Майкл Бишоп - The Final Frontier - Stories of Exploring Space, Colonizing the Universe, and First Contact

“Actually, no.” Kamilah kicked at a stone and sent it skittering across the regolith. She trudged on in silence for a few moments. “But I used a wheelbarrow,” she said finally, “which LEX ruled was too much like one of their carts—a cultural symbol. According to LEX, I had committed Intolerant Speech. If I had just set the cards out in a basket, the Poor couldn’t have touched me. But I didn’t and they did. In the remedy phase of my trial, the Poor asked LEX to ship me here. I guess they thought I’d get religion.”

“And did you?”

“You don’t get to ask all the questions.” The tail of her hardsuit darted and the footplate tapped the rear of Adel’s suit. “Your turn. Tell me something interesting about yourself. Something that nobody knows.”

He considered. “Well, I was a virgin when I got here.”

“Something interesting, Adel.”

“And I’m not anymore.”

“That nobody knows,” she said.

—just trying to shock you—buzzed plus .

—bitch —minus buzzed.

“All right,” he said, at last. “I’m a delibertarian.”

Kamilah paused, then turned completely around once, as if to get her bearings. “I don’t know what that is.”

“I have an implant that makes me hear voices. Sometimes they argue with each other.”

“Oh?” Kamilah headed off the trail. “About what?”

Adel picked his way after her. “Mostly about what I should do.” He sensed that he didn’t really have her complete attention. “Say I’m coming out of church and I see a wheelbarrow filled with cash cards. One voice might tell me to grab as many as I can, the other says no.”

“I’d get tired of that soon enough.”

“Or say someone insults me, hurts my feelings. One voice wants to understand her and the other wants to kick her teeth in. But the thing is, the voices are all me.”

“All right then,” Kamilah paused, glanced left and then right as if lining up landmarks. “We’re here.”

—too bad we can’t kick her teeth in—buzzed minus . “Where’s here?”

“This is the frontside, exactly opposite from where we just were. We should try shutting down again. This might be your lucky spot.”

“I don’t know if I want to,” said Adel. “What am I doing here, Kamilah?”

“Look, Adel, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I forget you’re just a kid. Come over here, let me give you a hug.”

“Oh.” Adel was at once mollified by Kamilah’s apology and stung that she thought of him as a kid.

—we are a kid —plus buzzed.

And what kind of hug was he going to get in a hardsuit?

—shut up—

“You’re only nine standard older than I am,” he said as he brought his suit within robotic arm’s reach.

“I know.” Her two arms snaked around him. “Turn off your comm, Adel.”

This time the Godspeed made no objection. When the comm was off, Kamilah didn’t bother to speak. She picked up a rock and held it out. Adel waved for her to drop it.

One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five one thousand six one thousand, seven one…

Seven? Adel was confused.

—we messed up the count—buzzed minus .

—did not—

He leaned into her and touched her top. “Seven.”

“Yes.” She paused. “Turn. Off. Lights.”

Adel found the control and heard a soft clunk as the firefly docked with his hardsuit. He waved the suit lights off and blacked out the HUD, although he was not in a particularly spiritual mood. The blackness of space closed around them and the sky filled with the shyest of stars. Adel craned in the suit to see them all. Deep space was much more busy than he’d imagined. The stars were all different sizes and many burned in colors: blues, yellows, oranges and reds—a lot more reds than he would have thought. There were dense patches and sparse patches and an elongated wispy cloud the stretched across his field of vision that he assumed was the rest of the Milky Way.

—amazing—

—but what’s going on?—

“Questions?” said Kamilah.

“Questions?” he said under his breath. “Damn right I have questions.” When he shouted, he could hear the anger in his voice. “Rocks. Mean. What?”

“Speedy. Slows. Down.” She paused. “We. Don’t. Know. Why.” Another pause. “Act. Normal. More. Later.”

—act normal?—

—we’re fucked—

“Comm.” He screamed. “On.”

“Careful,” she said. “Adel.”

He felt a slithering against his suit as she let go of him. He bashed at the comm switch and brought the suit lights on.

“…the most amazing experience, isn’t it?” she was saying. “It’s almost like you’re standing naked in space.”

“Kamilah…” He tried to speak but panic choked him.

“Adel, what’s happening?” said the Godspeed . “Are you all right?”

“I have to tell you,” said Kamilah, “that first time I was actually a little scared but I’m used to it now. But you—you did just fine.”

“Fine,” Adel said. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might burst his chest. “Just fine.”

Since the Godspeed left the orbit of Menander, fifth planet of Hallowell’s Star, to begin its historic voyage of discovery, 69,384 of us stepped off her transport stage. Only about ten thousand of us were pilgrims, the rest were itinerant techs and prospective colonists. On average, the pilgrims spent a little over a standard year as passengers, while the sojourn of the colony-builders rarely exceeded sixty days. As it turns out, Sister Lihong Rain held the record for the longest pilgrimage; she stayed on the Godspeed for more than seven standards.

At launch, the cognizor in command of the Godspeed had been content with a non-gendered persona. Not until the hundred and thirteenth year did it present as The Captain, a male authority figure. The Captain was a sandy-haired mesomorph, apparently a native of one of the highest G worlds. His original uniform was modest in comparison to later incarnations, gray and apparently seamless, with neither cuff nor collar. The Captain first appeared on the walls of the library but soon spread throughout the living quarters and then began to manifest as a fetch, that could be projected anywhere, even onto the surface. The Godspeed mostly used The Captain to oversee shipboard routine but on occasion he would approach us in social contexts. Inevitably he would betray a disturbing knowledge of everything that we had ever done while aboard. We realized to our dismay that the Godspeed was always watching.

These awkward attempts at sociability were not well received; the Captain persona was gruff and humorless and all too often presumptuous. He was not at all pleased when one of us nicknamed him Speedy. Later iterations of the persona did little to improve his popularity.

It wasn’t until the three hundred and thirty-second year that the stubborn Captain was supplanted by a female persona. The new Speedy impressed everyone. She didn’t give orders; she made requests. She picked up on many of the social cues that her predecessor had missed, bowing out of conversations where she was not welcome, not only listening but hearing what we told her. She was accommodating and gregarious, if somewhat emotionally needy. She laughed easily, although her sense of humor was often disconcerting. She didn’t mind at all that we called her Speedy. And she kept our secrets.

Only a very few saw the darker shades of the Godspeed ’s persona. The techs found her eccentricities charming and the colonists celebrated her for being such a prodigious discoverer of terrestrials. Most pilgrims recalled their time aboard with bemused nostalgia.