Элизабет Бир - Machine

I felt so relieved it was almost a letdown.

We got out of that lift so fast we almost tripped over ourselves and one another.

“Oh no,” I said. “Linden, have you been in contact with Afar?”

Tsosie looked at me, alert with worry. I could tell he was following my train of thought.

Although if the incidents had started before we came back… and the sabotage to Sally had occurred on our way to the generation ship…

It didn’t make sense.

Linden’s presence lights burned steady along the wall beside us. “Don’t worry, we’ve been using sterile data protocols. With Sally also, even though she firewalled when dealing with Afar and Helen.”

“She went right into a portion of the machine.”

“She overwrote it; she didn’t integrate it. Don’t worry. Sally is good at her job.”

Rilriltok flew up and hovered near the ceiling, adjusting its gravity control belt as it went. Linden, is it too late to abort rewarming the generation ship crew?

“Affirmative,” she said. “The rewarming process has begun.”

“Brilliant timing,” I murmured to Rilriltok. Just what we needed: a finicky, long-term procedure taking place while the hospital was experiencing instabilities such as the one that had jolted us.

It buzzed grumpily. We’d better hurry, friends.

THE FOUR OF US WALKED with good speed, Rilriltok running along the carpeted ceiling on its feathery toes to stay out of the corridor traffic.

“Linden,” I said without pausing, “please put me through to the Administree? Or O’Mara, if Starlight isn’t available?”

Starlight was available. We were only a third of the way to Cryomedicine when I heard their familiar voice through my senso. [Hello, Dr. Jens.]

“Something is wrong with Linden,” I said. “Linden, sorry to talk about you in the third person, but—”

“All my diagnostics show normal functioning, Doctor,” Linden said. “I will consult with Dr. Zhiruo—”

“Firewall!” I said, louder than I had intended. Doctors, nurses, and staffers of various species turned to stare—the ones who had both necks and eyes, anyway. “Linden, you need to make sure you observe sterile protocols.”

[Firewall,] Starlight agreed. [Dr. Jens, please update me.]

I sent them my ayatana of the incident on the lift, and said, “In Afar and maybe Sally, we’ve got two damaged shipminds already. Helen’s trauma seems to have a different source, but I cannot help but be suspicious…”

[Until we can run a diagnostic,] Starlight said, [Linden, please do firewall all communications with other digital entities. No code exchanges. Air-gapped auditory communication only. I realize this is inconvenient, and I apologize.]

“Acknowledged,” Linden said.

[Do you have a clean backup?]

“Yes, I believe so. But my diagnostics show nothing currently amiss.”

[Then what happened in the lift?] Starlight asked, reasonably.

With some relief, I opened the door to the Cryo observation lounge and ushered everybody into its somewhat more private environs.

At first I thought there was nobody else inside. Then I realized that one of the chairs mostly concealed a slouched human form, a spike of black hair peeking over the back. I shot a glance at Tsosie and the two Rashaqins, warning them back a little. The figure was familiar, and something about her body language made me want to approach her alone.

I settled in the chair next to her. “Loese? You okay?”

She looked up, startled. She must have been far away inside her own head, because generally your fox will remind you if somebody enters proximity. This was a full-body flinch.

I rested the backs of my fingers on her arm. “Checking on the patients?”

She sat up, and I watched her reconstruct her facade. It was fast and skilled, and I might not have noticed if I hadn’t been staring right at her. “This is all pretty upsetting.”

She looked over my shoulder and saw the others clustered by the door. “Come in, folks. Don’t let me stop you.” She stood, tugging her uniform tunic down, and looked back out into the Cryo unit. “I feel responsible.”

“Yeah.” I stood up, too. We hadn’t yet really bonded, but this might be an opportunity to grow a little closer. “This was all set in motion long before you or I was born, Loese. We couldn’t have gotten there sooner, or prevented the catastrophe that led to this.”

She grunted as if she wanted to argue, but stopped herself. Easy for you to say, the look she shot me seemed to imply. I stepped back, realizing how little I knew about her, her backstory, the traumas and triumphs that had brought her to where we were. I knew her service record. I knew that Sally had requested her from the available pilot rosters.

But I only knew Loese in the professional working friendship we’d shared.

I thought about Tsosie mentioning that he hadn’t known I was married. I bet he didn’t know I had a kid, either, unless he’d checked my next of kin—something a commander might do.

I guess I did keep myself distant and locked down. I kept myself from complaining too much, and from feeling too much faith that things would work out if I let them.

It was too big a series of personal epiphanies to unpack all at once, especially with four colleagues staring at me. I tried to come up with something anodyne to say.

Loese smiled. Her face looked strained around it. “I’ll be fine,” she said.

“We’ll catch up,” I offered. “You drink coffee? How about a field trip down to the Forbidden Zone?”

“Ping me,” she said, and fidgeted her way past Tsosie and the pair of Rashaqins.

Having exchanged departing pleasantries with Loese, the rest of my companions joined me closer to the windows. Tsosie leaned over and whispered, “Do you know what that was about?”

“Survivor guilt?” I hazarded. We’d all had to deal with it. “It’s her rightminding and none of our business, unless her work suffers.”

Tsosie sighed. He’s from more of an auntie culture than I am. It makes him a good CO.

Behind the windows, hospital staff including Dr. Tralgar bustled around the cryo chambers. I spotted a peripheral that was probably Dr. K’kk’jk’ooOOoo. She’d have to use waldos outside of a water environment anyway, so there was no point in her hauling herself into a tank and driving the damned thing, sloshing, down crowded corridors and through two or three environment locks.

I leaned against the wall, letting myself react a little to the useless adrenaline the lift ride had left me with. It would break down fast enough; for now I could ride it out. Besides, I might need it again in a minute.

“I don’t know,” Linden admitted, suddenly, as if she had been obsessing over the question and it had burst out of her. “Maybe the lift failure is linked to the earlier sabotage attempts I could not detect until I was informed of them by organic colleagues.”

Tsosie said, “How many attempts, precisely, are we talking about?”

I held a finger up, and he subsided.

Linden continued, “My point is, if my diagnostics show nothing amiss now, would I be able to tell if the backup was corrupted?”

The back of my head thudded softly against the seat back. Nobody else seemed to notice.

“The sabotage started before we got back,” I pointed out. Tsosie’s lips flattened, but he didn’t interrupt. “ And there was an attempt on Sally. And you’ve also been experiencing memory gaps?”

“I did not realize until now,” Linden said. “But I’ve reviewed the recordings, and the lift definitely glitched.”

I rubbed my bruised elbow. “It sure did.”