, as though he recognized her. Then he reciprocated‌—‌sending his own tendrils of thought along the connection between them... seeking to find her... pushing their minds closer... pressing against Ei’Pio’s own mind... seeking to enter her thoughts. This was without precedent.

  Ei’Pio was suddenly afraid. She pulled back, her limbs trembling. What if he wasn’t sectilian? What if these memories were implants, lures... a trap to ensnare her? What if he was an alien, an infiltrator, who had orchestrated the destruction of her people? Was this an elaborate plot to hijack the ship?

  But then she wondered if it actually mattered. He was another living being.

  For good or ill, she was no longer alone.

  * * *

  Suparo didn’t speak Mensententia‌—‌that was immediately clear‌—‌but Ei’Pio recognized the thought-language as sectilian, and that reassured her. Over the years Ei’Pio had experienced enough sectilian memories to be able to speak a pidgin version of the language. This new individual’s own language skills seemed to be very limited as well, which was perplexing.

  An image persistently overlaid Suparo’s thoughts. He longed for a woman’s face‌—‌a sectilian woman with warm brown eyes and a long sharp nose. Ei’Pio recognized her: Biochemistro Palset Benald Teruvah, a lovely woman, a good friend to Ei’Pio and many others on board. Such a terrible loss.

  Ei’Pio froze. Her mantle filled reflexively and her limbs bunched up as though she were poised to flee a predator.

  Now Ei’Pio knew who this was. Not a him or a her, but an ium.

  She calmed herself‌—‌carefully, so that she wouldn’t transmit her anxiety to this person who needed her so badly.

  Ei’Pio kept her mental voice soft and soothing, like a sectilian mother’s buss on a child’s forehead. “Carindi?”

  The stranger’s emotions swung wildly between bewilderment, hope, and trepidation. A tiny voice answered, speaking aloud because the child didn’t yet understand. “Mama?”

  Carindi was a child of five standard years.

  Ei’Pio cringed with guilt and shame. Carindi had been wandering alone in the ship, seeking help for weeks.

  * * *

  “What did you learn today, Carindi?” Ei’Pio asked when the child took a break from ius daily studies. At the moment the child was somersaulting along the corridor outside the study chamber. The black armor had taken years of this without a scratch. The same could not be said for the deck plates.

  The child chattered a stream of thoughts at her, as was often the way. Their language difficulties were long in the past. “I’m learning about the mechanics of propulsion. Oh, and scientific classification systems for plants and animals. Also, the use of honorifics. One day soon I will be an engineer and you will call me Machinutorus Carindi Palset Teruvah!”

  “Very good. A full day of learning. It is nearly time for your rest period.”

  Though Ei’Pio had never had contact with sectilian children except through the childhood memories of her former colleagues, she sensed that Carindi was an exceedingly intelligent child and full of curiosity. The child would make a fine Quasador Dux when iad was old enough to assume that role.

  It had been five years since Carindi’s mother had observed the earliest signs of the plague among the crew and placed her precious offspring inside an obsidian suit of power armor. Carindi’s mother had hoped to protect the child from the unknown disease, not realizing the child was already infected. It proved to be a brilliant gambit anyway, because the suit was designed to accommodate a diverse range of body types and to provide extensive medical support in battle. It allowed the child to grow and remain mobile, feeding ium intravenously and keeping the disease and the suit in a constant state of homeostasis, always just barely at bay.

  It allowed Carindi to survive.

  Ei’Pio had experienced enough sectilian memories to know that sectilian children needed to be nurtured. They were supposed to be held and cuddled. But Ei’Pio had never touched the child, had never seen the child’s face except through glass. Ei’Pio longed to give the child that kind of security. She wanted to give Carindi anything and everything iad might need to thrive. The child was all she had left and was her only hope for a future.

  But all Ei’Pio could give Carindi was the mental touch of a loving voice and warm feelings. Ei’Pio breathed water. Carindi breathed air. Water and glass and battle armor stood between them.

  Ei’Pio sighed. The problem would resolve itself in just a few years. They would be able to go home. They would rejoin their people.

  “I’m not tired yet,” Carindi complained. “There’s time for more studies before rest cycle. Ei’Pio? Why do we use all these names?”

  “What names?” Ei’Pio asked. The child’s mind zigged and zagged just like her haphazard somersaulting.

  “Honorifics and all that stuff.”

  “There are many reasons. To differentiate between individuals, primarily. When speaking of others, it makes it easier to note whom one is referring to. It is also a manner of respect. Some names are earned.”

  “No‌—‌I mean, why do you and I use them? We know who we’re talking about, right? I know what Ei’ means. It’s the intermediate rank among kuboderan officers, yes? You know I respect you without having to say it. You can feel my emotions.”

  “This is true.”

  “May I call you Pio? As a special endearment? Between only us two?”

  Ei’Pio’s heart contracted. The water around her suddenly felt cold. No one had called her Pio since she’d been brought to the planet Sectilia as an infant. That was so long ago. “Yes, child.”

  “Do my names have any meaning?”

  “Oh, yes! Carindi means ‘little dear one.’ Palset was, of course, your mother’s given name and means ‘sharp as a spear.’ Teruvah was the name of the enclave on Atielle where your mother was born and spent her childhood. The name means ‘rubbing the fruit.’ I am given to understand the people there are famous for cultivating fruits for making fermented beverages.”

  “When I get big will you call me Carindissimo?”

  Ei’Pio’s limbs trembled with laughter. “If you wish.”

  * * *

  When the child slept, Ei’Pio spent her time testing the confines and parameters of the yoke‌—‌always looking for a way to circumvent it, work around it or break it‌—‌so that they wouldn’t have to wait for Carindi to mature. Ei’Pio found she missed the child during ius sleep cycles. Then the child woke, and it was like coming around the dark side of a planet and bathing in the bright light of a blazing star.

  “Good morning, Pio. Are you feeling well?”

  Ei’Pio let warmth suffuse her mental voice. “Good morning, Machinutorus Carindi Palset Teruvah. I am very fine, thank you. And you?”

  Ei’Pio felt the child rise from bed and go through a morning waking routine as the suit ran its daily diagnostic. Iad moved each limb in turn, to see if any part would be hindered by the infectious agent this day, so that a routine could be planned accordingly.

  After a moment, the data from the suit diagnostic spooled over Ei’Pio’s ocular implant.

  There was blood in the child’s urine.

  Ei’Pio felt a familiar squeeze of panic, then calmed. The suit had limitations. She knew that.

  “First stop is the medical facility today, Carindi.”


  “Pio! I wanted to‌—‌”

  “Health first. Always. No arguments.”

  There was an adolescent grumble of discontent, but Carindi dutifully marched to the deck transport, and from there to the nearest medical facility.

  Sometimes the suit couldn’t handle everything. Ei’Pio had nearly lost Carindi on several occasions when the suit malfunctioned or needed an upgrade, but they had managed to make it through those terrifying moments. On a regular schedule, and as needed, Carindi visited the diagnostic platform they had modified together‌—‌Ei’Pio’s mind guiding Carindi’s nimble fingers inside the power armor‌—‌so that the diagnostic equipment would accept Carindi inside the suit and the medical bots would deliver medications and IV nutrition to the suit’s ports. This required writing new macros to force the suit to do things it was never meant to do. And that meant Ei’Pio had to learn new skills. Ship navigators were not ordinarily in the practice of creating code for power armor suits.

  Nor were they ordinarily medical practitioners. Yet Ei’Pio personally oversaw everything, from screening medications to be sure they were free of viral, bacterial, or unknown nanoscale agents to optimizing the child’s liquid diet for every life stage.

  And she was always looking for another way to get them home. Carindi deserved better than this. Engineers and Medical Masters on Sectilia, Atielle, or any of the colonies would be better equipped to cure Carindi of the affliction so that the child could have a better quality of life than Ei’Pio and Oblignatus could provide.

  * * *

  The child giggled. “No, Pio, not Olonus Septua. That’s a gravid planet, not a barren one.”

  “You aren’t supposed to give me hints, child!”

  Carindi gasped for breath, wheezing with mirth. “Well, you’re terrible at this game. You need the help!”