Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 An anthology of stories

That seemed to explain the odd, not quite human face.

“I’m out here teaching myself these tricks,” Wune admitted. “The hull is no prison. To me, it is a church. A temple. A rare opportunity for the tiniest soul to unleash potentials that her old epic life never revealed to her.”

“I understand each of your words,” said Alone.

“But?”

“I cannot decipher what you mean.”

“Of course you can’t.” Wune laughed. “Listen. My entire creed boils down to this: If I can write with my flesh, then I can write upon my soul.”

“Your ‘soul’?”

“My mind. My essence. Whatever it is that the universe sees when it looks hard at peculiar little Wune.”

“Your soul,” the walker said once again.

Wune spoke for a long while, trying to explain her young faith. Then her voice turned raw and sloppy, and after drinking broth produced by her recyke system, she slept again. The legs of her lifesuit were locked in place. Nearly five hours passed with her standing upright, unaware of her surroundings. When she woke again, barely twenty meters of vacuum and hard radiation separated them.

She didn’t act surprised. With a quieter, more intimate voice, she asked, “What fuels you? Is there some kind of reactor inside you? Or do you steal your power from us somehow?”

“I don’t remember stealing.”

“Ah, the thief’s standard reply.” She chuckled. “Let’s assume you’re a machine. You have to be alien-built. I’ve never seen or even heard rumors about any device like you. Not from the human shops, I haven’t.” After a long stare, she asked, “Are you male?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going to call you male. Does that offend you?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps you are.” She wanted to come closer. One boot lifted, seemingly of its own volition, and then she forced herself to set it back down on the hull.

“You claim not to know your own purpose. Your job, your nature. All questions without answer.”

“I am a mystery to myself.”

“Which is an enormous gift, isn’t it? By that, I mean that if you don’t know what to do with your life, then you’re free to do anything you wish.” Her face was changing color, the purple skin giving way to streaks of gold. And during her sleep, her eyes had grown rounder and deeply blue. “You don’t seem dangerous. And you do require solitude. I can accept all of that. But as time passes, I think you’ll discover that it’s harder to escape notice out here on the hull. The surface area is enormous, yes. But where will you hide? I promise, I won’t chase after you. And I can keep my people respectful of your privacy. At least I hope I can. But the Great Ship is cursed with quite a few captains, and they don’t approve of mysteries. And we can’t count all the adventurers who are coming here now, racing up from countless worlds. Maybe you don’t realize this, but our captains have decided to take us on a tour of the galaxy. Humans and aliens are invited, for a fat price, and some of them will hear the rumors about you. Some of these passengers will come up on the hull, armed with sensors and their lousy judgment.”

Alone listened carefully.

“My reasons are selfish,” Wune admitted. “I don’t want these tourists under my boots. And since you can’t hide forever in plain sight, we need to find you a new home.”

Horrified, he asked, “Where can I go?”

“Almost anywhere,”Wune assured. “The Great Ship is ridiculously big. It might take hundreds of thousands of years just to fill up its empty places. The caverns, the little tunnels. The nameless seas and canyons and all the dead-end holes.”

“But how can I find those places?”

“I know ways. I’ll help you.”

Terror and hope lay balanced on the walker’s soul.

With those changeless human teeth, Wune smiled. “I believe you,” she offered. “You say you know nothing about your nature, your talents. And I think you mean that.”

“I do.”

“Look at the chest of my suit, will you? Stare into the flat hyperfiber. Yes, here. Do you see your own reflection?”

His body had changed during these last few minutes. Alone had felt the new arms sprouting, the design of his legs adjusting, and without willing it to happen, he had acquired a face. It was a striking and familiar face, the purple flesh shot with gossamer threads of gold.

“I almost wish I could do that,” Wune confessed. “Reinvent myself as easily as you seem to do.”

He could think of no worthy response.

“Do you know what a chameleon is?”

Alone said, “No.”

“You,” she said. “Without question, you are the most natural, perfect chameleon that I have ever had the pleasure to meet.”

Simply and clearly, Wune explained how a solitary wanderer might secretly slip inside the Ship. Then as she grew drowsy again, the Remora wished her chameleon friend rich luck and endless patience. “I hope you find whatever you are hunting,” she concluded. “And that you avoid whatever it is that you might be fleeing.”

Alone offered thankful words, but he had no intention of accepting advice. Once Wune was asleep, he picked a fresh direction and walked away. For several centuries, he wandered the increasingly smooth hull, watching as the galaxy— majestic and warm and bright—rose slowly to meet the Great Ship. Now and again, he was forced to hide in the open. Practice improved his techniques, but he couldn’t shake the sense that the Remoras were still watching him, despite his tricks and endless caution. He certainly eavesdropped on them, and whenever Wune’s name was mentioned, he listened closely. Never again did her voice find him. But others spoke of the woman with admiration and love. Wune had visited this bubble city or that repair station. She had talked to her people about the honor of serving the Great Ship and the strength that came from mastering the evolution of your own mortal body. Then she was dead, killed by a shard of ice that slipped past every laser. Alone absorbed the unexpected news. He didn’t understand his emotions, but he hid where he happened to be standing and for a full year did nothing. Wune was the only creature with whom he had ever spoken, and he was deeply shocked, and then he was quite sad, but what wore hardest was the keen pleasure he discovered when he realized that she was dead but he was still alive.

Eventually he wandered back to the Ship’s trailing face, slipping past the bubble cities and into the realm of giant engines. Standing before one of the towering nozzles, Alone recalled Wune promising small, unmonitored hatches. Careless technicians often left them unsecured. With a gentle touch, Alone tried to lift the first hatch, and then he tried to shove it inwards. But it was locked. Then he worked his way along the base of the nozzle, testing another fifty hatches before deciding that he was mistaken. Or perhaps the technicians had learned to do their work properly. But having little else to do, he invested the next twenty months toying with every hatch and tiny doorway that he came across, his persistence rewarded when what passed for his hand suddenly dislodged a narrow doorway.

Darkness waited, and with it, the palpable sense of great distance.

He crawled down, slowly at first, and then the sides of the nearly vertical tunnel pulled away from his grip.

Falling was floating. There was no atmosphere, no resistance to his gathering momentum. Fearing that someone would notice, he left the darkness intact. Soon he was plunging at a fantastic rate, and that’s when he remembered Wune cautioning, “These vents and access tubes run straight down, sometimes for hundreds of kilometers.”

His tube dropped sixty kilometers before making a sharp turn.