by Isaac Hooke
He checked his helmet light. The indicator said it was active, though he saw no cone of light whatsoever. Prudently, he turned it off.
He was alone in the dark, with only the sound of his breathing for company.
And then he remembered what it was that he had forgotten.
"Nitrox?" he said.
The suit projected a message onto the helmet glass.
Estimated Oxygen: 90 seconds.
"Shit!" Tanner scrambled to his feet. Fight to the end.
He slipped and fell. He tried to stand, and slipped again, this time striking his helmet against the surface. His skull jarred and his teeth rattled, and more cracks threaded across his faceplate.
Tanner sat partially upright, supporting himself on one elbow. He paused a moment to catch his breath. The cloud was beginning to clear, and he could see the faint outline of his gloves in the darkness.
That's when he noticed a form lying beside him.
He turned on his helmet light.
It was Hoodwink. His skin had a bluish-purple discoloration, and was very dry, like the shriveled surface of a raisin. His body was bloated by the gaseous byproducts of the bacteria in his guts that had survived until the body became too cold.
Ari and Tanner had taken the only available suits in the control station, and when the glass had shattered, Hoodwink had been sucked out onto the surface, rolling away in the low gravity.
And so here he lay.
Tanner deactivated the helmet light, and lowered himself to the ice. He stared upward into the murk.
He was done.
Fight to the end?
This was the end.
He'd end here, on the surface of a moon four hundred million miles from Earth, beside the only man who'd ever revealed the truth to him. Beside the man whose daughter he loved.
He'd end here, beside Hoodwink.
75
Death by asphyxiation. The archives claimed it was like going to sleep. A peaceful, gentle sleep. Gas exchange in the lungs continued as normal but resulted in the removal of all oxygen from the bloodstream. After 7 to 10 seconds, the deoxygenated blood reached the brain and loss of consciousness resulted. Death from hypoxia—oxygen deficiency—followed gradually after two minutes.
During those two minutes, when the oxygen-starved brain stem ceased to function, the heart stopped. Without the flow of blood to maintain the appropriate balance of calcium and other minerals in the cells of the body, the organs ballooned. The brain wasn't immune, and calcium flowed into the brain in massive doses, creating a sudden electrical current as the brain swelled. After that final outburst of potential energy, all electrical activity in the swollen brain ceased.
The brain stopped functioning.
But what happened to the psyche?
He remembered sifting through the archives months ago, after posing the question that had been on his and everyone's mind the day after a particularly harrowing attack from the machines, when one of the children had been lost.
What happens when we die?
People's realities are bounded by what they know, what their senses can perceive. A world of objects and occurrences external to the self. A persistent-state world that existed before us, and will continue to exist after us regardless of whether we believe in it or not.
People assign arbitrary meanings to events and observations, and their minds catalog those meanings in appropriate drawers. Familiarity leads to habit, habit leads to assumption, assumption leads to reality. What we see and hear must be real, and must be the only reality there is. When someone dies, they go to sleep and never wake up. There's nothing more to life than that.
Right?
When Tanner had first learned about electromagnetic waves in the archives, he was astounded. Imagine, invisible light that passed through objects and could be used to carry messages. Waves that existed whether people believed in them or not. A reality atop our own. How many other such hidden realities were there? How many hidden worlds? Worlds upon worlds upon worlds, all of which existed whether we believed in them or not.
"What the hell are we?" he said.
The lungs injected oxygen into the blood. The heart pumped that blood. The arteries and veins and capillaries distributed that oxygen-rich blood to the organs and muscle tissue. The bones provided the framework that held it all up, and produced the blood. The muscles offered mobility. The sack in the abdomen provided the specialized organs used to digest and egest, along with organs that produced the chemicals called hormones. The spinal cord gave the reflexes, and acted as the intermediary between the mind and body. The brain coordinated it all.
The brain. The root of consciousness. Where thoughts formed words and actions.
The brain gave rise to the self. The psyche. The soul.
Did it really?
"What the hell are we?"
Tanner remembered reading about two ancient Earth figures, Aristotle and Plato.
Aristotle believed that the psyche, or consciousness, was the end-product of the human body, and that when the body died, the psyche died with it.
Plato believed in dualism. That the psyche existed independently of the human body, in a dual plane of existence, and that when the body died, the psyche lived on.
Tanner still had the image in his head from the archives, taken from a painting in a church, that depicted Plato, shown with his long gray beard, pointing at the heavens, while Aristotle, walking at his side, pointed at the earth.
Which was it then? An afterlife in the heavens? Or eternal darkness in the ground?
According to the archives, after those two minutes of dying, when hypoxia followed and all electrical activity between the swollen neurons faded, and the physical processes that determined what we call consciousness completely ceased, that state called clinical death was declared. With technology being what it was, people could be brought back from that precipice up to eight hours later, assuming proper tissue cooling. Brought back with no brain or bodily damage whatsoever.
Those who returned sometimes reported having been conscious over the death period. They described the events of the resuscitation from a point in the room other than their own bodies. Others told of a sense of peace and contentment. Or seeing their lives replayed. Or ascending a tunnel of light and seeing friends and relatives who had passed before them.
The death throes of a dying brain? The outcome of a chemical process that acted on those parts of the brain responsible for cognition and perception? Kind of like being on the Inside? But that couldn't be possible, not when there was no physical activity in the brain, no electrical impulses, just a non-functional mass of swollen gray matter, the tissue slowly necrotizing.
Unless consciousness was more than electrical impulses.
Unless human beings were more than just the mass of neurons in their heads.
Unless one could be dead, yet still tethered, however tenuously, to the body, so that when one was revived one could report these things.
But if that were true, if a human body could attain consciousness where no consciousness was possible, then what truly happened when one died, and that final tether was cut?
Would Tanner cross some final Forever Gate?
Would he find himself in limbo? Purgatory? Heaven? Hell?
Maybe one of the eight levels of paradise? Valhalla maybe?
Or perhaps he'd awaken in the nine hells. Maybe Tartarus? Would he see the River Styx?
What about the Fields of Aaru?
The seven gates of the House of Osiris?
Maybe he'd be reincarnated according to the deeds of karma, his 'Atman' attached to one of those test-tube babies on the ship. Or maybe he'd be born into another species on some far-flung corner of the galaxy. Or how about reborn as one of the Enemy? There's irony for you.
Either way, Ari had done it all before him. She was the pioneer. She'd blazed the path, and she waited to guide him on the other side.
The low oxygen indicator blinked on his faceplate, but Tanner ignored
it, and he lay back, accepting his fate, waiting for the eternal sleep.
Through the lifting cloud of dust, he caught fleeting glimpses of the starry sky. It seemed like a good omen, being able to see the stars for the last time before he died. He smiled.
A pincer wrapped around his wrist.
One of the machines had found him.
Well, it hardly mattered now. He was on death's doorstep. There was nothing they could do to him.
He watched Hoodwink's body fade into the dust cloud as the pincer dragged him away.
Goodbye, Hood. I'll be joining you shortly.
He tilted his head up, wanting one last look at his captor and the cold world he was leaving behind.
Through the clearing dust, he saw that it wasn't a machine that held him.
A gloved hand gripped his wrist.
It belonged to a figure in a spacesuit.
Tanner blinked. "Ari?"
76
"Well shit and image," Hoodwink said as he dragged Tanner across the icy surface. "I thought it was you Tanner, I did. Though in truth I was hoping for Ari. Well, what have you gone and done with my daughter now?"
Tanner merely stared up at him. Was the man stunned? Maybe he couldn't hear. Hoodwink thought he'd set up the comm line properly...
"Well, speak up!"
"Hood." Tanner's tinny voice finally whispered inside Hoodwink's helmet. "No air."
"No air? Dammit! Why didn't you say something, man? Mistook me for some arse-raping machine or something?" Hoodwink released him. He noticed that Tanner's faceplate was cracked. Had it sprung a leak? No—Hoodwink would have seen the mist from the escaping oxygen.
He opened the upper band of Tanner's backpack, sealed the isolation valve and slid the rightmost gas cylinder free, dropping it. He then spun Tanner around, knelt, and pointed at his own backpack. "Grab one!"
"What?" Tanner sounded drunk.
"Take one of my cylinders, man!"
Hoodwink felt the backpack shift as Tanner toyed with it. Hoodwink waited, wrinkling his nose. He still hadn't gotten used to the damn smell inside these things—it smelled like sex. He wasn't sure if that was the suit he was smelling or the recycled air. Might even be his own body. Newborns smelled like sex after all.
A message appeared on his faceplate.
Alert: Oxygen Drop. Currently: 85%.
Good. That was expected. Tanner had taken the cylinder.
The message flashed again.
Alert: Oxygen Drop. Currently: 75%.
Not so good.
"Close the valve!" Hoodwink said.
"Sorry." Tanner slurred the word.
Hoodwink felt his backpack shift again. The alert faded.
He turned in time to watch Tanner collapse. Hoodwink pried the gas cylinder from Tanner's gloved fingers and shoved it into the empty slot in the backpack, opened the isolation valve, and locked the upper band in place.
"Breathe, Tanner," Hoodwink said. "That's the way. Breathe." He could hear Tanner's deep inhalations in his helmet.
Hoodwink gripped Tanner by the wrist. "Now up, you! You're more of a man than that. At least you used to be. Come on now. Up, up!"
Tanner stumbled to his feet. He slipped a few times on the ice but Hoodwink steadied him.
"You gotta get yourself some proper moon boots," Hoodwink said. "Something with some grip!"
Tanner shook his head. "You're dead. I just saw you. Over there." Tanner pointed into the dust cloud.
"Your imagination, my friend." Hoodwink said. "You had no air, remember?"
"No, it was real. Hoodwink, what's going on? Where did you come from?"
"Topside," Hoodwink said decidedly. Tanner knew better than to ask more, that all talk related to Topside was forbidden, and would only get him stony silence.
But Tanner plowed on. "Somehow you were on the meteor that fell from the sky just now, weren't you? I thought it was an attack. But it was you. How?"
Hoodwink let a knife's edge slip into his voice. "I'll tell you everything in good time, Tanner. In good time. But I have a question for you that needs answering, and right away, mind. It's kind of a big one. Ari. Where's my beautiful Ari?"
Tanner's spacesuit slumped visibly. You'd have to hunch your shoulders a lot for that effect to be visible outside the bulky suit.
"I don't know how to tell you this," Tanner said.
Hoodwink felt a rising sense of alarm. "Tell me what? I left her in your charge. In your protection. And now you're going to tell me straight: Where's Ari? Where's my daughter?"
"She's..." Tanner couldn't meet his eye. "She's..."
And then Hoodwink knew.
Everything he'd lived for, everything he'd endured, it was all for nothing.
He had no one now.
He might as well go back.
Abandon this place.
Abandon them all.
He hated them.
All of them.
No, that wasn't true. He loved humanity. But still, Ari...
"She died on the Inside," Tanner said. His lips were shaking. "When I came back here, to the Outside, she was dead."
Hoodwink blinked away the stinging blur in his eyes. "Did you get a medikit? Did you try re-oxygenating her blood? Hook her up to the ECMO heart-lung?" It wouldn't have mattered. When you died on the Inside as a gol, the wires from the umbilical cooked your brain. But he wanted to know that Tanner had done everything in his power to save her.
"No. I would've, but the machines, the golems, they smashed her helmet. There was blood everywhere." Tanner sobbed.
My Ari is dead.
"Was there—" Hoodwink had to pause, because his own voice sounded more like a sob than anything else. Maybe if he spoke faster. He tried again. "Was there anything out of the ordinary in the way she died Inside?" Hoodwink said it as fast as he could, but his voice still caught on the last words.
"What do you mean?"
Why was Tanner making this so hard? Hoodwink's chin was quivering, and he clamped his jaw down tight. Didn't really help. "The way she died!" he managed. "Was there anything out of the ordinary in it!"
"No," Tanner said. "She fell. We... we were climbing the Forever Gate. And she fell. She gave her life to save me." Tanner was weeping openly now.
Hoodwink's legs weakened. It was all he could do to sit down on the moon's icy surface. He stared at the huge, dispersing cloud of dust.
Dead. My Ari is dead.
His gaze was drawn to the blue ribbons in the northern sky, the famous auroras he had watched with the children countless times. Seeing those dancing lights had always filled him with awe for the great spectacle that was the universe. Today the sight only made him feel empty, and alone. She never even got to see it.
He bowed his head. "My Ari."
"It was the four-armed Direwalker, Brute." Tanner spoke as if from across a vast gulf.
"The Direwalker?" Hoodwink was only half listening. Ari was dead. And there was nothing he could do to bring her back.
"It chased us up the Gate. Crawled onto her. But she let go. To save me."
Hoodwink closed his eyes.
"There was one thing out of the ordinary, maybe," Tanner said. "The disk. Jeremy wanted Brute to touch her with a small disk."
"A disk?" Hoodwink looked up suddenly. "What did it look like? Was it metal? Did it touch her forehead?"
"Yes, it was metal. Small, and round."
Hoodwink stood. "Did it touch her forehead?"
"I— I don't know. She fell..."
Hoodwink grabbed him by the shoulders. "Think, man! Did the Direwalker touch her head while they were falling?" If so, then she was dead, yes, but her psyche would still be linked to this world by a tenuous thread.
Tanner shook his head. "No. I mean, I didn't see. She and the Direwalker fell into the snowstorm. Vanished."
Hoodwink released him. A sudden sense of purpose filled him. This wasn't over yet. "There might still be a chance. If we can get that disk." He glanced toward the distant ship that h
oused the remnants of humanity. It was a long rectangular structure of folded steel and smooth curves, half buried in the icy landscape. "Take me to her body."
Hoodwink and Tanner started the walk back. Though Hoodwink was filled with renewed hope, he couldn't help but feel that this might be the longest walk of his life. He was going to see the dead body of his little girl. Something no father should have to see.
Not ever.
But ahead, what he initially assumed to be rocks, turned out to be three iron golems looming between him and the ship.
77
Hoodwink watched those three golems roll over the icy surface. The smaller fragments of ice shattered beneath their weight, while the larger ones swayed the golems to one side or the other. Their approach was inexorable, and those red lights cast baleful beams across the landscape.
"They just keep coming," Tanner said.
"We're garbage to them." Hoodwink remembered the first time he'd ever encountered one of these things. It had tossed him right into the meat grinder. "Less than scum."
"We are," Tanner said. "Yet they fear us."
"Rightly so. I'm in a foul mood today, Tanner. A very foul mood. What say we hunt us some iron golem?" Hoodwink flicked open the holster at his belt. "My colleagues finally designed a weapon these hands can use."
"Your colleagues?" Tanner said.
"Topside." That silenced him appropriately enough. Hoodwink flipped the safety switch and lifted the weapon. It was similar to a hand-crossbow, except it shot concentrated pulses of energy instead of steel bolts, pulses that could tear through metal from half a mile away. Assuming your aim was right, that is.
It took him five shots to hit the first golem. He got it in the chest. Made that golem stop with a gaping arsehole in its breast. If there'd been any air in the atmosphere, a nice plume of fire and smoke would've been coming from that hole. Too bad.
