Элизабет Бир - Machine

[Thank you, Doctor,] they replied, translated tones infused with humor. [Although it feels a little strange, it’s not what we would call painful. It’s more a sense of stiffness and pressure. But you are not here to diagnose us.]

“Do you mind if I ask… what’s causing this condition?”

[Afar’s crew were strangely affected… their foxes re-etched by the malignant code. We think that perhaps… it is trying to affect us in similar ways. Remake us. Rewrite us into something like its microbots.]

“Is there—are you being treated?”

The tree clinked softly. [With support, our immune system is slowing the progress of the infection. And the longer we hold it off, the more time others have to solve the problem before it affects the rest of the hospital.]

“It will affect the rest of the hospital,” Helen said. “It’s designed to want more.”

I looked from her to Starlight. “I’m here to talk about the saboteurs, I suppose.”

[What have you discovered?]

If Helen was here, I could assume that O’Mara and Starlight had decided she was an interested party or a victim, and not part of the problem. Her hand was comfortingly heavy on my elbow where she steadied me.

“Go ahead,” O’Mara said.

I nodded. “I had a lot of time to think in there.” I waved a hand vaguely. They would know I meant the machine.

Starlight rustled—chimed—assent.

“This was all a conspiracy. It had to be. But it’s an incomprehensible conspiracy. Why would anybody go to such insane lengths to damage a hospital ? And an ambulance ship? And to draw attention to the fact that they were damaging it?”

“What do you mean?” asked O’Mara.

I said, “This feels like—there’s a word—like monkey-wrenching to me. Sabotage in order to draw attention to a problem, or to stop a process you find unethical. Or to stop a process in a manner that injures an enemy in a war.”

[We had not heard that term before,] Starlight said, [but we are familiar with the concept.]

I craned down to look through the floor to Starlight’s lattice of branches, catching all that Corelight. “Why did you stay in space? Didn’t you want to reproduce? Have a family?”

It occurred to me too late that maybe that was a rude question where they came from. And that I definitely should have asked permission.

[We’re claustrophobic,] they replied.

“Are you… teasing me?”

Trees can’t smile, but this one seemed to be trying. [We’re claustrophobic,] they said again. [We couldn’t stand the idea, after centians in space, of being trapped in the earth forever, unmoving. Unable to see out of a gravity well. We couldn’t bear it. No amount of adjusting our chemistry helped to reconcile us. We were fortunate to find this place.

[Besides, if we had children, we would have to think about their inheritance, and we’re morally opposed.]

“There isn’t any inheritance,” I said. “That’s barbaric. This is the Synarche. There’s nothing to inherit. You’re not allowed to hoard resources when they could be used bettering life for everyone.”

[Oh, child,] Starlight said. [Of course there is inheritance. Some of our inheritances are personal; some are a commonwealth. Skills and competencies learned from parents are an inheritance. Not having to care about taking risks because you know somebody will be there to rescue you is an inheritance. Feeling safe is an inheritance.]

That last one hit me like a knife.

I said, “This hospital is what I want my legacy to be. What if we lose it all?”

I was asking a sick plant for emotional labor so that I could find the courage to ask them things I knew would hurt them greatly. But I was a sick mammal, so I suppose it evened out.

Starlight was correct. We cannot isolate ourselves from systems, have no impact, change nothing as we pass. We alter the world by observing it.

The best we can do is not pretend that we don’t belong to a system; it’s to accept that we do, and try to be fair about using it. To keep it from exploiting the weakest.

I had been the weakest, once. But I wasn’t now, and I was here to do what I could.

[Things have been dire in the universe before,] the old tree said. [And mostly life has made it through. Even if we lose biomass.]

I studied the back of my hand. “And what about the ones that don’t?”

[The ones that don’t?]

“Make it through. Species, planets. Biospheres. Individuals. Don’t they matter?”

Around me, a seemingly transfinite number of leaves chimed in a space without a wind. [Naturally they matter. But mattering doesn’t improve their chances of survival in any meaningful way. We can try to protect them ourselves. And we can try to mitigate the damage when things go wrong.]

“And that’s why you administrate a hospital.”

[Not just any hospital.] I could have imagined that the tree spoke smugly. [It’s the perfect environment for us.]

I took a breath. Now, or cowardice. “Since you administrate this hospital, you must have the answers to some questions that are really bothering me.”

There was a silence.

O’Mara let a held breath out on a word. The word was my name.

I did not permit myself to hear them.

“Starlight,” I asked, “what’s in the private ward?”

This silence was shorter than I expected. They answered crisply, [There are confidentiality agreements in place.]

“Confidentiality agreements? You can’t even tell me what the purpose of the ward is?”

[It’s for the treatment of private patients.]

“Wealthy patients?”

The tree didn’t argue.

“What kind of treatments do they get in there that we can’t get out here?” I asked. “Everything we offer here is state-of-the-art, the finest treatment technology can design.”

[Patient confidentiality agreements preclude my answering.]

Well, at least that was an answer that sounded legitimate. Even if something nameless deep inside me—a hunch, an intuition—was convinced that it was bullshit.

They could have told me that the accommodations in there were more private, more luxurious. They could have fed me a line about staff ratios.

Their choice not to do so suggested perhaps they wanted me to keep asking.

“Starlight.”

[We cannot tell you,] they said.

“O’Mara?” I turned and looked them in the eye. It was a relief to be talking to something with eyes, and only two of them, placed in the human-standard arrangement on a head.

I convicted myself of temporary xenophobia and moved on. The relief was short-lived, anyway, because O’Mara’s expressions were easy to read. They had hung a mask of Judiciary impassiveness over them, but the tightness at the corners of their mouth and eyes betrayed tension and controlled anger.

I didn’t think they were angry with me.

Sometimes, regulating the stuff that falls out of my mouth is not my best skill. In a tone of absolute horror, I said, “Please tell me that you’re not behind the sabotage.”

“No!” O’Mara exploded. “What do you take me for?”

I held up a hand, palm toward them, and after a deep breath or two we each got ourselves under control. “I had to ask.”

They nodded tightly and either used some kind of biofeedback trick, willed themselves to calm down, or tuned, because I saw their shoulders relaxing. It was like watching somebody in pain release the bracing while knowing that the pain hadn’t gone away, a phenomenon I was unfortunately familiar with.

They were still angry, but I still didn’t think they were angry with me.

“Okay,” I said. “You won’t—can’t?—give me a direct order, but you want me to uncover something. And you can’t tell me what it is. And that’s why you asked me to investigate the sabotage in the first place.”