by James S. Aaron
Zanda fell silent and Andy thought he might have passed out. He eased closer to the door, watching the camera display in his helmet. The hand holding the pistol still drifted near Zanda’s helmet.
Zanda said, wheezing, He laughed again, weaker this time.
Andy tightened his grip on his rifle, fighting the urge to put a three-round burst through Zanda’s faceplate.
Fran said.
Fortunately, his magboots were still locked to the floor. The ship jerked beneath him. In the camera view, Zanda slammed against the back of airlock. The pistol went spinning out of his hand. Andy grabbed onto the bulkhead as Fran executed two more maneuvers.
she said, breathing hard.
Fran said.
Andy checked the airlock camera again. Zanda floated loosely, heaped in a corner. Grabbing the bulkhead, he rotated and pushed himself toward Zanda. The gangster floated in a fetal position, one arm bent unnaturally, the lower part of his suit stained scarlet. The airlock was full of tiny globes of blood.
Andy shouted.
It crossed Andy’s mind again to just put a plasma bolt through the man’s faceplate. He knew that somehow Cara was watching, either through the airlock camera or his own helmet cam, and he wondered if that was the only reason he didn’t execute a double-tap. He didn’t blame Brit for anything she may have done. Without the kids, he wouldn’t be much different.
Fran shouted.
He turned from Zanda’s unconscious body to see one of the dead people in the corridor rising to their knees. It was the EV suit with the smashed faceplate. It was cold in the airlock. Switching to IR showed the rising suit as dead-cold. Andy moved away from Zanda and aimed his rifle.
“You better stand down,” he called over the external speaker. “I don’t want to have kill you again.”
The moving Havenot wasn’t holding a weapon but didn’t stop. Whoever it was came to full height, facing Andy with the broken faceplate.
“I warned you,” Andy said. He squeezed the trigger and fired a three-round burst into the attacker’s leg. The suit absorbed the rounds, bits of material and flesh tearing away.
a calm, crisp voice said, using the same Link connection Andy had been on with Zanda.
The suit took a step toward the airlock. Andy fired into its chest. Six holes appeared in a diagonal line across its front but it didn’t stop moving. It repeated the strange line about death like a mantra.
Andy checked the IR again. Still no sign of body heat. He switched to a broad spectrum scan that picked up sound vibrations and electrical signals.
he said.
The suit advanced and Andy fired more bursts into its helmet and knees. He took a step backward, getting Zanda in his view in case the gangster decided to wake up. In the second he glanced at Zanda, the suit shot forward.
Andy tried to squeeze off more rounds but the suit had already moved past him. Its focus, he realized too late, was on Zanda. It fell on the collapsed man and twisted his helmet off his suit in a quick jerk, exposing his head to outside atmosphere. He stared blankly, still not moving.
Without hesitation, it tossed the helmet to the side, then reached a gloved hand around to cradle the back of Zanda’s head. In a movement that looked like it was going to close Zanda’s eyes, instead the Havenot turned its hand across Zanda’s face and executed a quick snapping motion that broke the gangster’s neck.
The unknown Havenot paused, glove still pressed against Zanda’s face, then released him to float near the floor, eyes still open.
Slowly, the dead Havenot rose and turned to face Andy.
Movement in Andy’s peripheral vision showed him that the other three suits in the corridor were rising as well, movements deliberate.
Andy said on the open channel,
Four voices said in unison,
The dead harmony in their voices sent a cold vibration down Andy’s back. His hands felt numb and the rifle slid in his grip as if it had abruptly turned to rubber.
they said again, droning in Andy’s head.
he shouted, grabbing at the rifle. His own voice warped away from him so that he wasn’t sure he had been speaking at all. Fran didn’t answer. His mouth went dry.
Time slipped abruptly and the four faceplates were now crowded around him. He was trapped against the airlock wall. The rifle was gone. He shook his head, trying to make sense of the droning invading his thoughts. The word “stop” continued to stretch like hands around his throat. Had they pulled his helmet off, too?
He shifted to lock down his magboots and found they were already connected with the floor. Bracing himself, Andy pushed the closest suit away. He could barely see the blank eyes behind the faceplates. Two young men and two young women, barely in their twenties. He couldn’t stop thinking of Kylan Carthage and how old he would have been now.
had become grinding away at his thoughts.
“Dad,” Tim said.
Where was his voice? Outside his helmet?
“Dad!” Cara yelled, sounding like she was somewhere outside the airlock, outside the wall of noise falling on him.
“Dad, I know the rest of the poem,” Tim said.
“Dad, can you hear us?” Cara asked.
Andy tried to speak but could only sputter a mix of thoughts and words. The faces pressing in close, faceplates touching his, looked through him and at him at the same time. They didn’t seem to know he was there; seemed to want something inside him.
They wanted her. Lyssa.
The thought hit him harder than the numbing sound of their voices. He wanted to yell back at them that she was asleep. She wouldn’t answer. She didn’t seem to hear them or anything.
Whatever deal Zanda had struck with Heartbridge, wherever Brit had led him with her talk about kids turned into AI, it had killed him. Were these the killers Hari Jickson had been too terrified to name, that Starl didn’t want to admit to when he described the job? Were they human? They had to be artificial bodies. He’d nearly blown the first one’s leg off and it kept coming.
Andy forced himself to stare forward, looking past the dead faces fencing him in. His rifle had slid out of his hands and was now pressed against his thighs by the robot AI.
us,> a voice said. This one was a new. A woman’s voice.
Andy fought to control his breathing, straining to wrap his hands around his rifle. Finally, he gave up and grabbed the plasma pistol at his waist.
he said.
he said. He eased the pistol out of its holster, waiting for one of them to respond. He couldn’t tell which one was speaking to him. Other voices still droned on, pushing their way between his thoughts, the droning rising and falling. He had to concentrate to keep the swelling sound at bay, had to focus on too many actions at once.
Andy grabbed at specific expressions, babbling almost, as the pistol came free of the holster. The nearest robot pressed Andy’s arm into his side without seeming to recognize what he’d done.
one of the others said, as if to stop the woman before she could answer.
“He kindly stopped for me!” Tim shouted.
The pressing faces froze.
“The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality!” Tim’s voice crackled in the speakers. The AI were clearly dumbstruck by the words.
Andy said.
Tim’s voice crackled in again. He hadn’t stopped reciting the poem. “We passed before a house that seemed a swelling in the ground. The roof was barely visible.”
One of the men released a gut-wrenching howl and pushed the others out of the way. He reached for Andy’s throat just as he’d reached for Zanda.
Andy checked his magboots just to be safe, then fired the plasma pistol at the outside doors. The hands closed around his neck, scratching through the stretchy material. He tried to slide toward the inner door but couldn’t move while his boots were locked down. He fired again, aim going wild.
He choked for breath, hoping there was enough charge for a third shot. It was a plasma pistol—wasn’t the fear that it would blast a hole in the hull and cause decompression? Decompress already!
The third shot blew the doors out. Atmosphere rushed out the hole in the airlock, throwing the nearest two robots out into vacuum along with Zanda’s body. The robot with his hands around Andy’s throat squeezed harder even as his legs flew out from under him. His young man’s face stared impassively as he tightened his grip.
Andy dropped the plasma pistol and drew one of the pulse pistols, firing directly into thing’s chest. The robot’s suit popped in a splatter of blood and thin artificial fluids, forming globules before hissing away. The hands didn’t let go and Andy found himself with two disconnected arms hanging against his chest.
The last robot AI, a young woman, had locked her boots. She stood in the middle of the airlock, two meters from Andy, shaking as the atmosphere rushed past her. Her eyes were wide open as she gazed at him.
“Since then it’s centuries,” Tim said. “And yet feels shorter than the day.” Static washed out his voice until he said, “Were toward eternity.”
the woman called. Her voice reverberated like distant music through Andy’s mind. Something stirred in response. He couldn’t tell if it wanted to answer the woman, respond to Tim’s poem, or scuttle away in fear. It was mixed up with his own feelings like an amputated limb he felt but couldn’t control. A blank spot in his mind. A name he couldn’t remember.
she called.
Andy reached down, grabbed the rifle, and raised it to fire into the woman’s chest. He squeezed the trigger until there was nothing left but her magboots stuck to the airlock floor. Her blood and skin streamed out the torn doors.
Andy let his arm drop and sagged against the wall behind him. The woman’s voice echoed in his mind, mixing with the sight of her chest blowing apart.
Lyssa. Andy tried not to think of her voice but it grew harder to stop the more he tried. The name echoed inside his head. Lyssa.
Wake up.
A wave of dizziness made Andy swoon. He struggled to get the rifle back over his shoulder and the pistols holstered. He checked himself quickly, wondering if he’d been shot and hadn’t noticed. This didn’t feel like an adrenaline dump. He felt like there were two of him, badly overlaid. His vision split and rejoined.
he called.
“Dad?” Cara was calling. How long had she been saying his name? He didn’t know how he should answer. He switched over to the voice channel.
“I hear you. Can you hear me? I heard you reading, Tim.”
“Dad!” Cara shouted. “You haven’t answered this whole time.”
Andy took a step toward the inner door. Streaming atmosphere made it like fighting a hurricane. Debris caught on his legs and chest and then blew out behind him.
“I didn’t read it,” Tim said. “I know it by heart.”
“You memorized it,” Andy said, reaching for one of the handholds beside the door. His glove kept getting caught by the wind and pushed back toward him. On the third try he got it. He risked unlatching both boots together to pull himself forward. His arms shook from the exertion.
he called.
The Link wasn’t working. His suit had to be malfunctioning. He could hear the kids.
a woman’s voice said. This one was new. Andy couldn’t stop in the middle of pulling himself through the door to worry about the voice. Dust sprayed across his faceshield like a sand blaster.
he said. Was it Cara?
Andy’s heart nearly stopped. He managed to pull himself through the door and slide to the left, flattening against the bulkhead wall. He pawed at the control panel until he remembered that Zanda had cut a hole in the interior doors as well. He couldn’t seal the airlock. He’d have to reach the habitat.
Abruptly the gale blowing past him calmed. All the atmosphere had blown out. The vacuum was almost peaceful.
Andy took a deep breath and leaned forward to put his hands on his knees and rest for a minute. He waited until his breathing had calmed, then swallowed several times to get moisture back in his mouth.
His head still vibrated with phantom echoes from the robot AI. He waited until the vibrations subsided.
He nodded.
he said.
she said.
PART 6: MARS 1
Chapter Thirty-Eight
STELLAR DATE: 4.12.2969 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Fort Salem
REGION: High Terra, Earth, Terran Hegemony
Twelve Years Earlier
Buying a ship proved more complicated than Andy and Brit had thought. While it seemed everyone in the TSF dreamed about getting their own set of drives when they finally left the service, only a few people had any idea how to actually accomplish the task.
The first used ship they toured was a long-range freighter with a primary and second drives and even a sail system. Its exterior cargo system had been designed for ice. It was rugged, the kind of ship that refused to get stuck anywhere without fuel, but its interior was built like a construction site and not the kind of place they could imagine kids growing up.
Brit had surprised Andy by saying, “I want to live out there.”
“What do you mean?” they were lying in bed with Cara sleeping between them, drunk on exhaustion from the baby keeping them up for long hours.
“Out there. OuterSol. I want to go wherever we want and be able to take her with us. I want to get away from crowds.”
Andy didn�
�t want to acknowledge what he heard in her voice: the edge of paranoia that she wanted to protect Cara from the kind of people who had filled 8221 with children. If he said they had a greater chance of being hurt out in the Big Dark, she wouldn’t listen.
He was torn on the idea. Half of him wanted to get her down to Earth now, while she might still adapt to the gravity and gain strength over time. They could go anywhere. But Brit hadn’t grown up with real dirt under her feet. She didn’t understand the longing he sometimes felt for the Summerville river and the wind on his face, even if it did smell like trash.
They had meetings with ship-builders and reviewed plans over the Link, designing their dream vessels and then deleting everything when the prices were tallied. If they agreed on one thing, it was that they didn’t want a lifelong mortgage. There were also companies that would buy into a ship: You could work for them moving cargo, and then the ship reverted ownership on your death. That kind of plan went against the idea of building something for the kids — not that they expected Cara to want to stay with them forever, but a ship could transcend generations. The right ship was a legacy.