Sergei Lukyanenko - The Genome

Only a rainbow-colored web of emotions, forever frozen on the brink of self-awareness.

Loving a ship was as absurd as having sex with an animal. Officially, no one ever used the word “love” to describe the relationship between a ship and its captain. They called it “empathy” or “emotional contact.”

Yet everyone knew the truth.

This was what made up the very attractiveness and the sharp bitterness of the captain’s position. To leave your ship was like leaving your sweetheart. Sure, this relationship could diminish—its brightness could fade. A captain could even wish to leave his ship, and a ship, by the same token, could refuse to accept its captain. There were those who went from ship to ship with the flippancy of a Don Juan. And then there were ships that did not accept anyone, did not go for any “emotional contact.”

Still, being a captain was nothing to be flippant about. Sooner or later, everyone who had ever said “contact” while in the captain’s chair reached this realization.

Now this moment had arrived for Alex.

The rainbow-colored web touched him, shyly, tenderly, carefully…

Alex waited, now just as incorporeal, stretched out over black darkness, wide-open to everything.

“Love me…”

And a warm rainbow washed over him.

His legs were slightly shaky. Alex got up from the captain’s chair as it softly pushed him up, just the way he liked it to.

Everything had changed.

The world had acquired meaning. A unique and all-important meaning.

He wondered if those who could love other humans ever felt this way. He doubted it.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Now the ship was all his. It could fly with another pilot and obey the orders of the flight control or a military patrol officer, but only if Alex did not cancel the orders. Although “order” was the wrong word. They were not orders or even requests; they were more like wishes.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” he said. “Prepare my quarters. And quarters for a couple more people—no, make it three more, just in case.”

“Your quarters are ready,” reported the ship’s service computer.

“Good. See you tomorrow.”

This time, there was no reply. Alex’s words had been addressed to that part of the ship that could not talk.

“Sushi, sir?”

A waitress stopped next to his table, a small aquarium cart hovering near her shoulder. Alex stretched his neck a bit to take a look at the cart.

“Yes, please.”

“Traditional-style or roasted?”

“Roasted.” Alex did not bother mentioning to her that it was not his mistrust of the local cuisine, but a habit, well established from his school days, of cooking, if only slightly, any protein that was not from Earth. “I’d like a large serving, please. From the right corner, at the very bottom.”

“At the bottom, the krill’s already asleep,” said the girl uneasily. She lifted up a glass colander. The cart obligingly lowered itself and drew out little panels with cooking forms, an oven, and a small press. “I could make a few runs at the top…”

“No, no. Right from the very bottom,” said Alex, looking at the iridescent dots inside the aquarium. “When krill is slightly drowsy, the flavor is better. Oh, and double the spices, please.”

“All right.” The waitress seemed to like the order. Alex watched her as she gingerly scooped out the slumbering krill from the bottom of the aquarium, skillfully poured it into a bowl, stirred in the seven-spice mixture, squeezed the krill mass with a small hand-press, then sliced it into thin strips and tossed it onto a burning-hot stone plate.

“Please don’t fry it all the way through,” hastily added Alex. “Just a little, to make the chitin a bit crunchy.”

In a moment, he had a serving of sushi on his plate. It was wonderfully fresh, with a lot of spicy, fragrant steam rising from it. Amazingly enough, Quicksilver Pit’s oceans remained practically unpolluted, and all the seafood was natural. Alex knew that artificial protein was much cheaper, more nutritious, and less dangerous than the natural stuff. But a marked preference for natural foods was a tradition among pilots.

Besides, Alex rather liked it. He was grateful to his parents for not including a modernized digestive system into the parameters of his specialization. Of course, it took up extra space, required extra time for eating, and extra energy was expended on digestion. But the alternative—forever eating artificial protein at McRobbins—no, thanks!

He poured some light soy sauce over his sushi and took a taste. Wonderful! The Maguro sushi had not been brought yet, but the spaceport’s Japanese cafe was so good that Alex already expected all the food he ordered to be delicious. Although, judging by the price, the Maguro sushi would probably be made with cloned tuna tissue, growing in a bucket in the kitchen somewhere. Still, it wouldn’t be pure synthetic protein with added artificial flavors.

By the time a waiter changed his plate, Alex was already full and quite content with life. He surprised the waiter by asking him for a telephone. He had changed out of his motley outfit and into a standard captain’s uniform with master-pilot badges, but had simply forgotten to bring a communicator from the ship. Confluence did have its aftereffects. An odd mixture of exhilaration and languor still lingered within him.

He dialed the number of the hotel room computer. Kim answered almost immediately. The display screen of the borrowed telephone was tiny, and the hotel equipment was also far from perfect. Still, he could tell that the girl’s expression was calm.

“Everything’s okay?”

“Uh-huh.” She sniffed. “I’m practicing.”

“What?”

“Trying out my muscles. Is it normal that I don’t get tired?”

“Probably. But don’t overdo it, okay?”

They were both silent for a few moments.

“You coming back?” she said at last.

“Yes. Will you be there?”

Her smile was barely discernible, or maybe Alex was just imagining it.

“We’ll see. Probably.”

“Get some rest. Don’t wear yourself out,” said Alex. Hung up and handed the phone back to the waiter, who had tactfully stepped aside to give Alex a bit of privacy.

Too bad the long sleeves of his new uniform hid the Demon. He toyed with the idea of cutting out a little window in the sleeve’s deep-blue cloth and covering it with a piece of see-through plastic…

His crew would die laughing… that is, when he got a crew.

Actually, the crew was the very reason he was still at the spaceport. In the rare instances when the hiring was left to the captain’s discretion, there were two ways to do it. You could consult the official search on the infonet. Hardly anyone ever did that. Or you could hold a series of personal interviews—the method preferred by anyone with any common sense. The spaceports’ watering holes were the places to conduct such interviews.

Alex wondered how many people were already watching him from afar, curious, anxious, waiting for him to finish his lunch.

The Maguro sushi was good, but Alex had to force himself to finish it. He ordered some sake and an expensive Earth-made cigar. He liked sake, but didn’t care for cigars. But it was a signal well understood by every astronaut, so he had to forget about cigarettes for now.

The waiter stood nearby with a tray, upon which was a box of cigars, a guillotine cigar cutter, and a massive crystal lighter. Alex took his time lighting up.

“Happy hiring, sir,” said the waiter, and he left.

Everyone who had worked at a spaceport for at least a week would know exactly what it meant if a captain smoked a cigar.