One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries (42 page)

The small, dark silhouette suddenly flashed, flooding the viewing chamber with a blinding green light before subsiding. Just metres beyond the pane of glass hung a metal sphere the size of a soccer ball, ringed with emerald light.

“
A shielded proximity beacon,” said Ven, and she ran to the bridge.

She found Sol at the communications console, already poring over the transmission.

“
The
Darwin
?” said Ven.
 

Sol nodded, moving aside to give her a closer view. The hologram was a jumble of squiggles and circuitry, swimming with symbols that seemed vaguely familiar. However, if she’d once known what they meant, they were lost to the crowding dark now.

“
Hmm,” said Ven, studying the schematic.

“
Co-ordinates,” said Mike. “And instructions for modifying the phase drive.”

Ven traced her finger through the threads of light.

“
The key,” she said. “They found the door, and converted the phase drive into a key.”

“
I think I can make the modifications…” said Sol, his gaze moving methodically over the intricate hologram.

Ven sensed his hesitation, and she looked down at her leg.

“
We only have one nacelle,” said Ven.

The copolymer cable would be too worn to rethread into Mike’s engine.

“
I can do it with one,” said Mike.

Sol was very still.

“
If we reduce the mass of the ship, it might work,” he said quietly.

“
It’ll work,” said Mike firmly.

Ven glanced from Mike to Sol, feeling that she had missed something important.

“
Why don’t you get some rest?” said Sol gently. “I’ll have this working in no time.”

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They pushed their bunks through the airlock. They detached the lockers from the walls, pried the panels from the bulkheads, and Sol tossed out all his clothes save the dark blue flight-suit he’d made years ago. Finally, they detached the module from beneath the
Morning Star
, and watched it sail away into the starless night.
 

This would be their final jump. But instead of jumping out of phase, and then back in, they would jump out, and remain in the alternate dimension. This kind of thing had been tried before — Kiruchi Wen herself had conducted experiments using plants and small robots, but the general result had been ‘boom fizzle blat’. Ven hoped that Wen had fine-tuned this during her thirty year voyage.

Ven woke without realising she’d fallen asleep. Sol was tucking a blanket around her shoulders.

“
Why do we still have a blanket?” said Ven blearily, trying to sit up on the floor of the cockpit. She glanced at her data cuff. “How long was I out?”

Sol wrapped his arms around her, and lifted her into the pilot’s seat. He was trembling slightly.

“
Something wrong?” said Ven.

Sol shook his head, and smiled, but there was something wrong with his smile. Ven tried to focus, but her processor was circling helplessly in its tiny speck of light.

“
The phase drive will burn out after the jump,” said Sol gently. “I’ve constructed an automated beacon, which will start transmitting as soon as you stabilise on the other side.”

Ven’s awareness gripped a passing word.

“
You mean ‘we’,” said Ven.

“
Of course,” said Sol, buckling Ven’s seat belts into place.

Ven grabbed Sol’s wrist.

“
Mike, report!” said Ven.

“
Mike—” There was a note of warning in Sol’s voice.

The blue sine wave seemed to twist and distort.

“
Oh, to hell with the both of you!” snapped Mike. “I’m sick of taking orders. Ven, we’re still over the limit by sixty kilograms. Sol, you’re not going to throw yourself dramatically out the airlock. I’m taking charge of this mission.”

Sol’s eyes widened, and he lunged for the console. A deep click reverberated through the cockpit just before he reached it.

“
Problem solved,” said Mike.

Ven stared at the blinking red motif on the console.

“
You ejected your backup server,” said Ven dully. On the viewscreen, a sixty kilo cube of particle matrix floated away.

“
I’m not going to need it,” said Mike.

Sol turned angrily to the calm blue sine.

“
It might have survived!” he said.

“
What do you mean ‘might have’?” interjected Ven.

Sol was abruptly silent again.

“
The energy from the jump,” said Mike. “It’ll burn out every particle processor on the ship.”

Including Mike’s. Ven felt suddenly woozy, and she struggled to unbuckle the harness from her hips.

“
Change of plan,” she said, rising from her seat. She promptly collapsed again.

Battery: Zero.

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Sol finished securing Ven in her seat again, and rose to his feet. He’d managed to restore a little of her charge, but he wasn’t sure if it was enough. Sometimes people didn’t wake up again. Sometimes everybody died. But sometimes, after the smoke and the sirens and the disintegrating earth, sometimes if you were lucky, there came light, and stillness, and a story about a great big fish.

“
You’d better buckle up,” said Mike. “We’re aligning with the co-ordinates now.”

Sol pulled on a pair of insulated rubber gloves, and prised open a panel.

“
What are you doing?” said Mike.

Sol pushed his hand through the crackling forcefield that protected the circuitry.

“
Mike,” said Sol. “My name is Solomon Degarre, and I have a message for you.”

Sol pulled a blood red lever, and the
Morning Star
went dark.
 

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The cabin was dim, a solemn twilight, as though the world were about to sleep.

“
Sol?” said Ven weakly.

“
I’m here,” said Sol, an indistinct shadow in the seat beside her.

“
Mike?” said Ven.

“
He’s busy with the countdown,” said Sol. “Don’t worry, just try to stay awake. Do you remember the time Mike swooped into the atmosphere of the planet with the purple mountains, and let us open the airlock for a minute? Or the year we rearranged ‘Ode to Joy’ entirely for percussion, and Mike threatened to flood the ship with radiation?”

Foggy impressions swam just out of focus — glittering violet snow, the joyous beat of drums. Ven concentrated on inching from one moment to the next.

“
I didn’t always make the best decisions…” said Ven.

“
You’re only human,” said Sol.

“
I don’t have a soul,” said Ven.

She’d tried to be a good companion, but she could never take the place of all the friends he’d never had, all the mentors, lovers and confidantes that could have eased his journey. Because no matter how real she felt, she could never make that one, final step to being truly human.

“
Sentience, not genetics, forms the foundation for your spirit,” said Sol, as though it were a subject he’d pondered deeply. “A soul isn’t something bestowed upon you, it’s something you grant yourself. And in the end, Ven, you are all that’s best of humanity.”

Something ached sharply in Ven’s chest. His words seemed familiar, striking a chord with something in the crowding dark.

“
Sol…?” Ven’s vision was fading. “Did you know what Doctor Josh wanted?”

She felt Sol’s hand wrap around hers.

“
Ven,” said Sol. “The directive was never about protecting
me
.”
 

The cockpit began to thrum, and bright blue energy flowed through the circuitry, enclosing the cabin like a lacework cage. With her seat shuddering violently, Ven turned to face the monitor on the wall.

“
Mike…”

“
See you on the other side,” said Mike.

And Ven wondered why it was that a red sine waved goodbye.

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Four years after Day Zero

Earth

Sol was five years old the day nobody else woke up. He did his usual chores, collected water from the village pump, and fed the geese. But by nightfall, sitting beside the cold stove, he knew they would not be getting up again.

He didn’t know why everyone had gone, but he thought perhaps they were punishing him. He hadn’t worked hard enough, he hadn’t been kind enough to his sisters, he’d talked too much. He thought that maybe if he worked harder, and was gentle to the geese, and did not speak at all, they would return to their bodies. But when their flesh began to rot, he understood they would not be coming back.

He could not move the corpses, so he burned them where they lay — as he’d seen his mother do with diseased cows — taking care to put them out with sand before the houses caught alight. Airships passed overhead, angry chatter and bloody images streaming across their sides. But they never landed, so Sol paid them no mind.

Winter turned to spring, and spring warmed into summer. And with the ripening apricots, one small, hovering ship finally descended.

And Doctor Gillian brought an end to the silence.

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17 years after Day Zero

1.3 billion light years from Earth

“
Hello Sol,” said the monitor. “This is Mike34, and I have a message for you.”

Sol had never seen a red sine wave before, but Ven had spoken warmly to him of Mike34. When Ven had been kicked off campus many years ago for performing unauthorised upgrades on the cleaning droids, Doctor Josh had arranged for her to work a cargo run. Mike34 had been the pilot of the engine sled, the
Morning Star
, and he’d been endlessly kind during a time when she’d felt terribly alone.
 

“
Ven doesn’t know you’re here, does she?” said Sol.

“
Nor Mike35,” said Mike34. “Doctor Josh didn’t think it’d be … helpful.”

Sol contemplated the fact that there were many fronts on which Mike35 was not always helpful.

“
Did Doctor Gillian explain your mission?” said Mike34.

“
Take care of Ven,” recited Sol.

“
That was the toddler version,” said Mike34. “Today, you get the graduation cut. Ven’s special. She’s the only surviving android with a neutron dot drive — they’re not very fast, but they can withstand passage through the heart of a star.”

Sol doubted this had ever been tested, but it sounded impressive.

“
Before you and Ven departed Earth, Doctor Josh and his team uploaded a great deal of information onto Ven’s drive,” continued Mike34. “An assembly of art, engineering, literature, science and more. An immense library of human history spanning tens of thousands of years. If you find other survivors, if you rebuild, the information on Ven’s drive will be the foundation on which human civilisation can be restored.”

Mike34 paused, allowing Sol to absorb the information.

“
Now, do you understand why you have to protect her?” said Mike34.

Sol didn’t hesitate.

“
Because she’s my friend,” said Sol calmly.

The red sine smiled.

“
Congratulations,” said Mike34.

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Now

Here

It seemed that she was dreaming, although she hadn’t dreamt in years. The ship was shimmering and transparent, and Ven floated in a cage of electric blue. They rushed along a slipstream of stars, countless suns streaming past like streetlamps. Eventually, they darkened, as Ven’s optical processor finally failed.

There was a burst of suffocating silence. Ven felt the seat beneath her vanish, and an unbearable coldness gripped her. She tried to speak, and found she had no words, no thoughts, just this moment in the sightless cold.

Suddenly, warmth and air. Suddenly, a hard pressure beneath her. The sound of a young man gasping beside her — she felt she should know him.

“
Ven! Are you alright?” The young man stopped abruptly. This time, his gasp was slow and full of awe. “Oh my God…”

A sound like tiny silver bells, like the pages of a book flipping. Suddenly, another presence in the room.

“
Took your time,” said a woman’s voice. “I’m Jardine Hem. Welcome to Galapagos Major.”

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Ven stood in a sea of daffodils, beneath a cloudless sky. Beside her stood Doctor Josh, his blue shirt open at the collar.

“
You could have told me,” said Ven.

“
If I’d said the mission was about saving the data, about saving you, would you have left?” said Doctor Josh.

Ven was silent, the tiny ball of grief that had burned in her so long threatening to ignite. Doctor Josh gently wiped a tear from her cheek.