“Yes,” he admitted, sinking into the many pillows that formed a sort of proto-throne around him. He had taken to wearing his shroud again, at the insistence of his entourage. “Know that if you return, though, it will not be the same as when you left. Convoy Seven learned that the hard way, and they were originally gone for a much shorter span than you.”
“Some of us might wish to go, regardless,” she said.
“I’d like to see it again,” Stone said. “Before I die.”
“It can be arranged,” Jamal said gladly.
Vanhi rubbed her thumb over Stone’s knuckles, noticing a couple of age spots that had appeared as though overnight. He wasn’t old—she never imagined he could be old in her eyes. But the two of them were set on different timelines. The thought of him dying one day felt too near, too real.
Though Justice’s stopgap was proving useful, she’d jumped once more in the interim. The leaps were more predictable now, but still . . . they persisted.
She hated the pills. They tasted awful, and her head was a fog for hours after. But if it meant holding on for just a little longer, she’d gladly take them forever.
And yet, they were no guarantee. She’d still barely aged while Stone lived a life without her. She loved him, and it hurt to love him. But she couldn’t stop—she never would.
The question of reproduction still hung in the air. The convoy might be able to return to Earth, but what then? They would still die out, still be the last of their kind.
“It’s some sort of mutation in our DNA, I just know it,” Justice insisted. “But without viable samples from before and after, I just can’t seem to pinpoint what’s changed.”
She and Vanhi were in Justice’s lab, hunched over an electron microscope. Suddenly, Vanhi smacked Justice’s shoulder, hard. “The Monument of Seven.”
Justice rubbed at her reddening arm. “The what?”
“Oh my god, I can’t believe . . . Some of us are clones!” She hopped up and down. Of course! Why had it taken her so long to realize? “Some of the Convoy Twelve crew are clones. And their clones were on other ships, including . . . ?”
“Convoy Seven!” Justice hopped as well. “But all of the Lùhng are modified, they don’t have any of the original—”
“No. But we know where to get some. The Revealers used it to clone themselves a Progentor, and we can use it to fix our fertility problem. Once you’ve identified the differences, we can start making babies!”
“And then Homo sapiens can get another shot,” Justice said.
“We get another shot. Let’s go earn our second chance!”
When she leapt off the floor again, her feet did not come back down.
She’d jumped once more.
When she came back, people were leaving. Vanhi had to say a hasty goodbye to Esmée Jensen, Pablo de Valdivia, and many others she’d worked with in the EOL. Jamal had made those arrangements he’d mentioned. The first round of interstellar ferries had come to carry them home. Not Earth ships or Convoy Seven ships, but those belonging to Jamal’s followers, Revealers.
Pulse and Breath had been repaired, but would remain near the megastructure field for now.
“Another fleet are on their way,” Stone told her. “We can be on it, if you like.”
“How long this time?” she demanded, holding his face between her hands. His skin, his brows, his nose, all seemed so different.
“A year and three months,” he said sadly. “But I wasn’t going to get on a ferry without talking to you about it.”
“I’m not . . . that’s not what I . . .” She grabbed his hand, led him out of the docking bay. “I need to be home with you, right now.”
The same beautifully colored walls greeted her. The same wonderful man held her, rocked her, kissed her. Made love to her.
Afterward, while running her fingers over his bare chest, marveling at the pure white strands she found there, she said. “I don’t know if Justice told you . . . about the Monument of Seven.”
“She did.”
“I have to find it. I need Jamal to take me there.”
“Why you? You don’t want to go back to Earth?”
She let out a shaky breath. “I don’t think there’s a place for me there. I need to keep trying to make amends.”
“Vanhi, it’s been so long—”
She sat up abruptly, held his gaze. “Not for me.” She slipped out of bed, taking a blanket with her, and sat at the table. “I did something wrong, to all of us, and my jumping is my penance. It keeps me separate from everyone I’ve hurt, even you, so why should . . . If nothing else, I’m sure I don’t belong back on my own planet. I barely feel like I belong in my own bed.”
“You don’t have to keep punishing yourself.”
“I’m not. I’m so far past that, I’m . . . This is something I have to do. Going to the Monument of Seven is the right thing, when I want to do the easy thing.”
Vanhi fell quiet, and the silence stretched. She knew this was a crossroads.
After a while, Stone cleared his throat. “If you have to do this, then you do this. We go to the Monument of Seven.”
“Just me,” she said in a rattling breath. “Not you. You deserve to go home.”
In an instant Stone was out of bed, kneeling next to her. “You are my home. I’m not leaving you. I’m not—”
“You’re going to, though,” she gasped, nearly sobbed. “Every time I disappear, there’s no guarantee I’m coming back. It could be the last time we ever see each other. But even if I always come back, one day . . . one day when I come back you’ll be gone.”
“Vanhi, that makes us no different than anyone else. People leave their houses in the morning with no guarantee they’ll come back at night. That’s called living. It’s the risk we all take. Our time together is so short as is, don’t make me lose you now just because it might hurt later.”
“But we never get to say goodbye. At least this way we’ll know. It’ll be the end and we’ll know.”
“Vanhi, do you really want me to leave you?”
“I want you to be happy.”
“Then don’t make me go back to Earth.”
“Are you nearly ready?” Stone called from the bathroom.
“Yes, just packing up the last few things.”
Vanhi sat at the desk in their quarters, C in hand. She turned it over and over, contemplating the little bits of twenty-second century inside.
Kaufman’s messages were all still there. Waiting.
If she was getting a fresh start, she didn’t want her touchstone tainted. If she kept the messages, they’d continue to haunt her.
To listen or not to listen, that was the question.
“How many messages do I have from him?”
“Eighty-seven, sir.”
“Play the last one.”
“Hello, Vanhi. I’m just calling to say I saw you on the news the other day. Looks like you and your convoy are doing well, all thanks to me. You haven’t thanked me by the way. I’ve been waiting to hear from you, and I know you’ll come to your senses one day. You can’t run from me forever, I’ve done—”
“Pause playback,” she said swiftly. He hadn’t changed. There wasn’t a hint of apology in his voice, and she certainly wasn’t going to mine through eighty-six more messages looking for one.
She wasn’t sure what kind of fate she wished for him: that he’d seen the error of his ways and become a new man, or that he’d died alienated, disgraced, and alone. Some old men deserved their worst fears to come true.
“Delete all archived messages from McKenzie Kaufman.” And may that be the last thought anyone ever gives him.
The group staying aboard Pulse and Breath for the long haul was small, but tenacious. Most of the command team refused to leave the convoy as long as they drew breath. Carmen decided to stay as well, to be a permanent envoy between the Homo sapiens and the Homo draconem.
Captain Tan abdicated his command to his first officer, however. He an
d Ming-Na believed they had to follow the Progentor. Earth held no solutions for their family, and neither did the convoy.
“I need to see her fly,” Ming-Na said to Justice as they boarded the Progentor’s insect-like ship.
Vanhi watched the exchange from nearby, as the luggage was counted and final goodbyes were said. She didn’t exactly know what the captain’s wife meant, yet somehow she felt like she understood.
If the convoy’s crew was small, the assembly set to hunt down the Monument of Seven was tiny. Justice and Mac, who’d been married a few years now, felt it was their duty to go. Vanhi, Stone, and three others from Convoy Twelve who were themselves clones—Maureen Stevenson, Chen Kexin, and Mohamed Johar—rounded out the party. They were, of course, accompanied by Jamal and his attendants.
Vanhi was surprised to find someone else aboard the Progentor’s ship as well—someone who’d failed to announce their presence all these past years.
As the ship left the spherical Lùhng bay, the others all stared out the faceted windows, watching both Convoy Twelve and Convoy Seven shrink away.
Vanhi sat awkwardly, holding Stone’s hand in an extra tight grip, worried about the anxious flutter in her chest. She’d taken one of her tablets—the medics had made her what felt like a lifetime supply—and though she could sense the pill’s dampening effects, she was a little worried it wouldn’t work this time, that it wouldn’t prevent her from jumping. But she would not leave Stone so soon on their new journey. She refused.
“May I borrow Doctor Kapoor for a moment?” Jamal asked.
She kissed her husband, then strolled away with their new host.
The ship was large, though not as massive as Breath or Pulse, but the humans were confined to a fairly small area. Vanhi had originally thought this was because much of the insect-like vessel was devoted to an SD drive; Jamal had said that his primary travel SD, while not nearly as speedy as the one Convoy Twelve had accidentally breached, had severely contradictory physics. Which meant the bubble had to be thicker, stronger. She assumed that made the equipment bulkier.
But it seemed the deeper parts of the vessel were simply off-limits.
Jamal led her down a winding corridor. There were no lights save the little lamps that bobbed above each of their heads, surrounding them in their own glowing halo.
“In here.”
He touched a strange coil on the wall and it uncurled, sliding into a hidden recess.
The room beyond was ruby-red, and inside, hunched over a table, was a tall misshapen figure hidden beneath an equally red shroud.
“This is Wes-Tu,” Jamal said, taking Vanhi by the hand. Wes-Tu wasn’t mechanical like the others—the knobby points and sharp angles that jutted beneath the fabric suggested they were more closely related to the Lùhng. “He takes care of me, and will be especially valuable to you when I reach both the end and beginning of life.”
Wes-Tu bowed, though the bend came from too low to be his waist.
“Why aren’t you introducing him to the others?”
“My visit here is unprecedented,” Jamal explained. “My interaction with the outside world has been limited. It is only because of how close you all are to the First Revealer that I may uncover myself and speak with you. You are not pilgrims, and so Wes-Tu wishes to remain separate. But the two of you must meet, because you are the only one likely to witness the full breadth of my growth cycle.”
He bade her sit on a mountain of pillows near Wes-Tu, then sank down beside her.
“My modification puts me in a unique position relative to those around me. Much like your condition. The post-humans you call the Lùhng live much longer lives than Homo sapiens. But none live longer than me.
“Jamal Kaeden’s original genetic pattern was interspliced with select genes from the Turritopsis dohrnii. This unique jellyfish species has the capacity to return to its polyp stage after reaching sexual maturity—in effect, through transdifferentiation, it ages backward before growing up again.” He smiled softly before emphasizing, “So do I.”
“The Revealers who rescued my DNA schematics from the Monument of Seven modified those plans at great risk to themselves. Combining genes from Homo sapiens and the Turritopsis dohrnii was long ago outlawed, as the results were often horrific. My modification was a divine success.”
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Very. But that’s not the point. Like you, I need a touchstone. Like you—and, seemingly, like young Tan—I am, in a way, immortal.”
“I’m not immortal,” she said quickly. “I’m still aging. I can still die.”
“Yes, but you likely won’t for hundreds—if not thousands—of years. I want you to know that I understand. Wes-Tu is not the first to care for me, and won’t be the last. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t important to me. He is everything to me, and I cherish him while he is here.”
He knew she was afraid to lose Stone. Everybody did, that wasn’t a secret.
“You are wise, Doctor Kapoor, intelligent. You were key in every discovery your convoy made, all of its progress—”
“And all of its setbacks.”
He shook his head. “You are the mind of your convoy. But you war with your emotions.”
My emotions war with me, she silently corrected.
“I am simply offering to be here for you, as an understanding ear. And, I hope, perhaps you will be that for me as well.”
They returned to the others, just as the ship was about to dive into its travel SD. She sat next to Stone in one of the many seatbelt-laden chairs, and Jamal positioned himself across from them. “Everyone should strap in,” the Progentor announced. “Transitioning into SD travel is not as smooth as you’re used to.”
“The Monument of Seven,” Stone said. “Is it a megastructure as well?”
Jamal had explained to them that the megastructures were a gift from the ancient past. Benevolent Easter eggs, in a sense, moving matter and energy around the galaxy to the betterment of those pockets that harbored life. Several had produced asteroid shields, for example, even one to guard the Sol system.
They’d completed sixteen thus far, and were nearing completion of the last few they’d discovered. They didn’t know who’d originally designed them, but they were all hidden treasures.
He’d also said he suspected the megastructures had a greater purpose—one yet to be uncovered.
“No,” Jamal answered Stone. “The Monument of Seven—” he locked eyes with Vanhi “—is an immortal.”
The ship lurched and bumped. “Hold on,” Jamal said.
Vanhi gripped Stone’s hand and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, tried to think of something else, something calming.
If I am the mind of my convoy, she thought, repeating Jamal’s words to herself. Then he, as a resurrection of the First Revealer, is the soul of his. If we’re fortunate, this new, mysterious immortal in our quadrumvirate of the lonely will prove to be the heart.
But, what does that make the baby?
“Hope,” Ming-Na said suddenly from her seat, speaking to the child in her arms. “We’ve always held on to hope for you. Maybe soon you will greet us. Soon we shall meet.”
Then, softly, she began to sing.
Vanhi was glad in a way she hadn’t been in years. Not even the medicine could dampen that. Convoy Twelve had been lost, then saved—by its own brethren, even. Humanity had grown so much since they’d left it. Learned new things, come so far. The future was vast and full of hope, and she was happy to be a part of it.
Epilogue
Old Age Is Always Wakeful
Dates Unknown
“So, Doctor Straifer, what do you think it is? The reason for LQ Pyx’s strobing?” asked a voice.
I.C.C. was dimly aware of the answer. Could hear it mumbled more than anything—yes, a video was playing, but it heard the answer deep in the recesses of its memory: “I don’t know. Man is not consistent but in his capacity to assume and be wrong.”
“If it’s
not your place to tell us, then who should we ask?”
“Convoy Seven when they get back. What’s wonderful about my position is that I don’t know. And theirs is that they will. No matter what kind of guess I could hand you, I’m sure the truth will be a thousand times more fantastic. I’m excited for them. It’s rare, the chance at real discovery. Not many people get to be there when it happens.”
I.C.C.’s servers groaned in inaudible bass frequencies as the computer tried to pull itself fully out of slumber.
And the familiar voice went on.
“. . . were created for the betterment and wonderment of all humankind. The most breathtaking thing about the vastness of the universe has thus far been its ability to continuously amaze us. Every discovery we make, every question we answer and problem we solve has led to more questions. The universe may never run out of ways to baffle and excite us.
“The pursuit of knowledge is in its own way a spiritual undertaking. It’s good for the soul, or whatever you want to call that innate thing that makes us reach. Whether reaching within for the courage to comprehend ourselves, or into the great beyond in order to comprehend everything else, the endeavor is what makes us who and what we are.
“Never stop wondering. Never stop learning. Never stop being grateful for your chance to explore. I’m grateful that you can chase my dream, that you can further our understanding.”
Reggie? I.C.C. thought.
“I just want you to know that I’m immensely proud of you,” Reggie said.
I.C.C. stopped the video feed. Reggie Straifer the First’s voice left a silent echo ringing through Mira’s halls.
What a long time ago, thought the AI.
The ground felt rough and ragged beneath its hulls—crushed by the weight of the ships. The atmosphere outside tingled with electricity, wind howled across the rocky landscape, and a pink colored sky stretched above.
A ship was missing—no, three. Yes, it remembered now. The crew had left—where they’d gone it could not recall. But it thought they were all right. Yes, last it knew they were all right. That made it feel warm deep in its servers.
Noumenon Infinity Page 52
