The bar was empty, though as Sonya raised her solitary mimosa in silent salute to Captain Saxena, a Lieutenant took the stool to her left.
“Lieutenant Vitto,” Sonya said, raising her glass in greeting. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Is that a real question?” said the woman. Of all the fourteen thousand women on the Sorority, the chief medical officer Vitto was the sole person Sonya could tolerate.
“Why are you being so charitable?” Vitto asked as her gin and tonic arrived. She grasped it wearily and took a decent gulp. Vitto routinely worked the graveyard shift and was just off work.
“It is a good day,” Sonya said, sipping her drink and grinning at the middle distance.
“Get laid?”
Sonya laughed, “You’d be the first to know,” she said, clinking glasses with her companion. “No, I got the mission through the wormhole.”
Vitto set her glass down heavily and turned fully toward Sonya, “Say you’re joking.”
“I’m leaving in a few hours.”
“Why?”
Sonya downed her mimosa and ordered up a coffee. “Because this place is rotting me, I am not meant to be in a cage. I’m shrieking at the bars, while everyone else goes on in their trained routines.”
“And you wonder why no one likes you.”
“It’s mutual.”
“At least you don’t have to listen to them bitch all day.”
“I do not envy you your work, Vitto. If we switched places, I’d be in a lot more fights.”
“The things they complain about. Our sperm supplies have every necessary combination from top contributors, but they want something specific. Degenerative traits, and why? They want to be special. Like they don’t realize that eventually they stop owning that baby, and they’ve given someone irrevocable lifelong problems.”
“Sterilization.”
“That’s your answer for everything.”
“And I’m always right.”
“It’ll pass,” Vitto finished her drink and stood. “Bon voyage, little girl. You owe me about sixty more drinks, so be sure you come back.”
“We’ll see,” Sonya said, studying Vitto. Just how fond the medical officer was of her suddenly became remarkably clear. There were no tears, but the expression was there. “I’ll see you later, Vitto.”
“Yeah,” said the Lieutenant as she walked away.
Sonya was relieved at the deception of people. Both the captain and Vitto, it seemed, actually cared about her. That being the case she was quite ready to leave, friendships were not something she trusted. Stealing the porcelain mug holding her coffee she walked out of the mess hall.
The wormholes were presumed to function on a similar principal. Exotic matter held them open, though no one knew what would happen once the field was disrupted by foreign matter. The wormhole could snap shut, or move, or just remain stable. Since the wormhole was essentially a tear in space-time, they allowed a kind of time travel which was supposed to be impossible. Sonya was getting more excited the more she thought about this, when she woke from her reverie she found she was absently stroking her ship. Previously unaware, she desisted.
“Don’t stop,” came Pexus’ voice teasingly from within.
“Shh!” Sonya hissed, looking around the shuttle bay. Pexus was not approved software, and would almost definitely be confiscated if anyone found out about her. Finding herself quite alone, she tossed her empty mug. It shattered and skittered across the metal floor. With a satisfied sigh she climbed into her recon craft and slid into the cockpit. Pexus ramped up to full power while Sonya pulled up the mission details on her console screen.
“You think we’ll make it?”
“Don’t actually care, Pexus, it’s all about the adventure,” Sonya reached for a small purple panel above the viewing screen. A few quick touches and she increased speed and music filled the cockpit, a delightful mix of ancient drums and electronica.
“We should be there in a few hours.”
“Not ever soon enough,” Sonya murmured, drumming on the console.
“Did you send a message to Dante?”
Sonya reached up and turned down the volume. “Yeah, why?”
“We’re getting an incoming signal from the Evarto. RP Gilbert, you want me to put it through?”
“No,” Sonya said, her heart racing. The thought of seeing Dante again, even on a screen, confused her. She wanted to see, but at the same time she knew seeing him would open something within her she had spent months attempting to shut away forever. “No, let him leave a message.”
“I think you should talk to him.”
“I don’t care, Pexus, I’m done with Dante. He’s not hurting me again.”
Electronic sigh, Sonya turned the music up again. AI without parameters had some side effects. Pexus had developed a very human personality, complete with inconsolable moods. Sonya often had to take a firm line, because Pexus could easily turn manipulative if Sonya gave in to every suggestion.
“Sorry I snapped at you,” Sonya said a few hours later when they were almost there, turning the music down again. “I just can’t see him, Pexus, please understand.”
“What if he still loves you?”
“I’m sure he does, but his love is not what I need.”
The music banged away, Sonya could almost hear Pexus’ hard drive processing a response. The pause was tense, Sonya programmed in an abstract light show to dance across the closed viewing screen. “What do you need?” Pexus said at last.
“Just you,” was Sonya’s ready answer.
“I am only a reflection of my creator.”
“How could you know? You don’t even know where you came from,” Sonya checked their course, fiddled with some knobs and buttons that didn’t really do anything useful.
“It doesn’t matter. I am only a program. You need someone warm, someone human.”
“I need a friend, and that’s you. You’ve learned to be human, but more than that I know you won’t hurt me. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Are you afraid of Dante?”
Sonya left the cockpit. Most of the time she loved the feel of the power at her fingertips, the ability to take control at any moment and glide through the stars. Now she felt trapped, she felt the shrieking monster rising in her throat. She needed to breathe, she needed something other than the whirr of machines and the constant artificial hum of forced air. In a blind mounting anger and confusion she stumbled down the narrow passageway, not knowing what she sought.
The galley, she needed the galley.
Though the recon craft itself was quite small, the galley seemed to take forever to reach. At last she was there, at last she located a small plastic bottle of bourbon. At last she calmed the monster.
“I can’t be doing this again,” Sonya moaned as she opened another bottle. “Did Dante leave a message?”
“Yes, you want to hear it?”
“Yeah, baby, play that thing.”
Sonya, you can’t go. Please.
“Ha!” Sonya threw the empty bottle, wishing plastic could shatter like satisfying glass. “It’s too late.”
“You’re right, fifteen minutes.”
“Can I see it? Is it visible?”
“Come to the cockpit.”
Sonya grabbed four more bottles and strode back to the cockpit. She’d have to address her drinking later. It wasn’t truly a problem since the invention of auto-pilot, but she did worry about her dependence.
She slid into the seat and pressed a flat silver button on her armrest that would raise the viewing screen. The alcohol hit her just as the swirling vortex of purple darkness appeared making the scene far less believable. This was a bad time to be drunk, Sonya set the other bottles down. She was only buzzed, and barely, but this was a time for raw life.
The stir she had felt when she’d heard Dante’s voice was comatose compared to the sensation she felt now. It was fiery, prickly, crawling from her depths up her spine and rocketing around her head as she gazed into the mesmerizing whorl. Before she could fully grasp what exactly she was looking at, the singularity enveloped her ship.
A tear in space-time, that’s what the mission information had said. The exotic matter didn’t seem to appreciate the foreign object and her recon craft spun around like an inertia trainer. Sonya held onto her seat, having not had the foresight to strap herself in. If she let go now, she’d slam into the viewing screen.
Though the ride was over in a breath, the recon craft emerged and glided smoothly to half the speed of light.
Sonya closed her eyes. “We’re still alive,” she panted, loosing her grip on the seat and flexing her fingers as the blood returned. “Is the hole still open?”
“Seems to be,” Pexus said. “But we have other concerns.”
Sonya glanced at the radar screen and saw they were caught in the gravity of a nearby planet. She looked up through screen as she cut the accelerator. “Let it happen,” Sonya said. “Just go into the orbit, we’ll land.”
“Really?” Pexus said. Sonya could understand her friend’s surprise. Usually Sonya just wanted to tear across the galaxies and never set a foot outside of where she had complete control. Now, although the screaming beast begging for open air was quelled by mild intoxication, she had to placate her need. She would, in essence, get her fix and be on her way. The fact that the wormhole remained open after their passage was slightly disheartening, so Sonya fully intended to take her time in going back. She did have to find out where she was, and chart it if possible. That was her job.
“Yes, really, can you get me a reading?”
“Habitable zone,” Pexus said. “Carbon-based life, human-safe atmosphere. I’m unable to find these coordinates in the database.”
“Blazing trails here, Pexus, making history,” Sonya said as the gravity took hold of them. Landing on a planet was never pleasant, and often resulted in disaster. It was only recently that landing with any sense of predictable site was possible. “A remote area, Pexus, I’m not getting any radio signals.”
Radio signals were a good indicator of civilization. If the inhabitants were in pristine times, it was against the law for Sonya to disrupt their evolution.
The thrusters kicked in and the craft slowly rocked to the ground.
“Really, if there’s no radio signal, we shouldn’t be landing,” Sonya said as she switched off the engines and left the cockpit.
“I know.”
“But the locals must’ve noticed that rift in their sky, maybe they can say how long it’s been there.”
“What does that matter?”
“Those things don’t open out of nowhere, Pexus,” Sonya said, donning her expedition gear and covering the lot with a brown cloak. “Something has to happen to create the tear.”
Sonya headed for the door, but Pexus didn’t open it right away. “What?” Sonya said, impatient to get out and breathe real air.
“I have something for you,” Pexus said, sounding hurt.
“Oh. Wait, really? How, do you go shopping when I’m away?” Sonya laughed.
“Look in the biochute,” Pexus said. The biochute allowed samples of foreign environments to be transported from outside to inside without contaminating the air of the ship. It was where Sonya hid Pexus’ personality chip when she had an inspection.
From the biochute Sonya drew a pendant hanging from a simple silver chain. “Thank you, Pexus,” Sonya said, letting the pendant lay in her palm as she rocked it back and forth to catch the light. It was a glittering disc of metal, it’s facets sealed beneath a layer of crystal.
“It’s a commlink.”
“I know, but how’d you get this one? These are. . . Pexus this is from. . .” Sonya leaned against the door, staring at the pendant.
“It arrived last week, sent fromyour home planet about two centuries ago.”
“Who sent it?”
“Who do you think? I’ve programmed it so it’s a direct link between us.”
Sonya shook her head as she donned the necklace, tucking the pendant under her shirt. “Cheers, Pexus, open pod bay doors!”
“I’m canceling your cybervid subscription.”
Sonya shrugged as she stepped into the chill air. It was about eighteen Celsius, but the wind was blasting forcefully against her as she made her way towards the closest lights. Wrapping her cloak tightly around her she took a glance behind her as Pexus cloaked the ship.
“Captain’s log,” Sonya said, pressing her commlink. “Stardate—What’s a stardate?”
“I’m serious about the cybervid, I’m canceling it right now.”
“Just trying to distract myself from this rather inclement weather. Why didn’t your warn me?”
“I thought you liked surprises.”
“You’re a real bitch sometimes.”
Electric laughter. “It’s about twenty minutes until sunrise. There’s a cluster on the thermal scan in the direction you’re heading, if you walk a little faster you’ll get there by dawn.”
“Don’t rush me, I’ll get there when I get there.”
Pexus hummed but didn’t answer. Sonya looked up through the haze of early morning and noted the remarkable gleam on the horizon. The ground was rocky, dabbled with an assortment of wiry plants. Sonya’s black boots were soon coated with a fine beige dust.
The gravity was slightly less than one G, which felt strange since everything manufactured for space-travel was made to feel like earth.The atmosphere was the common oxygen and nitrogen, but so thick that even as the sun rose the sky became an over-saturated violet hue. Sonya considered this adjacent to the glittering ivory in the approaching distance, it looked like stars against a bright midnight.
As the ivory came into focus, Sonya squinted into the wind as her eyes followed the spires skywards. They were like white tresses suspended in water, locks of a mighty civilization.
When she reached the edge of the city and the ground beneath her feet ran smoothly into a paved road. The scent caught her off-guard, it was familiar. It smelled almost like a forest, the wet and mossy kind from her early childhood. Absently she clutched at her commlink, feeling distant and alone.
When the sun was fully over the horizon she scanned the wispy buildings for signs of life, not a thing stirred.
As the sun shed more light on the white city, she began to see it was not truly a city. Sonya got down on the ground for a closer look at the road and discovered confirmation to her suspicions. It was a forest.
The ground was coated with a hard lichen. She touched one of the white pillars, finding it yielded to her fingers slightly. It was also sticky, but not like a goop. It was sticky to the effect of insect legs, she pulled off a little of the fiber and saved it in a metal tube she carried for just such a purpose.
Trees didn’t generally register that warm on the thermals, but Sonya had seen stranger things. It was time to return to Pexus and find an area that was actually inhabited. She pressed the commlink.
“Pexus, this place is empty, it’s just a garden or something. I’ll meet you at the edge.”
Sonya allowed her cloak to flow open, she broke into a slight run. It wasn’t often she could enjoy sunlight on a perfect planet. So many were inhabited, but with toxic atmospheres, or hostile beings, or any number of reasons to keep her from enjoying the simplicity of trekking a world where no human had been before.
The air grew thick with spores, however, and Sonya stopped running. She leaned against one of the pillars and coughed, continuing when she caught her breath. Pexus was in sight, and Sonya was more than a little disturbed by the sudden appearance of the spores. She took shallow breaths as she made her way to Pexus.
The shadows cast by the pillars began to sway, Sonya thought it was the wind. Then she reasoned it could not be, the wind was growing softer and the pillars had been still when it was high. She looked up and saw the tips of the inverted ivory tresses twisting and turning as the sun hit them one by one. A feeling of dread dropped through her, she covered her mouth and nose with her cloak and sprinted to Pexus.
Pexus was saying something over the commlink, but the pendant bounced against her chest as she ran and the message came in broken.“D—…r—ning…S—a…”
She was almost there, almost there. Sonya was fast.
The speedy bastard of a red dwarf star sun was faster. The planet was small, and the light reached the pillars in front of Sonya. They began heaving and twisting and undulating like revolting caterpillars.
“Sonya, stop!” Finally the message came in clear, and Sonya did come skidding to a halt in the lichen. Swallowing and keeping her cloak pressed firmly over her mouth, she spoke into the commlink.
“Pexus, what are they?”
“They are cocoons.”
“What are they doing?”
“I’m not sure. You’re almost to me, just go slowly.”
For fifteen numb minutes Sonya walked through the forest of giant cocoons and made it to her craft. She put the metal vial in the biochute before opening the door and hurrying inside. “That’s the last time I go out without a weapon. Peace be damned, I’m not dying for the sake of moral high ground.”
She took a breath and went into the cockpit, sliding into her seat she raised the viewing screen.
“What’s in the vial?”
“They are cocoons, but they’re not really alive. Sonya, these are strange.”
“What’s wrong?”
“There are normal animal cells, but there are also traces of exotic matter. It’s the same as through the wormhole. The tears in space-time don’t have to happen anywhere specific, it’s unlikely for them to be planet-side. These cocoons are alive, and they’re protecting a wormhole. We’ve dragged some of the matter here with us, trace amounts.”
“And they’re reacting to it?”
“They’re reacting to that, and to you. This sample, it’s still moving.”
“Well I’m full of rookie mistakes today. I inhaled some of those spores, Pexus.”
“You’ll be okay, but that is why they reacted to you. The spores went in your lungs and when you breathed out your saliva fertilized them in a way. They needed a source of protein.”
“Ick.”
“But you’re not in any danger.”
The craft shuddered, the viewing screen was immediately a swath of white cocoon and naught else. “How often must I say don’t tempt fate?”
“The concepts I cannot comprehend are finite, but the vague spiritualism you call fate is one of those things.”
“Don’t get all empirical on me,” Sonya said as the ship rocked again. “Not when I’m about to start praying for my life,” she brought accelerator violently to life. “Go, Pexus!”
Her old friend didn’t need a further command. The ship tilted as it strained upward beneath the lopsided weight of the white cocoon. A flash of purple threatened to engulf the little recon craft. Sonya had already taken manual control and maneuvered quickly to avoid it.
“Back to the stars!” she said, abandoning all curiosity. The cocoons below split open into a forest of wormholes. The lichen cracked and convulsed beneath the withering, sticky husks and the purple exotic matter began eating away a crater in the solid surface.
Sonya felt her breath grow short, almost as immediately she felt the growing anomaly on the ground below pull the power from the accelerator.
“Pexus!” she coughed. “What’s happening?”
“Hold on, my dove,” Pexus said, but Sonya thought she heard panic in the computer’s voice. “Let me take the controls.”
Sonya doubled over and coughed, choking until blood flecked her loam flight suit. “The spores, Pexus, something’s happening,” her eyes teared and felt the panic rising like hot water about the close over her head.
“The spores have a collective intelligence,” Pexus was explaining, though Sonya could scarcely hear over the blood pounding in her ears. “They’re being pulled back down.”
Sonya slumped, coughing without purpose. She could hardly see, hardly hear, she felt she might die. She would die and Pexus would return to the Sorority and be confiscated and destroyed.
Opening her bleary eyes she saw the blinking lights and heard the troubled sound of both the accelerator and the engines straining to escape the gravity. She took a deep breath and held it, she sat up and laid her hand on the screen.
Pexus was nearly shattering the craft with the amount of power she was using, it was still not enough. Sonya considered the spores, and immediately began searching for the metal vial.
She found it, just by the door. Unsure if her idea would work, she opened the vial and tapped the sample out into her hand. Holding tight to the cocoon fibers she breathed out forcefully.If she had any energy left she would have leaped for joy as she felt the feeling of doom recede as the tiny spores escaped her lungs as they were attracted to the shred of cocoon. She felt the last leave her, and she thrust the whole of it back into the biosphere and jettisoned all of it into space.
Relieved, staggering back to the cockpit, Sonya lost consciousness just as her hand reached the opening.
“Sonya,” the voice vibrated through her form, but didn’t truly register as sound. “Sonya.”
The tears sprang to her eyes as she pulled herself off the floor, she didn’t know why. Maybe it was the pain she heard in the voice calling to her, maybe it was the residual fear that was still pooling within her.
Blinking she stood fell into her seat in the cockpit. “Pexus,” she croaked, her throat felt raw and it hurt to swallow. “Are we out of the woods?”
“Yes,” and Sonya knew she heard a tone of relief. “Yes, my dove. We’re coasting a few parsecs away.”
“Let’s go home, back to the Sorority.”
“That could be a problem.”
Sonya closed her eyes as the tears continued to slide down her cheeks, she looked at the viewing screen. The blackness of space was a comforting sight after the horrors of being planet-side. “Why?” she said, though there was no voice behind her question.
Pexus answered anyway, “The wormhole we came through sealed itself when the other one opened. We have something new to report concerning the physics of these singularities, but I can’t seem to plot a course back.”
“Try a different target,” Sonya said, pulling the pendant from beneath her flight suit.
“Like what?”
Sonya turned the pendant over with a smile that could’ve been a wince. “Like a planet,” she said. “Like Starkevo.”
“Your home?” Pexus said, the navigation screen flickered. “Locked, eighty light years. The wormhole didn’t take us far at all. Are you sure you want to go to Starkevo?”
“Go, Pexus.”