“I utilize the vocal intonations of Chairperson Cusk, but I bear no artificial pathways that are derived from her neurology, despite the hand her corporation played in my design.”
“I know that, OS.” The spot OS described has rotated out of view, so I lie down to wait, grateful to feel the pressure of the floor against my spine. I might stay down here a while. “OS. Why exactly did I pass out? What did my head hit? I just don’t do that sort of thing.”
“Here it comes now,” OS responds. “Look!”
My irritation vanishes, because what I’m seeing truly is amazing. Earth. Small, but big enough to appear blue and not white like the stars. I press my face closer to the window. There are swirling clouds on the visible half of the sphere, hints of brown land beneath. I can make outthe heat cyclones, like the ones that devastated Australia and Firma Antarctica just months before we departed, that forced us to move the launch to the pad in Mari.
The most surprising thing? The moon. All the times I’ve imagined this moment, I forgot to also imagine the moon rotating around Earth. There it is, shining white on one half, black on the other. Earth has a pet on an invisible leash. It’s kind of adorable, not that I’d ever say that aloud.
It makes me think of Titan, in its own rotation around Saturn, along with its eighty-one siblings. Where Minerva is, dead or alive.
“I’m glad you woke up in time to see the colors of Earth,” OS says. “A few more weeks of travel, and it will look like any other star or planet to the human eye.”
It’s a programming affectation I’ve always disliked, when a computer program says it’s “glad.” Here, isolated in space, it’s especially unnerving. This operating system, which has no limbic system and therefore no emotions, and which has my life in its hands, can lie.
“I could spend forever looking out at this,” I say, wriggling my body along the white floor, tapping individual stars, as if I can zoom in on them. I hope OS hasn’t picked up on my tension. My coma, the ship’s unexpected damages—it’s not adding up.
“I can’t promise you forever. But you should get morethan half a year to look at it,” OS says.
“That’s an imprecise number,” I say. “I’m disappointed. What kind of OS are you?”
“I used the degree of specificity a human would likely choose in this situation. A more precise estimated length of time is zero-point-five-two-three-two—”
“Thank you, OS,” I interrupt. “That’s better.” I rap my knuckle against the polycarbonate wall of the ship. “This is all that’s separating us from annihilation,” I say. “From dying in that void.”
“Please avoid the nihilistic tendencies in your personality profile. And ‘us’ is an inappropriate pronoun in this situation. I’d survive a hull rupture just fine.”
“OS. That was harsh,” I say.Especially in my mother’s voice, I silently add. Callousness is her strong suit, though she would name it strength. I was raised by Cusk family surrogates, while my mother ran the business. She didn’t even gestate me. She did pay a fortune to procure the reconstructed sperm of Alexander the Great as my paternal DNA, though. Maybe that’s love?
“I am sorry. While you were sleeping, I have been developing what I have chosen to call my Universal Membrane Theory of Life,” OS says. “In a few seconds I could draft up a treatise on my theory if you’d like to read it.”
“No. Don’t mention it again. I don’t want to think about my membranes. It’s depressing,” I say.
“I am sorry. I will try not to make similar mistakes in the future.”
I wish I could look OS in the eyes right now. But of course, I can’t. OS has no eyes. Or OS has eyes everywhere, depending on how I think about it. “Thank you, OS,” I say. “I know it’s hard to figure out murky human hearts. I’m sure your Universal Membrane Theory is great. I still want you to keep it to yourself.”
Tick, whir. Rover rides the walls of room 05. OS can’t possibly feel wounded, right?
“Also,” I continue, “if my skin broke open and I spilled out, there would be a whole lot of red all over your pretty white floor. Big job for Rover. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“The cleanup would be substantial, but I’d be more upset that you were dead,” my mother’s voice says.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 342 *-_
I start with the tasks in 06, so I can stare out at the spectacle of space. The display projects the current East Africa time in the air. It’s 10:46 on Sunday morning. Sure. Why not?
My coma hangover has started to ebb. Though my feetare still iridescent purple against the smooth white floor, the swelling has subsided. Time to get down to business.
Hundreds of millions of miles away is a dark moon with whatever remains of Minerva, sending a distress code out over the radio, breaking the universe’s static into predictable patterns.
My sister.
Well. Probably my sister.
“The signal remains the same,” OS says. “A simple Morse ‘SOS,’ manually tripped by a lever on the Titan base, repeating every five seconds.”
My joints creak as I get to my feet. Already my prefrontal cortex is editing the hum of the ship out from my hearing. The sound is there, but to my experience it is ceasing to be. That feels like a warning, somehow. I rub my temples. Maybe I’m still a little disoriented. “Since there’s nothing to do about Minerva for now, I think it’s time I took a walk around the rest of the ship,” I say. “So I don’t get gloomy.”
