Robert Reed - Marrow

Over the centuries, then the millenia, he had seen friends die without warning or a fair chance. He had outlived children and grandchildren, then descendants who carried a tiny fraction of his unique seeds. But it wasn’t luck that had carried him this far. Not good luck, or its evil mate. What was to blame, undoubtedly, was the universe’s own magnificent, seamless indifference.

Orleans was too small to be noticed.

Too insignificant to send a comet plummeting his way.

His was a faith rich with logic and an ascetic’s beauty, and until this moment, it seemed to be a durable, determined faith. But suddenly a second possibility had crawled into view. Perhaps, just perhaps, some great Fate had long ago taken Orleans under its protective shroud, saving him for this day and this moment, making it possible for him to make this inconspicuous journey across the ship’s vast and stark and enchanting hull.

The city wasn’t even a name when Orleans was born. But today it was large enough that leaving it seemed to take forever. Building after blister-shaped building streaked past. Hyperfiber homes, for the most part. Minimalist places with walls and a roof, hard vacuum and ample privacy, where couples and other mating configurations contributed their seeds, babies born inside hyperfiber wombs that expanded as needed, both child and machine developing hands and legs, and a head, and deemed “born” during a day-long celebration that culminated when a fully functioning reactor and recycle system were strapped onto the Remora’s wide back.

Between the homes were the rare shops hawking what few wares could entice citizens who had absolutely no need for food or drink, and who disapproved of most possessions. Other structures were assembled from clear diamond, and unlike buildings, they were sealed against the vacuum. Sealed and stocked with a variety of species, terran and otherwise. Every organism was nominally immortal, and under the rain of hard radiations and the force of simple time, they had mutated in chaotic fashions, yielding a wild assortment of shapes and unlikely colors, and unexpected, sometimes entertaining behaviors.

Remoran parks, in essence.

The largest park was on the city’s fringe, and as they passed that blur of color and shape, Orleans told himself to go there and take a look at its inhabitants. Who knew? Perhaps he would find inspiration for his next self-induced transformation.

The skimmer streaked into the open, accelerating to its limits.

Time moved sluggishly, stubbornly. Again, then again, Orleans showed his face to his crew, and on the scrambled channel, he forced them to repeat their timetable and describe each of their critical jobs. Then for the first time, he finally looked at their target, and he allowed himself a deep quick breath, holding his personal atmosphere inside lungs that were only glancingly human—lungs built by a lifetime of carefully directing mutations that gave them and their slow black blood an efficiency bordering on perfection.

The Remoran ideal.

Like thousands of skimmers in the past, theirs was slipping close to the giant nozzle, taking them toward the ship’s leading face. A slab of scrap hyperfiber lay in the open. Even at their enormous speed, the AI pilot should have had time to notice it, and react. But the AI—old and notorious for its failures—announced that it was ill, and a human would have to drive from this point on.

In those critical moments, the slab cocked itself, then sprang up.

Engulfed by the skimmer’s forcefield, it spun once, then was driven into the diamond body, slicing into machinery and knocking both reactors off-line.

In less than three kilometers, the skimmer dropped to the hull and stopped.

Within moments, an automated plea was sent, and an empty skimmer began navigating its way though city traffic, making for the crippled vessel. And just to make the drama more genuine, the Remoran dispatcher laughed at the crew’s misery and embarrassment, telling a favorite old joke.

“Why’s the sky full of stars?”

Several dozen recorded voices replied in a carefully ragged chorus.

“To entertain Remoras!’ they screamed. “While we wait for fucking parts!”

Washen could tell, even at a distance, even though they were wearing the bruise-black uniforms of security troops, and their skin was gradually losing its smoky cast as the ship’s lights and new foods worked on their flesh; with all that, Washen could still see them for what they were. Waywards.

The two-engine burn was half-finished,, and five Waywards were calmly working their way down the narrow avenue. If Washen was as obvious as they, she was doomed. The next pair of staring eyes would spot her, and a narrow burst of laser light would boil away her new body, and whatever was left would be carried straight to the new Master, Washen s miseries just beginning. But she reminded herself that she didn’t stand out, even a little bit. She had a name and robust identity that would absorb every scrutiny. She was wearing a mask of someone else’s skin, giving her an appearance designed not to draw attention. What’s more, Washen had ceased to be. The first-grade captain was thousands of years dead. The Loyalist leader died more than a century ago. If she was especially fortunate, both of these women had been forgotten, wiped into a delicious anonymity that in the fullness of time would claim everyone who happened to be sitting here today.

“Delicious,” she muttered.

“What is?” asked one of her companions.

“The ice cream,” she allowed, smiling as she dipped her spoon back into the melting brown mound. Then with an understated honesty, she said, “It’s been a little while since I enjoyed a good chocolate.”

Pamir nodded agreeably. He was wearing a handsome face, and like Washen, he wore a simple dark ochre robe that made them look like clergy members in any of several different Rationalist faiths. As clergy members, they were ready to proselytize with the slightest encouragement, which was why most of their fellow passengers tried to avoid small talk with them. It was the perfect identity for two humans who needed to hide in the bustling heart of the ship.

The third member of their little party was even more imposing. Massive and towering, he lifted a mug of something rancid and took a few long swallows down his eating hole, while his breathing hole quietly whistled a few words.

“It is a beautiful place, this place,” his translator declared.

Pamir glanced at Washen, allowing himself a knowing grin. Then he stared at the harum-scarum’s face, asking, “How’s your drink?”

The alien was mostly heated plastic and hidden motors. Locke was tucked inside the long body, his legs tied back and arms bound at his sides. Everything that the harum-scarum would see, he saw. Everything it heard was piped into his ears. But his mouth was filled with a permeable plastic, and a small AI told the machine when to move and what to say. Locke was a passenger inside that automaton. He was cargo. Since the early days of the ship, devices of this ilk had smuggled things illegal and precious. According to Pamir, this was the best model on hand—considering the limits of time and their very special needs.

The false voice whistled, answering Pamir’s question. “My drink is beautiful,” said the box on the broad chest.

“And what’s beauty?” asked Washen, sounding very much like a proselytizer. “Do you remember what we told you, friend?”

“The residue of reason mixed in a sea of chaos,” their companion answered.

“Precisely,” said the humans, in a shared voice, both dipping spoons into their beautiful desserts. Then Washen stared off at the Waywards, saying, “Chaos,” to herself, under her quickening breath.