“Kodiak?” I call as I wander through.
The spaceship is like an empty hotel. Eeriness is always there waiting, rising to the surface the moment we depart from our routines. I go up on my tiptoes as I step through his ship. “Kodiak?”
Space hums back.
I turn the corner of the blind room and there he is, hunched over the receiver, headphones on his ears.
“Kodiak?” I say. If he’s heard me, there’s no sign.
I ease around him, so my feet are in his view. He sees my toes and, so quickly that he must have done it on reflex, he’s laid his palm on the top of my foot.
He nods to the floor beside him. I lower my ass to the ground, sitting cross-legged so his hand is pinned between my foot and thigh. He looks up at me, face slack and eyes glazed. “What is it?” I mouth.
Kodiak removes one of the headphones and places it over my ear. He hovers that hand over the dial, as if to keep the signal tuned in through force of will.
There’s a voice, but it’s nearly impossible to make out. I put my hands over my ears and close my eyes. Now I can understand the words. A mechanical voice. No attempt at a voice skin.
“—ansmission 6,340,108. 8.5069° S, 115.2625° E. Please respond. I will trek to this location every one hundred and eighty days to look for answers. Am I alone here?Tell me if I am not alone. 13:40:57, March 11, 8102 Common Era. Transmission 6,340,109. 8.5069° S, 115.2625° E. Please respond. I will trek to this location every one hundred and eighty days to look for answers. Am I alone here? Tell me if I am not alone. 13:41:19, March 11, 8102 Common Era. Transmission 6,340,110—”
I remove the headphone. “What the hell is this?”
“I’ve been listening to it for the last half hour,” Kodiak says. “I still don’t know. It hasn’t changed, except for the numbers ticking up. I timed it, by the way. They’re going up in real time.”
“It’s clearly some automated transmission,” I say. “An emergency beacon.”
“Do you think it could be from Minerva?” Kodiak asks.
I hadn’t even considered that, which makes me realize my gut answer is no. “Knowing my sister, I think she’d use her own voice,” I say. “And those coordinates don’t reflect any location on Titan.”
“Sure,” Kodiak says, avoiding my eyes.
My scalp tingles. It’s suddenly freezing in here. “And the dates...”
Kodiak nods, searching my eyes.
“The dates . . . ,” I try to continue.
“Come from almost six thousand years in the future.”
“...which means someone is playing a prank on us,” I say.
Kodiak nods, relief flooding his face. “It’s the onlyexplanation I could come up with, too.”
“I mean, any asshole with a transmitter can send whatever they want into space.”
“That is unfortunately true,” OS adds, its voice passing in from outside the blind room. “I agree that there is nothing to worry about here.”
I catch Kodiak’s eye. We’ve kept our voices a bare whisper. We’d assumed that there was no such thing as privacy from OS, even in the blind room. Now we have confirmation.
Two missing suits. Forgotten launches. A broken violin bridge. A blind room with a jury-rigged receiver, sending us “broadcasts” from a post-civilization—and maybe post-human—future.
I look at Kodiak, taking solace in the warmth of the hand that’s still on top of my foot.At least you’re real.
“Kodiak,” I say. He looks at me, fear in his eyes. What I’ve come to realize is the Kodiak version of fear; I would once have mistaken it for anger. “I...”
His shirt is motionless over the planes of his chest. He’s holding his breath. I wonder if he realizes he’s not breathing. I point to the pouch on the floor beside me. “I brought you manicotti.”
Kodiak sees it, then stares up at me steadily, as if trying to measure just how crazy I am. Then he takes in a big breath and cracks a smile, shaking his head. “You know I like the manicotti.”
