My recorded words turn even more dramatic: “Unlessyou are the last of the clone pairs, you will not be getting off this ship. You won’t even turn twenty. Your connection to Kodiak is all that you have, the only thing worth growing or nurturing. He has told me where to save this message on theAurora, too. Your synapses are an exact copy of mine, and you are in an identical environment, with the same sensory inputs, so unless chaos has found a way to throw us a curve, you have probably recently invited him to have dinner with you, to meet up in five hours by the orange door.”
Hold on. My pulse races. This is true. How is this true?
“In my lifetime, Kodiak didn’t come. In yours, he will. He’s heard everything you just heard.” An unfamiliar voice cuts into the recording, speaking clipped sentences in Dimokratía. I’ve studied the language, but this goes by too fast for me to follow. My own voice returns. “Now Kodiak’s heard some personal secrets from his old self, just some information to make sure he knows what I’m saying is true. By the way, he doesn’t know it yet, but he likes the manicotti the most, though less than he claims he does. I suggest you hide what you know from OS as long as possible. It needs you alive to get the ship to its destination, but it doesn’t need you alive forever, and knowing what you now know could shorten your usefulness to the ship. When you communicate with Kodiak tonight, write on an unnetworked device under a blanket, so OS can’tread what you’re writing, and pass it back and forth.
“Judging by the length of time between me and the previous clones, it’s probably been thousands of years since I died. This message is both from yourself and from a long-lost ancestor. Many copies of you have probably listened to it. You know what helped me most to deal with this news? Remembering all those fantasies we—Ambrose—had as a child. Like we imagined everyone else was robots, and we were the only real human. Or that what we perceived as motion might actually be teleporting between the different unmoving versions of Earth within the multiverses. Or that our solar system might be an atom in a much larger solar system. Crazy as it is, the truth of your existence is something our imagination has been preparing us for. I’m sending you love (self-love? Nice...) from the year 9081. Now, go meet Kodiak. He’d much prefer to spend his time alone, working for the good of his idealized version of Dimokratía, so he’s probably not going to take the news that he’s been manipulated as well as you do. Goodbye, Ambrose. I’m sorry to have to break all this to you. But I’m glad to be the one who did.”
The audio finishes. The andro Dimokratía soldier is dozing by the stream, lying out on moss in wet underwear, hair slicked back from their face, catching cold rays of sun.
“Spacefarer Cusk,” my mom’s voice says, “are you okay?”
I nod, my vision blurring as I watch but don’t see the reel.
“It seems like something has bothered you. Your heart rate is elevated, and you are perspiring.”
I summon my meager acting skills. “It’s just a little unnerving to finally be up here. Rescuing my sister. I’m worried about her.”
A micropause. “Of course. That is very understandable.”
I don’t go to the dining room. I don’t go to the orange portal. I go to the big window of 06.
The big . . . screen?
Even though it might make OS think I’m bonkers, I tap my fingers on the stars. How can I know that what I’m seeing is real?
I shiver.
I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing. In and out. This breathing is real.
I open my eyes. It’s time to meet Kodiak. He’ll be real, too.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 1872 *-_
The portal opens right on time.
Sweet lordsis the first thing I think on seeing Kodiak up close.
Not my type, but as a purely aesthetic object, he’s marvelous.
His thick brows knit as he scowls, shoulders bulging his jumpsuit where his body tenses. He clenches finger after finger under his thumb, knuckles popping.
“Did you hear what I heard?” I ask.
He nods. The rest of his body is motionless, like it’s been sculpted from something too heavy to lift.
“What do you make of it?” I ask.
He shrugs, looking down at the ground, looping surprisingly elegant fingers around one wrist and tugging. Then he catches himself and forces his hands to drop at his sides. “I do believe it,” he says gruffly. “Which means we have a lot to talk about.”
_-* Tasks Remaining: 1872 *-_
I take him to 04, pop two meals into the heater, then fetch blankets from my sleeping area.
I return just as the first meal dings, toss it between my bare hands until it’s cool enough to pass to Kodiak.
“What is this?” he asks.
“What do you think it is?”
