With a whirring sound, Rover comes skittering into the room, ticking to a stop beside me.
“Are you having Rover spy on me?” I ask.
“No. I do not need Rover to observe you—as you know, the very walls of the ship function as surveillance. I have sent Rover to you only because I am concerned for your health. Tell me: What do you remember of the day you left Earth, Spacefarer Cusk?”
“What? It was like any other...” My voice trails off. I remember my name projected in the grand hall of the Cusk Academy, walking on the beach, imagining how proud Minerva would be of me, then back to the hangar, to a bright room upstairs in the facility, where they began my final medical exam before takeoff... and that’s where my memory cuts out. The pricking at the back of my neck becomes a hot spritz of sweat. “I remember walking up a staircase,” I say, rubbing my hands over my arms. “I thought it was to a medical scan, but maybe it was to the shuttle, to rendezvous with theEndeavor. Was it... wasit unusually hot that day?”
“Am I right to assume from the pace of your words that you have no memory of the launch itself, or of the subsequent revisions to the mission structure?”
“Yes,” I say. “Explain everything to me. Now.”Shit. How hard did I get knocked around?
There’s a micropause before OS’s response—which represents a significant amount of strategizing for a computer as advanced as theEndeavor’s. What conversational pathways did it just consider and dismiss? What am I not being told? “You are fine. I am convinced you are perfectly fine. The orange portal separating your half of the ship from the Dimokratía half can be opened only with permission from both parties. I can query the Dimokratía spacefarer, if you wish. I would suggest that we waste no time in preparing to harvest the asteroid, however. I can coordinate your responsibilities separately. We have only nineteen-point-seven hours until we need to execute the operation.”
I wonder, not for the first time, whether OS is trying to keep me off my feet by emphasizing my passing out. If it knows that my fear of failing is what makes me manipulatable. “Wait, OS. You called this my ‘half’ of theEndeavor?”
“Of theCoordinated Endeavor, yes. The FédérationEndeavorwas linked to the DimokratíaAurorawhile in orbit, before the mission started. Rather than each ship traveling in its original ‘lollipop’ shape, they have been joinedinto a rotating barbell, with zero gravity at its center and simulated gravity at either end. A joint mission by Earth’s last two countries was a fraught prospect, of course. As a condition of conjoining the spacecraft, the connecting corridor can be opened only if both parties grant permission.”
“Are you in charge of both halves of the craft?”
“Yes. I am a Cusk creation, a corporate product without nationality. I am in contact with the other spacefarer. In fact, I am communicating with him right now.”
Parallel processing: one of the most unnerving things about AIs. OS could be having conversations with me, this other spacefarer, and mission control, all at the same time. Who knows who else it’s talking to. Or what else.Settle down, Ambrose. A contained environment is no place for an overheated imagination.
“You said ‘him.’ So it’s a ‘he,’” I say. Somehow my brain had assumed an imperious and utterly capable young woman running the other half of the ship. Another Minerva Cusk.
“Yes,” OS responds. “A ‘he.’ All Dimokratía spacefarers are male.”
I run my hands along the rim of the orange door. The polycarbonate at the edge puckers, a sign of hasty construction. “What can you tell me about this stranger?”
“I am authorized to inform you that his name is Kodiak Celius. Like you, he was chosen from among the cadets inhis respective training program.”
“Will he be helping me with the asteroid?”
“You can count on his expertise. His file notes particular gifts in mechanical engineering, piloting, survivalism, and hand-to-hand combat.”
Survivalism. Hand-to-hand combat.“Ask him to open the door.”
“I have already asked him. He has declined.”
“‘Declined’?”
“That is correct.”
“What, is he toobusyto meet me?” I ask, mouth gaping. “When we’ve been leaking oxygen, and have to net an asteroid hurtling past at twenty kilometers a second so we can drink and breathe? When we’re on a mission to rescue Minerva?”
There’s no answer at first. If I were in my right mind I’d have known better—sarcasm is the surest way to fritz out an AI’s conversation skills. Why am I being sarcastic? Because this hurts, and I’m feeling weak, and sarcasm is the refuge of the hurt and the weak. That’s why. It will be the last time I let myself be sarcastic. I’m stronger than that. I’m Ambrose Cusk, dammit.
“Spacefarer Celius is indeed busy at the moment. You have a two-kilobyte list of tasks, but there is a list over six kilobytes long on theAurora. Maintaining the ship and ensuring its integrity is of course a foremost priority. Evenif we did not harvest more oxygen, you wouldn’t expire for another four to five months. Loss of hull integrity would cause you to expire within seconds.”
I’m only half listening. I can’t help it. I bang on the orange portal. Fuck you, Kodiak Celius!
A door with my mother’s feet casting shadows underneath. Minerva’s voice, hushed in a velvet hallway: As long as I’m alive, someone loves you.
OS speaks. “I surmise from your nonverbal cues that you are upset Kodiak Celius has sealed himself off. Could I offer you medication to help you relax?”
“I’m a trained spacefarer, OS,” I say, stepping away from the portal and clambering back down, my body gaining weight as it goes. “I’m not some sweaty-balled knock-kneed cadet. I represent the legacy of Minerva Cusk. I’mfine.”
...and now I’m bragging to a computer. Yep, totally fine.
