I want to vanish into the floor. “I’m … touched,” I say, with as much sincerity as I can muster.
That’s when the full-blown, pay-attention-to-me-right-now alarm goes off, scarlet lights reeling in panicked pinwheels all around the cockpit, bouncing off the domed ceiling and Aspect’s metallic surface alike. It could be for anything from a mechanical failure to a detected incoming sandstorm to a fuel leak to a landing gear weakness, but whatever it is, the ship has deemed it high enough priority to scream at me from every angle that now is the time to check my text display, with full attention, rather than be distracted by the so-called dessert’s menacing approach.
Gritting my teeth, I spin back around in my chair to view the specific diagnostics. Blocky fluorescent-green text scrolls rapidly across the central panel:GROUND FLUCTUATIONS DETECTED. HIGHER FLIGHT PATH IS ADVISED.
I swear under my breath. Ground fluctuations while in flight across the Passage can only mean one thing—predators just beneath the sandy surface, ready to spring from the ground and swallowCharonwhole.
“Aspect, love of my life,” I say, not turning my head, my every syllable deliberate, “for the sake of my sanity, please put your seat belt on.”
Aspect wiggles their head in refusal, which I know even without turning around from the distinct creak of their neck movement. Their voice arches, grates, and I realize they’re attempting to sing. Aspect doing a mechanical whistle is endearing; Aspect singing is enough to make me question every single life choice that led me to this moment. I don’t know the song, and based on Aspect’s unbearable keening, I sincerely wish I’d never learned it. “Happpppy—biiiiiirthdaaay—to Koriiiiiiiii—”
This should, put simply, not be a thing that ever happens to anyone. Mechs are made, not born, and they have no concept of existence preceding them. They have no concept of anything, really, but what their programming dictates—except, in Aspect’s case, also whatever scraps of humanity I’ve illegally installed into their mainframe. Morpheus spheres can instill only so much sentience. But they sure can create problems that nobody in their right mind would be prepared to handle.
My ears burn almost as severely as my face.
“HAPPY—BIIIIIIRTHDAAAAY—TO KOOOOORIIIIII—”
At the edge ofCharon’s front window, where I can still see out across the landscape, a flash of color—a massive serpentine head lunges out of the sand. Twin fangs slash from its reptilian mouth, framing a forked, thrashing tongue. I scream, tugging the steering lever back.Charonjerks into a near-vertical ascent, its rear end bonking the serpent’s face on the way up.
Sun serpents are blind, directed entirely by scent and sound. That’s why sonic signals successfully deter them from our underground settlement. Hopefully the hard smack against its head causes some disorientation.
“HAAAAAPPY SIXTEEEEEEEEEENTH—FROM ASPEEEEEECT—”
Per the navigational instruments at my fingertips—which representCharonas a tiny, blinking green dot on a massive green grid—we’re already at least halfway back to the dayfolk settlement. Pagomènos’s sun, directly above us, now shines directly in my face. I squint, tears springing to my eyes, and try to realign the ship by feel without sending us back into a jerky descent where the serpent lurks, fanged and hungry.
When the burn behind my closed eyelids becomes mostly neutral again, I finally force my eyes back open.Charonhas returned to a stable, albeit bumpy, flight path. I lean toward the left side window to see that the serpent, despite its massive size, is now far too low to possibly reach us.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t going to try.
Aspect’s voice keens on a dramatic finale. “HAAAAAAAAAPPY BIIIIIIRTH—DAAAAAAY—TO—KORIIIIIIII!”
Curling into a knot of muscle and scales, the sun serpent launches its entire body into the air. It’s at least three timesCharon’s length, the head alone long enough to swallow me in one greedy bite. Lidless black eyes soar closer and closer to the window. I flinch despite myself, even as the wyrm eventually collapses to the ground, thanks to gravity’s inexorable pull.
We’re alive. And in one piece.
The stench of smoke fills my nostrils. I turn, eyebrows arched, to see that Aspect apparently also commandeered a lighter from the closet. The cake’s single candle burns in defiant, irresponsible celebration of a holiday that no longer exists.
“Happy birth!” Aspect proclaims, clapping. Little puffs of smoke blow into my face from the motion. “Happy sixteenth!”
It was almost an unhappy death. I groan, rubbing my temples. “How are you still not wearing a seat belt? How is the cake not plastered on the wall? Where did you even—? You know what? I don’t want to know.”
Laughter, absurd and violent, bubbles up and bursts from me, hard enough to blow out the candle. The important thing is we’re still alive,we’re almost home—and I may not have a birthday, but if I did, Aspect cares enough to celebrate it. To celebrateme.
“Happy birth!” I cackle, clutching my ribs from the force of my laughter.
Aspect lifts the platter with both hands. “Would Kori—like—a slice of cake?”
It smells like a melting trash chute. Nose wrinkled, lips pressed tightly together, I shake my head. “It’s so … it’s just beautiful, Aspect. It’s too beautiful to eat.” It looks like if a dessert could hate you, and absolutely wanted you to know about it. But I’m not about to tell Aspect that. “Why don’t you sit down, put your seat belt on, and hold it? So I can get a better look at it for the rest of the flight home.”
Maybe it’s silly to feel guilty, given that Aspect can’t even eat, but I swear those visual processors widen into pleading saucers when they look at me. “FORK!” they shriek at an unholy volume, opening one mechanical hand.
Aspect, being a mech, is understandably disallowed from the settlement’s dining hall. Part of the reason I so frequently eat meals inCharon, instead—Aspect is better company than most anyone else. Apparently, their solution sans dining hall access was to pry a piece of armor from their own shoulder and fashion it into what I suppose could be mistaken for a fork, if I had a concussion at the time and had also never seen a fork.
“FORK! FOR! KORI!”
I don’t think Aspect is programmed to understand mockery, but I’d rather err on the side of caution. I bite my lip on a laugh. “Oh, what a wonderful fork! Why don’t you put it by the candle and have a seat?”
That finally seems to satisfy Aspect, who finally buckles into the copilot’s chair. It’s a good thing that mechs have a basically humanoid design, or traveling with Aspect would be a much more complicated affair that likely involved stowing them in one of the storage compartments like so much luggage. I admire the cake for a prolonged momentto satisfy their apparent pride. Then we both turn toCharon’s windows and watch the last of the Passage travel by far below. I’ve seen more than enough action for one sleep cycle, so I switch to autopilot, letting my thoughts drift and swirl alongside the sprawling sands.
