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

For every portion of the hull where he was seen, Remoras and other crew-members and passengers had spotted at least ten more examples of the ghost wandering beneath the stars.

What if there was more than one Alone wandering loose?

He didn’t know what to believe. After he abandoned the hull, those sightings fell to the level of occasional, and no Remora pretended to have spotted Wune’s mysterious friend. In no file was there mention of Aasleen and the nightmare inside one of the Ship’s engines. Which meant that the captains and crew were good at keeping secrets, and what else did they know? A related file focused on shape-shifting machines currently lurking in the dark corners and deepest wastes. Alone’s cavern held a prominent but far from dominating place. Other realms seemed to be haunted by his kind. Dozens of sprawling, empty locations were named. But the only cavern to capture Alone’s imagination was named Bottom-

E. Again and again, he found sketchy accounts of tourists wandering down an empty passageway, and when they glanced over their shoulder, a smear of dim light was silently racing out of view.

Bottom-E was an even larger cavern than Alone’s old home. And if nothing else, it would provide the perfect next home.

But what if another entity like him already lived there?

After two decades of study and consideration, Alone made one difficult choice. He identified the humans who had tried to contact Harper on his return. Most were small figures, many with criminal records and embarrassing public files. But despite those same limitations, one man had all the qualifications to give aid to an acquaintance that he hadn’t seen for ages.

With Harper’s face and voice, Alone sent a polite and brief request.

Eighteen days passed before any reply was offered. The recorded digital showed a smiling man who began with an apology. “I was off. Wandering in The Way of Old. It’s an ammonia-hydroxide ocean. On a small scale, but it’s still a hundred cubic kilometers of murk and life, and that’s why I couldn’t get back to you, Harper.”

The man was named Perri.

“So you’re interested in Bottom-E,” the message continued. “I can’t promise much in the way of help. I haven’t seen more than one-tenth of one percent of the place. But there is one enormous room that’s worth the long walk. Its floor is hyperfiber, and a fine grade at that. And the ceiling is kilometers overhead and inhabited by the LoYo. They’re machines, not sentient as individuals but colonial in nature. A few thousand of their city-nests hang free from the rafters, and that’s one of the reasons for going down there.”

The grinning man continued. “The LoYo give that big room a soft, delicious glow. I’ve got good eyes, but even after a week in that, I couldn’t see far. The immediate floor and what felt like a distant, unreachable horizon. Once, maybe twice, I saw a light in the distance. I can’t say what the light was. But you know me, Harper. Don’t expect ghost stories. Usually the truth is a lot more interesting than what we think we want to see…

“Anyway, what I like best about Bottom-E, and that huge room in particular…what makes the trip genuinely memorable…is that when you walk on that smooth hyperfiber, and there’s nothing above you but the faint far-off glow of what could be distant galaxies…well, it’s easy to believe that this is exactly how it would have felt and looked just a couple billion years ago, if you were strolling by yourself, walking across the hull of the Great Ship.

“Understand, Harper? Imagine yourself out between the galaxies, crossing the middle of nothing.

“I think that’s an experience worth doing,” Perri said.

Then with a big wink, he added, “By the way. I know you keep to yourself. But if you feel willing, you’re more than welcome to visit my home. For a meal, let’s say. For conversation, if nothing else. I don’t think you ever met my wife. Well, I’ll warn you. Quee Lee likes people even more than I do, if you can believe that.”

Perri paused, staring at his unseen audience.

“You were gone a very long time,” he mentioned. “Jan claimed you were off chasing Clackers, and that’s what the official report decides too. Lost in the fuel tanks somewhere. But I didn’t hear any recent news about bodies being fished out of the liquid hydrogen, which makes me wonder if our mutual friend was telling another one of his fables.

“Anyway, good to hear from you again, Harper. And welcome back to the living!”

As promised, Bottom-E held one enormous room, and except for the occasional smudge of cold light on the high arching ceiling, the room was delightfully dark. Each step on the slick floor teased out memories. That lost and now beloved childhood returned to him, and Alone wasn’t just content, but he was confident that the next step would bring happiness, and the one after, and the one after that.

More than twelve hundred square kilometers of hyperfiber demanded his careful study. Unlike the hull, there was an atmosphere, but the air was oxygen-starved and nearly as cold as space. Like before, Alone’s habit was to follow a random line until an oddity caught his attention. Then he would stop and study what another visitor had left behind—a fossilized meal or frozen bodily waste, usually—and then he would attack another random line until a new feature caught his senses, or until a wall of rough feldspar defined the limits of this illusion.

For almost two years, he walked quietly, seeing no one else.

The LoYo were tiny and weakly lit, and there was no sign that they noticed him, much less understood what he was.

Perri’s mysterious glow failed to appear. But Alone soon convinced himself that he’d never hoped the story would prove real. One step was followed by the next, and then he would pause and turn and step again, defining a new line, and then without warning, there was a sliver of time when that simple cherished pattern failed him. He suddenly caught sight of a thin but genuine reddish light that his big eyes swallowed and studied, examining the glow photon by photon, instinct racing ahead of his intelligence, assuring him that this new light was identical to the glow he leaked when he was examining a fossilized pile of alien feces.

On his longest, quietest legs, Alone ran.

Then the voice returned. Decades had passed since the last time Alone felt its presence, yet it was suddenly with him, uttering the concept, “No,” wrapped inside a wild, infectious panic.

His first impulse was to stop and ask, “What do you want?”

But the red glow was closer now, and Alone’s voice, even rendered as a breathless whisper, might be noticed. If that other entity heard him, it could become afraid, vanishing by some secret means. The moment was too important to accept that risk. The end of a long solitude might be here, if only Alone was brave enough to press on. That’s what he had decided long ago, imagining this unlikely moment. He would accept almost any danger to make contact with another like him. But only now, caught up in the excitement, did Alone realize how much this mattered to him. He was excited, yes. Thrilled and spellbound. Every flavor of bravery made him crazy, and he refused to answer the voice or even pay attention when it came closer and grew even louder, warning him, “Do not.” Telling him, “No. They want, but they will not understand. Do not.”

The light was still visible, but it had grown weaker.

The intervening distance had grown.

The other Alone must have noticed something wrong. A footfall, a murmur. Perhaps his brother heard the voice too, and the wild, unapologetic fear had taken possession of him. Whatever the reason, the light was beginning to fade away, losing him by diving inside a little tunnel, abandoning this room and possibly Bottom-E because of one irresistible terror.