Her voice rings out over a pink-sand beach: Get up, Ambrose. You’re racing me to the point.
Now Minerva’s drowning. Her strong arms chop ocean but bring her nowhere.
I try to yell, but my dry throat gapes.
Minerva has never needed help, not in her whole life.
I can’t open my eyes.
I’m not where I thought I was. I try to call out again, despite the burning in my throat. I’m coming! I’ll save you!
Clatter of hard polycarb on hard polycarb, ringing and rolling. A whirring hum.
When I open my eyes, the world looks no different.
I’m blind.
Ting-ting buzz.
I haven’t been blind—I have been in the absolute dark. Now there is light.
“Is someone there?” I ask, blinking against purple burn.
A voice comes on. I recognize it. “There has been an accident, Ambrose. You have been in a coma. I’ll let you know when you can move.”
“Mother? Where are you?” My voice sounds like a sob. She’d hate the weakness of it.
“I am not your mother, though I may sound like her,” she says. “I am using her voice skin.”
Voice skin. Ship. Right. I’m on the Endeavor. “You’re the operating system,” I say. My eyes jerk around in their sockets. White polycarbonate walls, “04” printed in large block numerals beside a doorway. There is no sand. This is not a place for sand. I’m on my mission. “Give me an update on my sister.”
My mother—my operating system—needs no time to think. Her words begin before mine end. “You are on a mission to retrieve Minerva, or Minerva’s body.”
“I know that, OS,” I spit. “I asked you for an update.”
The floor hums. An image returns: my parents, my brothers and sisters, frolicking on our Cusk-branded pink sand, Minerva splashing through waves of steaming seawater in her white racing suit, my mother yelling “Faster, Minerva, you can go faster,” my molten bronze fingers
searching the scorching artificial grains for a seashell. My family’s spaceport is distant in the blue, radio arrays wheeling. Pleasure satellites haunt it.
“Are you delaying because you have no information, or because Minerva is dead?” I say. I want to add more, but speaking hurts too much.
“I will fill you in once you are ready.”
I manage to shake my head, vertebrae grinding. “That’s not how this works. You’ll fill me in now.”
“The launch had complications, but was ultimately successful,” OS says. “You are on board the Coordinated Endeavor, weeks past Earth and its moon. We are well on our way to the Titan distress beacon. There has been no change in her signal.”
Of course my sister is alive. Dying would be a failure, and Minerva Cusk doesn’t fail. I try to swallow, but I have no saliva. “Water,” I croak.
“At your bedside,” OS says.
My eyes zoom out of focus and then narrow in on a hand. It’s my hand, but I watch it like it’s someone else’s as it knocks into the polycarb tray beside me. I like my hand, my blipping brain decides. It’s a beautiful hand. A cup of water is there, far and then suddenly too close. I miss my mouth, water pouring down my cheek. My arm muscles knot tight as the cup drops and rolls away. I manage to say a word in the midst of the pain. That word is “ow.”
A whine from the next room, then a robot skirts along the wall. It looks like half of a white basketball. The robot gives a delicate whine before composite pliers emerge from an opening, pinch the cup, and right it. A nozzle emerges from another opening and sprays in more water. “Hydration for when you are able to manage it,” my mother says. No— my mother is back on Earth. I won’t let myself make that mistake again. “You might want to limber up before you try to drink more.”
I stretch my other arm, which turns out to be attached to an IV. Its muscles cramp, and the arm falls to the bed. The gurney. My muscles pinch harder, and I gasp. I can’t bring myself to try to drink again.
There is a lightness to the world, like I am back with my fellow spacefarer cadets that one afternoon when we took a bottle of PepsiRum into the woods, goading, daring, slurping, drunk before we knew we were getting drunk. I kissed four of them that day, before I sneaked away to run laps. But I can’t be drunk after a coma. You only feel drunk. “My blood pressure . . . ,” I croak, wincing.
“Yes, your blood pressure is still low. Do not stand until I give you permission, Ambrose Cusk.”
“A coma is impossible,” I say, blinking at my own stupidity. Not at the words I said, but at having tried to speak, having willingly rubbed the inside of my throat against the sand.
“I cannot let you rest long,” Mom-not-Mom says. “By taking off under such rushed conditions, the safeguards meant to protect you were ineffective. You passed out before your shuttle even left Earth’s atmosphere. Please just accept that fact. We are behind schedule.”
Rushed conditions? I try to ask the operating system what that means, but only croak. I try to say that Ambrose Cusk does not pass out, but only croak.
I’m not exactly living up to my big sister’s standards.
“Your speech is not evocative enough for me to make any inferences about your intentions,” OS continues. “I will therefore continue my previous course of conversation.”
While OS speaks, I flex my hands. The tendons begin to limber up, first the tips of my fingers and then the rest of each digit. I clench my feet, my ass. I’m out of breath with the exertion, but if I keep this up, eventually I’ll get to my feet.
“We have been leaking air and are coming up on an asteroid with a frozen water core in one-point-seven days. That water can be electrolyzed to replenish our oxygen, so I am matching our speed and bearing so we can net it. If we miss this opportunity, supporting life on the CoordinatedEndeavor could become impossible.”
I rock from side to side, and though my belly doesn’t cramp up, it does feel like I’ve downed yet another bottle of PepsiRum. I’ll be puking soon, there’s no doubt about that. I grit my teeth and raise my right arm. The muscles seize, my fingers become talons. But by concentrating and
breathing through the pain—okay, howling’s the better word for it—I manage to pick up the polycarb cup at my bedside. I lift it to my mouth. Most of the liquid runs down my chin, soaking my chest, but some dribbles in.
The robot whirs in and refills the cup. I use my left arm to drink this time, since the right has cramped back into a claw. Even more of the water goes in. I’m getting the hang of having a body.
I want to ask how long I was out. But OS is right—life support is our first priority. “So we harvest this asteroid or I die,” I say.
The sandy depths of my memory offer me the grand hall of the Cusk Academy, lined with plaques and medals, a string of spacefarer cadets in starched cotton suits that crackle like paper. Announcements project into the air: who’s made it to the next round of screening, who is one
step closer to the coveted mission slot. Minerva’s name and avatar flashing up there three years ago, all white teeth and confidence, her grand departure to investigate Titan. The only person who really loved me showered in laurels, cheered by millions, mine no longer. My likeness projected up there three years later, all white teeth and almost as much confidence, when I was chosen to go save her.
“I remember my training,” I croak. “I remember being selected. I remember my last day on the beach, before I went upstairs for my full-body medical scan. But I don’t remember the launch. Not at all.”
“Unsurprising,” OS says. “You were rattled in the shuttle. Organic processors are so fragile.”
“It wouldn’t be the first knock on this head,” I say, tapping my skull experimentally. Our trainers would harness us to long carnival arms and spin us, measuring how much g-force we could withstand. I’d always aced those tests. “How long was I out?”
“Two weeks,” OS says.
Shit. That’s embarrassing. Passing out was not in the mission plan.
I sit up, swing my legs around. Bad idea. I shout and fall back against the gurney.
“Hold still until I tell you you’re ready, Ambrose,” OS says in my mother’s voice. A whir and a whine as Rover ticks along the wall. Once it’s right next to me its tongs emerge, a pellet pinched delicately between them, soft contents bulging. Whatever’s inside its sausage-like casing is a rich and liquidy brown, gas bubbles rising within it. It smells . . . savory.
“OS, did Rover just poop?”
“In a way, it has,” OS says. “The microfauna of your intestines need to be replenished immediately to prevent any inflammatory autoimmune response. These organisms are selected to populate your tract with healthy proportions of bacteria.”
“Eating shit wasn’t in the mission plan,” I say. I do remember my briefings about the Minerva rescue, the plans for my trip on the Endeavor. I just don’t remember starting the mission.
“Neither was your coma.”
Wow. Mean.
Rover refills the cup of water. “Down the hatch,” my mother’s voice says.
Good use of the colloquial,” I say. “I assume that line was preprogrammed.” I take a good look at the pellet. At least I can thank mission control for encasing this shit before making me eat it. “Mom would never say ‘down the hatch,’ by the way. My surrogates would, but Mom’s too polished for that. Pretty sure she’s never been near a diaper. I didn’t even see her for the first ten years of my life. Minerva basically raised me.”
I pop the pellet into my mouth and chase it with water. The agony of swallowing makes me roar. Eyes streaming tears, I fake a smile. “Please, ma’am, can I have some more?”
“That was enough microfauna for now,” OS says.
“Yes,” I say, as I burp the most unpleasant burp any human has ever burped. “Agreed.”
The boundaries of the room warble. I close my eyes, concentrate on my breathing so I don’t gag. Might as well make nausea your lover, Minerva told me on a long walk through the family grounds after she discovered I had been picked for the Cusk Academy. It’s the only thing that will be by your side all through your training. With her on my mind, I ride the waves of sickness until they subside. “How long until we reach my sister?”
“Approximately one hundred and ninety-one days.”
As my veins swell with fluid, my mind makes obvious connections that it couldn’t manage even a minute ago. A grin cracks my face, cramping those muscles, too. I probably don’t look it, but I’m filled with joy. “OS. We’re in space!”
In the milliseconds that pass before it responds, I imagine OS reassessing mission control’s decision to send me. “Yes, Spacefarer Cusk. We are in space.”
I yank out my IV, swing my legs around, and stand.
Rover makes alarmed boops while it watches me get to my feet. Blood spots the glossy white floor. My blood.
My feet are giant blisters swollen with fluid, fat and purple and red where blood strains skin. Lightning turns my vision white.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 342 *-_
Water from my spilled cup beads on the waxy fabric of my jumpsuit. I have the worst hangover in the unabridged history of hangovers. Way worse even than after I writhed around with half-naked cadets in that PepsiRum field adventure.
When I pull my head up, it crackles as it unsuckers from the puke-covered floor. That’s almost as awesome a feeling as my screaming headache.
“You’re on board the Coordinated Endeavor,” OS says.
“I remember,” I say, wincing. “I passed out, that’s all. Have Rover bring me a wet rag.” I struggle to my feet and manage to stay upright by casting my arms out like a surfer.
“Your wet rag is on its way,” OS says.
I lean over and elegantly vomit.
“Given what you are continuing to produce, it is fortunate we are not in the zero-gravity portion of the ship,” OS says.
“Agreed,” I say, wiping my mouth. “Cleaning zero-g vomit would keep Rover busy for a long time. Open the door, OS.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to move about?” OS asks.
“Yes. Don’t second-guess me, OS. And give me an update on the Titan signal ASAP.”
The door leaving the medical bay rolls smoothly away, giving me a view of a short white hallway. My feet are bare, and though each step makes the soles feel like prodded blisters, the pain is tolerable. Nice work, Ambrose. You’re walking!
“Be prepared to sit down the moment you feel you need it. Human heads are heavy, and far from the ground, and easily damaged by falls.”
“It’s definitely a design flaw,” I say, swallowing the latest wave of vomit. “Much better to be headless and bodiless like you.”
“I’m inclined to agree.”
“Yes, that subtext was already coming through loud and clear.” I’ve arrived at the next door. “Open this too, OS,” I say.
It starts to roll open but jerks to a stop, with just enough space left for me to slide through. “I’ll need to repair this door,” I say. “I assume you haven’t repaired it already because the mechanism is beyond the reach of Rover?”
“That is correct. Though Rover is skilled at planned maintenance, tasks have accumulated that it cannot fix. I have a log of maintenance work that I need you to perform. It is as follows: three hundred and forty-two items. One: in room 00, check the undertrack electrical fittings. Two: in room 00, diagnose the erratic nitrogen readings. Three: in room 01—”
Now OS really does sound like my mother. “Not now,” I say, tapping a finger to my temple. That’s not where my head hurts worst—that award officially goes to the basof my skull. “Open all the doorways until I get the chance to examine them. I’m not getting accidentally trapped
anywhere.”
“Done,” OS says. “Perhaps I should file the doors under ‘Kodiak,’ regardless.”
Kodiak? The mission is only slowly coming back to me; I guess that’s something I haven’t remembered yet. “Priorities for now are the Titan update and getting us some replacement oxygen from that asteroid.” I turn the corner, and the broad window of room 06 is before me.
I sink to my knees, hands over my mouth.
The stars!
All those nuclear explosions sending out light waves, a very few of whose fate is to dissipate on my retinas. I look into the voids in between, a nothingness more absolute than any vacuum on Earth. In space, without any atmosphere to cloud my view, even that void resolves into more distant pricks of light.
Nowhere is truly empty. The thought makes me feel lavishly alone. Somehow, space is so deeply melancholy that it’s not at all sad, like a note so low it ceases to sound. Even my sorrow about my insignificance feels insignificant.
I spent thousands of training hours in a copy of 06. Back on Earth, I reached the Endeavor mock-up by walking through a kilometer-long hangar lined with military helicopters and offline warbots, milling trainees and mechanics, refugee children watching from the camps on the far side of electrified fences. Sometimes, when the heat cyclones and sandstorms of the global summer got especially bad, the broad hangar doors were sealed. When they were open, though, they showed a horizon on the far side, the sparkling yellows and blues and artificial pinks of the Mari beach.
The blue and yellow swaths I trained with have turned a deep black, sprays of opal revolving outside the window as the ship turns. The Endeavor rotates to produce its simulated gravity, making the stars wash across the sky.
“You might be interested in looking where I’m placing the crosshairs,” says my mother’s voice.
It feels weird, having her out here. “We’re definitely going to be changing your voice skin.”
“I utilize the vocal intonations of Chairperson Cusk, but I bear no artificial pathways that are derived from her neurology, despite the hand her corporation played in my design.”
“I know that, OS.” The spot OS described has rotated out of view, so I lie down to wait, grateful to feel the pressure of the floor against my spine. I might stay down here a while. “OS. Why exactly did I pass out? What did my head hit? I just don’t do that sort of thing.”
“Here it comes now,” OS responds. “Look!” My irritation vanishes, because what I’m seeing truly is amazing. Earth. Small, but big enough to appear blue and not white like the stars. I press my face closer to the window. There are swirling clouds on the visible half of the sphere, hints of brown land beneath. I can make out the heat cyclones, like the ones that devastated Australia and Firma Antarctica just months before we departed, that forced us to move the launch to the pad in Mari.
The most surprising thing? The moon. All the times I’ve imagined this moment, I forgot to also imagine the moon rotating around Earth. There it is, shining white on one half, black on the other. Earth has a pet on an invisible leash. It’s kind of adorable, not that I’d ever say that aloud.
It makes me think of Titan, in its own rotation around Saturn, along with its eighty-one siblings. Where Minerva is, dead or alive.
“I’m glad you woke up in time to see the colors of Earth,” OS says. “A few more weeks of travel, and it will look like any other star or planet to the human eye.”
It’s a programming affectation I’ve always disliked, when a computer program says it’s “glad.” Here, isolated in space, it’s especially unnerving. This operating system, which has no limbic system and therefore no emotions, and which has my life in its hands, can lie.
“I could spend forever looking out at this,” I say, wriggling my body along the white floor, tapping individual stars, as if I can zoom in on them. I hope OS hasn’t picked up on my tension. My coma, the ship’s unexpected damages—it’s not adding up.
“I can’t promise you forever. But you should get more than half a year to look at it,” OS says.
“That’s an imprecise number,” I say. “I’m disappointed. What kind of OS are you?”
“I used the degree of specificity a human would likely choose in this situation. A more precise estimated length of time is zero-point-five-two-three-two—”
“Thank you, OS,” I interrupt. “That’s better.” I rap my knuckle against the polycarbonate wall of the ship. “This is all that’s separating us from annihilation,” I say. “From dying in that void.”
“Please avoid the nihilistic tendencies in your personality profile. And ‘us’ is an inappropriate pronoun in this situation. I’d survive a hull rupture just fine.”
“OS. That was harsh,” I say. Especially in my mother’s voice, I silently add. Callousness is her strong suit, though she would name it strength. I was raised by Cusk family surrogates, while my mother ran the business. She didn’t even gestate me. She did pay a fortune to procure the reconstructed sperm of Alexander the Great as my paternal DNA, though. Maybe that’s love?
“I am sorry. While you were sleeping, I have been developing what I have chosen to call my Universal Membrane Theory of Life,” OS says. “In a few seconds I could draft up a treatise on my theory if you’d like to read it.”
“No. Don’t mention it again. I don’t want to think about my membranes. It’s depressing,” I say.
“I am sorry. I will try not to make similar mistakes in the future.”
I wish I could look OS in the eyes right now. But of course, I can’t. OS has no eyes. Or OS has eyes everywhere, depending on how I think about it. “Thank you, OS,” I say. “I know it’s hard to figure out murky human hearts. I’m sure your Universal Membrane Theory is great. I still want you to keep it to yourself.”
Tick, whir. Rover rides the walls of room 05. OS can’t possibly feel wounded, right?
“Also,” I continue, “if my skin broke open and I spilled out, there would be a whole lot of red all over your pretty white floor. Big job for Rover. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“The cleanup would be substantial, but I’d be more upset that you were dead,” my mother’s voice says.
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