Hugh Howey - Machine Learning

The more I watch, though, the more I note the added stress among Bix’s superiors, those men and women wearing emblems of High Command. I don’t know these commanders personally (nor anyone of their rank—I report to those who report to them), but I can clearly see the tension in their tentacles, in the twitch of their stalks, and I do not envy them their jobs.

The display screen is centered on the fat land of my new sector. I see great swaths of blue, and then the coast of my old sector at the very edge of the map. The men and women inside the room seem nervous. Tentacles are waving, and I can hear shouts through the thick glass. Eight days to planetfall, and this must be the stress of ultimate responsibility. Why any ship jockeys to lead these incursions is beyond me. Surely it is best to be number two.

Cycles ago, after selecting Earth as a target and assigning sectors, there was a pissing match between my ship and this one over who had final rank. This happens when you study a planet long enough. You see its history through the lens of your sector, and you feel rightly that your target is the most crucial. With Sector 2, I would have landed on a long continent pinched in the middle like a woman sucking in her gut. Sparsely populated, but my supervisor liked to point out that the wealth per life form was high and that their military spending outpaced all other sectors. But invasions are about bodies in the end, and no one can compete with Sector 1.

Heh. Funny how quickly I adopt the other side’s arguments now that I’m here. Part of me always thought they had it right. Or so I tell myself. The homesickness is draining away as I wait for Supervisor Bix to finish his meeting. I imagine that he requested me personally. He must have studied my files. My chest inflates with the sudden pride of a new home, a new position, new people to know and impress. It is like a new body, but I get to keep the scars.

I make eyestalks with one of the receptionists in the waiting room. She smiles, and I can see her neck splotch in embarrassment. “Here to see Supervisor Bix,” I say, tucking a tentacle into my waistband. “I work in Intelligence.”

The receptionist opens her mouth to reply when Bix comes out, trailing his superiors. I introduce myself and offer a tentacle, which Bix declines. He seems confused. And then his eyestalks straighten with awareness. “From Sector Two,” he says.

“That’s right.” I puff out my gut. “Liaison Hyk. Intelligence, Sector Two.”

Bix waves a tentacle. “No, no. You’ve been moved to Gunnery. Go see Yut for your assignment. I’m busy.”

The air is out of me. I look to the receptionist, who diverts her stalk. “Ship’s gunner?” I ask with all the hope I can muster.

“Ground gunner,” Bix says. “See Yut.”

“But I’m a man of learning,” I complain.

Someone snickers, and I see that I’m a walking cliché.

“I haven’t been a gunner in lifetimes,” I add. “I’ll last five minutes down there.”

“Then you’ll wake up here and be sent right back in,” Bix says. “I suggest you die heroically, so the body doesn’t cost you.”

“But why was I transferred?” I ask. “Was there something in my files—?”

Bix swivels his eyestalks toward me. “You’re on this ship to get someone else off it,” he says. “Nothing more. You can show us what you’re made of”—I catch him looking at another officer with something like worry—“the next go-around.”

With this, Bix and these other men and women of high station lumber off on their tentacles. The receptionist looks at me with pity for the barest of moments, and then turns back to her work, leaving me to show myself out.

Gunnery is in the rear of the ship, where all the other little ships are kept. It’s far enough to take a shuttle, which allows me to sit in sullen silence. I watch the stars go by. I pick out my old ship among the fleet. At least, I think it’s mine. I wonder if my bodies are still on that ship. If the shuttle loses pressure and I die right now, where will I wake up? And what would be the last thing I remembered? It’s been a while since I saved my thoughts. I’ll have to do that soon.

The constellations are strange from this point in space, but I can pick out a few stars we’ve visited. I have small souvenirs from a few. There are others that exist only in the history books. Like Celiad, where we learned the secret of the vats. Or ancient Osh, where our ancestors learned how to store the memories of man into machine.

Our current gun tech came from Aye-Stad, which I visited countless cycles ago. Our ships are from Rael. And thanks to the K’Bk, we no longer have disease, but I remember how such things as plagues used to work. The races I study still employ their immune systems, and the parallels between those systems and us as a race are striking. For we have become what Earthlings would call white blood cells. We remove foreign bodies from the cosmos. And every one leaves an imprint, a bauble of tech or a new idea, all of which we neatly coil into our lives, into our molecular structure. We are an immune system, and we are immune to death. This last, alas, is our curse.

As the shuttle takes us aft, I gaze through the cockpit past the pilot, and I imagine Second Fleet off in the distance, those ships out there identical to our own. Second Fleet trails us dutifully in case something awful happens. A backup full of backups. With my sudden demotion, I wonder what it would be like to wake up there, in the wake of my former home, with true mortality within tentacle’s reach.

Thinking of tentacles makes me realize mine have slimed up with thoughts of Gunnery. It has been a long time since I landed on a planet with the first wave. Surely this is temporary, this demotion. Didn’t Bix say so? It is simply because of the short time until planetfall. It is because of that silly woman with her second suicide. She is being punished, and so they punish us both. It should have been Kur sent here, a true gunner.

When was the last time I fought with a first wave? Memories of bright and colorful worlds swirl together. The one thing in common is the brown mud on my boots. Slogging through battlefields. Noticing details like how the insides of sentient things have much in common: the same blood that colors red in the air, the sacs for breathing, the sacs for pumping blood through tubes, the tendrils for turning thoughts into things.

The dead and these worlds, they blur together like all colors into a dull brown. All I remember in the end is that I did my job, shooting so I would not be shot. All I remember in the beginning is the fear of death.

This is something you get over. You live with the fear until you die for the first time, and then you realize death isn’t the end. Not when you have another body waiting in a vat with a backup of your recent recollections. It is painful, though, both the death and the rebirth. Painful and expensive. Both are deterrents meant to keep us on our guard. That’s my theory, anyway. That they add the rebirth pain on purpose so you avoid dying the way a tentacle avoids a fire.

I no longer fear death, but still I try not to draw her attention. I like this me, however imperfectly it fits. I like my small scars, even if I can’t recall where I got them. I search my tentacle for an old wound as the shuttle banks around the ass of my new ship, but some scars are memories that have faded, and some memories go with scars that no longer exist.

A glimmer of stars beyond my porthole distracts me from these sentimental thoughts. I think I can see Second Fleet, those little pinpricks among pinpricks, back there where true immortality lies. Though I fear a return to Gunnery, I know I will go into battle invulnerable. Our fleet is invincible when planetfall comes. We march through civilizations the way a child splashes through puddles, for in the distance lies our safety valve. One day, of course, we will face a surprisingly resilient foe. Or we will drop our guard because a thousand conquered worlds have left us bored with victory. Someone will vanquish us, but we will awaken in bright new ships, and we will show this foe that we do not die so easily.