The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 5

by Jonathan Strahan

  As it kneeled there, unseen, a bit of cosmic dirt fell with a brilliant flash of light, leaving a tiny crater inside the giant one.

  The danger was evident, but there were blessings too. The walker slipped across a narrow track lain on the unbroken hull, presumably leading from some far place to the crater’s edge. The track was a superconductive rail that allowed heavy tanks to be dragged here, each tank filled with uncured, still-liquid hyperfiber. From another hiding place, the walker watched as a long train of tanks arrived and subsequently drained before being set on a parallel track and sent away. Before the third was empty, it understood enough to appreciate just how difficult this work was. Liquid hyperfiber was fickle, eager to form lasting bonds but susceptible to flaws and catastrophic embellishments. Down in the crater, a brigade of artisans was struggling to repair the damage—a tiny pock on the vast bow of the Ship—and their deed, epic as well as tiny, was ringing testament to the astonishing gifts of those who had first built the Great Ship.

  All but one of the empty tanks was sent home. The exception was damaged in a collision and then pushed aside, abandoned. Curious about that silver tank, the walker approached and then paused, crept closer and paused again, making certain that no traps were waiting, no eyes watching. Then it slipped near enough to touch the crumbled body. That innate talent for mechanical affairs was awakened again. Using thought and imaginary tools, it rebuilt the empty vessel. Presumably those repairs were waiting for a more convenient time. Unless the humans meant to leave their equipment behind, which was not an unthinkable prospect, judging by the trash already scattered about this increasingly crowded landscape.

  One end of the tank was cracked open, the interior exposed. In slow, nearly invisible steps, the walker slipped inside. The cylinder was slightly less than a kilometer in length. Ignoring every danger, the walker passed through the ugly fissure, and once inside, it balanced on a surface designed to feel slick to every possible material. Yet it managed to hold its place, retaining its pose, peering into the darkness until it was sure that it was alone, and then it let light seep out of its own body, filling the long volume with a soft cobalt-blue glow.

  Everywhere it looked, it saw itself looking back.

  Reflected on the round wall were distorted images of what might be a machine, or perhaps was something else. Whatever it was, the walker had no choice but to stare at itself. This was indeed a trap, it realized, but instead of a secret door slamming shut, the mechanism worked by forcing an entity to gaze upon its own shape and its nature, perhaps for the first time.

  What it beheld was not unlovely.

  But how did it know beauty? What aesthetic standard was it employing? And why carry such a skill among its instincts and talents?

  A long time passed before the walker could free itself from the trap. But even after it climbed back onto the open hull, escape proved difficult. It slinked away for a good distance and then stopped, and then it walked farther before turning back again. Where did this obligation come from, this need to stare at an empty, ruined tank? Why care about a soulless object that would never function again? How could that piece of ruin bother it so? And why, even after walking far enough to hide both the tank and the crater beyond the horizon…why did its mind insist on returning again and again to an object that others had casually and unnecessarily cast aside?

  3

  It walked. It counted steps. It had reached two million four hundred thousand and nine steps when humans suddenly appeared in their swift cars. The invaders settled within a hundred meters of the walker. With a storm of radio talk and the help of robots, they quickly erected a single unblinking eye and pointed it straight above. The walker hid where it happened to be, filling a tiny crater. Unnoticed, it lay motionless as the new telescope was built and tested and linked to the growing warning system.And then the humans left, but the walker remained inside its safe hole, sprouting an array of increasingly powerful eyes.

  The sky might be untrustworthy, but there was beauty to the lie. The Great Ship was plunging into a galaxy that was increasingly brilliant and complex and dangerous. More grit and chunks of wayward ice slammed against the hull, and the bombardment would only strengthen as the Ship sliced into the thick curling limb of suns. But the humans were answering the dangers with increasingly powerful weapons. Telescopes watched for hazards. Then bolts of coherent light melted the incoming ices. Ballistic rounds pulverized asteroids. Sculpted EM fields slowed the tiniest fragments and shepherded them aside. There was splendor to that awful fight. Flashes and sparkles constantly surprised the lidless eyes. Ionized plasmas generated squawks and whistles reaching across the spectrum. An accidental music grew louder, urgent and carefree. No defensive system was unbreakable. Death threatened everything foolish enough to walk upon the bow. Each moment might be its last. But the scene deserved fascination and wonder. It stared upwards, and it grew antennae and listened, and its mind began to believe that this violent magic had a rhythm, an elegant inescapable logic, and that whatever note and whichever color came next could have been foreseen.

  That was when the voice began.

  At least that was the moment when the walker finally took notice of the soft, soft whispers.

  These mutterings were not part of the sky. Intuition told the walker that much. Perhaps the voice rose from the hull, or maybe it came from the chill vacuum. But what mattered more than its origin was the quiet swift terror that defined its presence—an inarticulate, nearly inaudible murmur that came when it was unexpected and vanished before any response could be offered.

  Following the first eleven incidents, the walker remained silently anxious.

  But the twelfth whisper was too much. With a radio mouth formed for the occasion, and using the human language that it had learned over the last centuries, the walker called out, “What are you? What do you want?” And when nothing replied, it added, “Do not bother me. Leave me alone.”

  By chance or by kindness, the request was honored.

  The walker rose and again wandered across the bow. But after witnessing several jarring impacts, it returned to the stern, ready to accept the safety afforded by the Ship’s enormous bulk. But there were even more humans than before, and they brought endless traffic on what had been delicious, seemingly infinite emptiness. Following a twisting, secretive line, the walker journeyed to the nearest engine, and with some delight, it touched the mountainous nozzle at its base. But machines were everywhere, investigating and repairing, and the human chatter was busy and endless, jabbering about subjects and names and places and times that made no sense at all.

  Where the bow and stern joined, starships were landing. The walker tracked them by their bright little rockets. Hunkering behind piles of trash, it watched the slow taxis and quicker streakships drop onto the hull, and then enormous doors would pull open, and the visitors would vanish. The walker had never seen a spaceport, never even imagined such a thing was possible. Once again, the Great Ship was far more than it pretended to be. Creeping even closer, it estimated the size of the incoming vessels. Considering how many passengers might be tucked inside each little ship, it was easy to understand why the hull had grown crowded. The human animals were falling from the sky, coming here for the honor of living inside their bubble cities on the hull of this lost, unknowable relic.

  Finally, in slow patient stages, the walker crept to the edge of a vast door, and with a single glance, its foolishness was revealed. The Great Ship was more than its armored hull. What the entity had assumed to be hyperfiber to the core was otherwise. Inside the spaceport, it saw a vast column of air and light and warm wet bodies moving by every means and for no discernable purpose. This was motion, swift and busy and devoid of any clear purpose. Humans were just one species among a multitude, and beneath the hull, the Ship was pierced with tunnels and doorways and hatches and diamond-windows, and that was just what the briefest look provided before it flattened out and slowly, cautiously crawled away.

  The Ship was hollow.
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br />   And judging by the evidence, it was inhabited by millions and maybe billions of organic entities.

  These unwanted revelations left it shaken. Months were required to sneak away from the port. Unseen, it returned to the bow face and the beautiful sky, accepting the dangers for the illusion of solitude. But the ancient craters were being swiftly erased now. The Ship’s lasers were pummeling most of the cometary debris that dared pass nearby, and the repair crews were swift and efficient now. The pitted, cracked terrain was vanishing beneath smooth perfection. The new hyperfiber proved fresh and strong, affording few hiding places even for a wanderer who could hide nearly anywhere. By necessity, every motion was slow. Was studied. But even then, a nearby robot would notice a presence, and maybe EM hands would reach out, trying to touch what couldn’t be seen; and by reflex, the walker stopped living and stopped thinking, hiding away inside itself as it pretended to be nothing but another patch lost among the billions.

  Eventually it came upon a freshly made crater, too small to bring humans immediately but large enough to let it walk down inside the wounded hull.

  A brief, sharp ridge stood in its way—the relic of chaotic, billion-degree plasmas. After five hours of careful study, the walker slowly crossed the ridge. Humans never came alone to these places, and there was no sign of any machine. But standing on the ridgeline, urgency took hold. Something here was wrong. And what was wrong felt close. The walker began to lower itself, trying to vanish. But then a strong voice said, “There you are.”

  It hunkered down quickly.

  Then with amusement, someone said, “I see you.”

  The voice—the mysterious and uninvited phenomena—was always quieter than this. It has always been a whisper, and far less comprehensible. Perhaps the young crater helped shape its words. Perhaps the bowl with its sharp refrozen hyperfiber lip lent strength and focus.

  In myriad ways, the walker began to melt into the knife-like ridge.

  Yet the voice only grew louder—a radio squawk wrapped around the human language. With some pleasure, she said, “You cannot hide from me.”

  “Leave me be,” the walker answered.

  “But you’re the one disturbing me, stranger.”

  “And I have told you,” the walker insisted. “Before, I told you that I wish to be alone. I must be alone. Don’t pester me with your noise.”

  “Oh,” the voice replied. “You believe we’ve met. Don’t you?”

  Curiosity joined the fear. A new eye lifted just a little ways, scanning the closest few meters.

  “But I’ve never spoken to you,” the voice continued. “You’ve made a mistake. I don’t know whose voice you’ve been hearing, but I’m rather certain that it wasn’t mine.”

  “Who are you?” the walker asked.

  “My name is Wune.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Find the blue-white star on the horizon,” she said.

  It complied, asking, “Are you that star?”

  “No, no.” Wune could do nothing but laugh for a few moments. “Look below it. Do you see me?”

  Except for a few crevices and delicate wrinkles, the crater floor was flat. Standing at the far end was a tiny figure clad in hyperfiber. An arm lifted now. What might have been a hand waved slowly, the gesture purely human.

  “My name is Wune,” the stranger repeated.

  “Are you human?” the entity whispered nervously.

  “I’m a Remora,” said Wune. Then she asked, “What exactly are you, my friend? Since I don’t seem to recognize your nature.”

  “My nature is a mystery,” it agreed.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “I am,” it began. Then it hesitated, considering this wholly original question. And with sudden conviction, it said, “Alone.” It rose up from the ridge, proclaiming, “My name is Alone.”

  4

  “Come closer, Alone.”

  It did nothing.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Wune promised, the arm beckoning again. “We should study each at a neighborly distance. Don’t you agree?”

  “We are close enough,” the walker warned, nearly two kilometers of vacuum and blasted hyperfiber separating them.

  The Remora considered his response. Then with an amiable tone, she agreed, “This is better than being invisible to one another. I’ll grant you that.”

  For a long while, neither spoke.

  Then Wune asked, “How good are those eyes? What do you see of me?”

  Alone stared only at the stranger, each new eye focused on the lifesuit made of hyperfiber and the thick diamond faceplate and what lay beyond. Alone had seen enough humans to understand their construction, their traditions. But what was human about this face was misplaced. The eyes were beneath the mouth and tilted on their sides. The creature’s flesh was slick and cold in appearance, and it was vivid purple. The long hair on the scalp was white with a hint of blue, rather like the brightest stars, and that white hair began to lift and fall, twirl and straighten, as if an invisible hand was playing with it.

  “I don’t know your species,” Alone confessed.

  “But I think you do,” Wune corrected. “I’m a human animal, and a Remora too.”

  “You are different from the others.”

  “What others?” she inquired.

  “The few that I have seen.”

  “You spied on us inside the big crater. Didn’t you?” The mouth smiled, exposing matching rows of perfect human teeth. “Oh yes, you were noticed. I know that you strolled up to that busted tank and climbed inside before walking away again.”

  “You saw me?”

  “Not then, but later,” she explained. “A security AI was riding the tank. It was set at minimal power, barely alive. Which probably kept you from noticing it. We didn’t learn about you until weeks later, when we stripped the tank for salvage and the AI woke up.”

  Shame took hold. How could it have been so careless?

  “I know five other occasions when you were noticed,” Wune continued. “There have probably been more incidents. I try to hear everything, but that’s never possible. Is it?” Then she described each sighting, identifying the place and time when these moments of incompetence occurred.

  “I wasn’t aware that I was seen,” it stated.

  Ignorance made its failures feel even worse.

  “You were barely seen,” Wune corrected.“ A ghost, a phantom. Not real enough to be taken seriously.”

  “You mentioned a spaceport,” it said.

  “I did.”

  “Where is this port?”

  Wune pointed with authority, offering a precise distance.

  “I don’t remember being there,” Alone admitted.

  “Maybe we made a mistake,” she allowed.

  “But I did visit a different port.” With care, it sifted through its memories. “I might have troubles with my memory,” it confessed.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I know so little about myself,” confessed the walker.

  “That is sad,” Wune said. “I’m sorry for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Life is the past,” she stated. “The present moment is too narrow to slice and will be lost with the next instant.And the future is nothing but empty conjecture. Where you have been is what matters. What you have done is what counts for and against you on the tallies.”

  The walker concentrated on those unexpected words.

  “I have a telescope with me,” Wune said. “I used it when I first saw you. But I’m trying to be polite. If you don’t mind, may I study you now?”

  “If you wish,” it said uneasily.

  The Remora warned, “This might take some time, friend.” Then with both gloved hands, she held a long tube to her face.

  Alone waited.

  An hour later, Wune asked, “Are you a machine?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I am.”

  “Or do you carry an organic component inside that body?”

&n
bsp; “Each answer is possible, I think.”

  Wune lowered the telescope. “I’m a little of both,” she allowed. “I like to believe that I’m more organic than mechanical, but the two facets happily live inside me.”

  Alone said nothing.

  The Remora laughed softly, admitting, “This is fun.”

  Was it?

  To her new friend, she explained, “Thousands of years ago, humans learned how to never grow old. No disease, and no easy way to kill us.” The hands were encased in hyperfiber gloves. One of those fingers tapped hard against her diamond faceplate. “My mind? It’s a bioceramic machine. Which makes it tough and quick to heal and full of redundancies. My memories are safe inside the artificial neurons. Whenever I want, I can remember yesterday. Or I can pull my head back five centuries and one yesterday. My life is an enormous, deeply personal epic that I am free to enjoy whenever I wish.”

  “I am different than you,” Alone conceded.

  Wune asked, “Do you sleep?”

  “Never.”

  “Yet you never feel mentally tired?” The purple face nodded, and she said, “Right now, I’m envious.”

  Envy was a new word.

  “I’m trying to tell you something,” she said. “This old Remora lady has been awake for a very long time, and she needs to sleep for a little while. Is that all right? Do whatever you want while my eyes are closed. If you need, walk away from me. Vanish completely.” Then she smiled, adding, “Or you might take a step or two in my direction. If you feel the urge, that is.”

  Then Wune shut her misplaced eyes.

  During the next hour, Alone crept ahead a little more than three meters.

  As soon as she woke, Wune noticed. “Good. Very good.”