Becky Chambers: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

“ Wayfarer , this is Deepod 36-A, requesting permission to dock,” said the computer.

“Deepod 36-A, this is the Wayfarer ,” replied a female voice with an Exodan accent. Rosemary noted the softness of the vowels, the pronunciation that was a little too polished. An AI. “Please confirm passenger identification.”

“Acknowledged, Wayfarer . Transmitting passenger details now.”

There was a brief pause. “Confirmed, Deepod 36-A. You are cleared to dock.”

The deepod moved alongside the Wayfarer like some sort of aquatic animal swimming up to suckle at its mother. The hatch at the back of the pod slipped into the Wayfarer’s sunken docking port. Rosemary could hear the mechanical sound of catches connecting. There was a hiss of air as the seal expanded.

The hatch door slid upward. Rosemary moaned as she stood. Her muscles felt as if they would splinter. She collected her duffel bag and satchel from the luggage rack, and limped forward. There was a slight gravitational discrepancy between the pod and the Wayfarer, enough to make her stomach lurch as she crossed the seam between the two. The feeling only lasted a few seconds, but combined with her foggy head, jittery pulse, and aching bladder, it was enough to make Rosemary cross the line from uncomfortable to vaguely miserable . She hoped her new bed was soft.

She stepped into a small decontamination chamber, empty except for a glowing yellow panel affixed to a waist-high stand. The AI spoke through a vox on the wall. “Hello! I’m pretty sure I know who you are, but can you swipe your wristpatch over the panel, so I can be sure?”

Rosemary pulled her sleeve back, exposing her wristwrap—a woven bracelet that protected the small dermal patch embedded within the skin of her inner right wrist. There was a lot of data stored in that thumbnail-sized piece of tech—her ID file, her bank account details, and a medical interface used to communicate with the half-million-or-so imubots that patrolled her bloodstream. Like all GC citizens, Rosemary got her first patch during childhood (for Humans, the standard age was five), but the patch she had now was only a few tendays old. The seam of skin surrounding it was still shiny and tender. The new patch had cost almost half of her savings, which seemed exorbitant, but she had hardly been in a position to argue.

She held her wrist over the yellow panel. There was a soft pulse of light. A twinge of adrenaline ran alongside the stims. What if something had gone wrong with the patch, and they pulled her old file instead? What if they saw her name, and put two and two together? Would it matter to people out here? Would it matter that she’d done nothing wrong? Would they turn away from her, just as her friends had? Would they put her back on the pod, and send her crawling back to Mars, back to a name she didn’t want and a mess she hadn’t—

The pad blinked a friendly green. Rosemary exhaled, and scoffed at herself for being nervous at all. The new patch had worked just fine ever since it was installed. She’d had no trouble confirming her identity or making payments at any stops along the way. It was unlikely that the patch scanner on this clunky tunneling ship would have picked up any discrepancies that the high-end scanners at the spaceports hadn’t. Even so, this was the last hurdle to clear. Now all she had to worry about was whether or not she’d be good at her job.

“Well, there you are, Rosemary Harper,” said the AI. “My name is Lovelace, and I serve as the ship’s communication interface. I suppose in that regard we have relatively similar jobs, don’t we? You liase on behalf of the crew. I liase on behalf of the ship.”

“I guess that’s true,” Rosemary said, a little unsure of herself. She didn’t have much experience with sentient AIs. The ones back home were all bland and utilitarian. The university library had an AI named Oracle, but she had been a more academic sort. Rosemary had never spoken to an AI as personable as Lovelace.

“Should I call you Rosemary?” Lovelace asked. “Or do you have a nickname?”

“Rosemary is fine.”

“Okay, Rosemary. You can call me Lovey, if you like. Everyone else does. Feels good to be off that pod, doesn’t it?”

“You have no idea.”

“True. But then, you don’t know how good it feels to have your memory banks recalibrated.”

Rosemary considered this. “You’re right, I don’t.”

“Rosemary, I have to be honest with you. The reason I’ve kept you chatting for this long is so that you don’t get bored while I scan you for contaminants. One of our crew members has very specific health needs, and I have to do a more thorough scan than some ships require. It shouldn’t be much longer.”

Rosemary hadn’t felt that she’d been waiting long at all, but she had no idea what qualified as a lengthy amount of time to an AI. “Take all the time you need.”

“Is that all the luggage you have?”

“Yes,” Rosemary said. In fact, she was carrying everything that she owned (that is, everything she hadn’t sold off). She was still marveling at the fact that she could fit it all into two little bags. After a life in her parents’ enormous home, full of furniture and knick-knacks and rarities, the knowledge that she didn’t need anything more than what she could carry gave her a remarkable sense of freedom.

“If you put your bags into that cargo elevator to your right, I can move them to the upper crew deck for you. You can pick them up whenever you head to your room.”

“Thanks,” Rosemary said. She pulled open the hinged metal door on the wall, set her bags into the corresponding compartment, and latched the door shut. There was a rushing sound within the wall.

“Okay, Rosemary, I just finished my scan. Hate to say it, but you do have a few blacklisted bugs in your system.”

“What kind of bugs?” Rosemary asked. She thought back with dread on the spaceport’s smudged handrails and sticky seats. Three tendays since she’d left Mars, and already she’d picked up some alien plague.

“Oh, nothing that would affect you , but they are things our navigator can’t handle. You’ll need to have our doctor update your imubots accordingly before you leave the ship again. For now, I’m going to have to give you a decontamination flash. Is that okay?” Lovey sounded apologetic, and for good reason. The only good thing about a decontamination flash was that it was over quickly.

“Okay,” Rosemary said, gritting her teeth.

“Hang in there,” Lovey said. “Flashing in three… two… one.”

Harsh orange light filled the room. Rosemary could feel it move right through her. A cold sting cut through her pores, her teeth, the roots of her eyelashes. For a brief moment, she knew where all her capillaries were.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Lovey said as the flash ended. “I hate having to do that. You look sick.”

Rosemary exhaled, trying to shake off the needle-like twinges. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I wasn’t feeling very well to start.” She paused, realizing that she was trying to make an AI feel better. It was a silly concept, but something about Lovey’s demeanor made any other response feel a bit rude. Could AIs even take offense? Rosemary wasn’t sure.

“I hope you feel better soon. I know there’s dinner planned for you, but I’m sure you can get some rest right after that. Now, I’ve kept you long enough. You’re free to go on through. And may I be the first to say: Welcome aboard.”

The vox switched off. Rosemary pressed her hand against the door panel. The inner airlock door spun open to reveal a pale man with a sour face. He changed his expression as Rosemary stepped forward. It was the most insincere smile she had ever seen.