Meru, page 24
“Amritsavar and her crew.”
“No, I came at Hamsa’s request.”
“Who’s that?”
“An alloy who’s trying to get the compact changed so humans can settle on Meru.”
“You can’t have Manib, so don’t try.”
“What? No, I—I won’t.”
“Good. Because he’s mine. All of this”—Saunika spread his arms wide—“is mine. They tried to take me away, back to Earth, but Manib said I could stay. He helped me to stay.”
Jayanthi nodded, shrinking from Saunika’s fierce expression. After he stalked away, she breathed a sigh of relief. That might have been the strangest conversation of her life. Sixty years of living alone clearly had had quite an impact on Saunika’s personality. Even the twenty-eight required by the original mission struck her as cruel. She could believe that politicians on Earth might treat him with such callousness, but an alloy committee had approved it. That shook her. Was that all she meant to them, too? An experimental subject, someone to test their theories on? Had they taken advantage of her? Of him?
Not Hamsa. He’s always been so good to me. And certainly not Vaha. But Hamsa had discouraged her tarawan dreams. Her parents, who loved and cared for her, hadn’t bothered to educate her about much of alloy life. And Vaha—Vaha had abandoned her.
What had zie done to zirself? What had led to zir injury? Why had zie left her stranded on Meru without a word? Maybe zir feelings for her had all been an artifact of the incarn and its human hormones. Maybe the true Vaha cared nothing for her at all.
Or maybe zie was dead. She hadn’t wanted to admit the thought while dealing with getting off Meru, but she could no longer hide from the possibility. If zie had loved her, and zie was dead . . . she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. And if I have zir baby, what do I tell everyone? Would anyone believe that Vaha had chosen to have a child with a human? Did it matter? She’d have the memories of their time on Meru for the rest of her life, and she’d raise their child with stories about her alloy parent, but the thought of doing it all without Vaha made her sick to her stomach. The heartbreak would’ve happened when their project ended, but she would’ve had time to prepare for that. She wasn’t ready for her first real relationship to end, not so abruptly and with such finality.
I want to go home.
“Manib, how long will it take you to reach Sol?”
“Twenty-two days of acceleration, followed by transit, then twenty-two days of deceleration.”
A month and a half of this. Grief pulled at her like an undertow. I can’t allow it to drown me.
“Where will you go after you drop me off?” she asked.
“I will decide when the time comes,” he replied.
“Doesn’t Saunika get to choose?”
“Only if I request it. I am a free agent.”
Interesting. She had known several constructs back on Earth, though Laghu was the only megaconstruct. They all had conscious, independent thought, but they also served under contract for specific purposes. She’d never interacted with one who was free to do as they pleased. What would an entity like Manib want? Perhaps he truly cared for Saunika. Did Manib resent her presence as much as his other passenger seemed to? If so, he hadn’t indicated it.
She was getting ahead of herself again. “Can you increase the light level in here?”
The room brightened until it felt more like daytime. Unlike Vaha’s chamber, this one had no windows. Saunika had mentioned admiring the view, so there must be somewhere that she could see outside. She debated asking him about it and decided it could wait.
A strangled scream bounced through the hallway into the room. Saunika spanned the entryway and glared at Jayanthi.
“I told you not to talk to Manib!” he said.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I forgot.”
“Jayanthi may speak to me if she wishes,” Manib said. “You have no authority to forbid it.”
Saunika’s tone turned wheedling. “But she’s a stranger, and she’ll try to poison your mind.” He turned and narrowed his eyes at her. “She’ll try to turn you against me.”
“No, no, I promise, n-nothing like that,” she stammered. “I’m so grateful for your help. Truly. I’ll try to remember not to speak to Manib again.”
Saunika glared at her for a few more seconds, then spun and stalked away. Jayanthi shook her head. She needed to find some distractions, something that wouldn’t tempt her into asking Manib questions. She slow-blinked and discovered that the megaconstruct had an older interface, one that she remembered from her childhood. The selection of entertainment was equally out of date, but at least she had something to choose from. With only Saunika for company, she had little to occupy her time. She found one of Vaha’s favorite older comedies and settled in to watch.
Jayanthi had gone two days without speaking to Saunika or Manib. She’d blazed through a dozen episodes, letting it fill the void left by Vaha’s absence. So far, Manib had maintained a constant acceleration close to one gee. Unlike Vaha, he didn’t need rest breaks. She had to admit that it made for a more comfortable travel experience.
She was doing some exercises when she felt arms grab her from behind. She froze. Saunika’s breath was warm against her ear.
“I know she sent you to lure me back to Earth. They want to take me away. I won’t let them!”
Jayanthi shook her head. “You’re—”
“Shut up!”
He shook her hard enough to rattle her teeth.
“It’s all lies! That’s all human beings know, to lie to each other.”
“Let go of me!”
She tried to wrench her way free of his grasp. He wrapped his arms around her chest and squeezed, forcing the breath from her lungs. He picked her up and shuffled toward the airlock door.
“What . . . are you . . . doing?” she gasped.
“Freeing Manib from your devious plan. I told you, we’re not going back to Earth!”
The door swung open. Saunika flung her body into the airlock and slammed it closed. Jayanthi landed on her hands and knees. Air hissed. She whirled and slow-blinked, scanning for any way to stop Saunika from venting her.
She banged on the solid metal door. “Saunika! Please! I swear by the Nivid, I’m not here to get you away from Manib!”
The hissing stopped. Then resumed.
“Please!” she yelled.
A muffled scream sounded on the other side. The door swung open. Four small, multilegged constructs had grabbed each of Saunika’s limbs. His face was red with fury.
“What are you doing, Manib?” he bellowed. “Call them off!”
A fifth construct entered the airlock, picked Jayanthi up before she could act, and carried her back inside. The others took her place, a sobbing, screaming Saunika between them.
“What’s happening?” she whispered. Her heart pounded. “What are you doing to him?”
Manib’s voice came clearly through the speakers. “Saunika has violated Code Twenty-Four, Section B, attempted murder of another passenger. I have zero tolerance for violence. As a sovereign entity, I have full jurisdiction over my passengers. He will be evacuated.”
“But he’ll die!”
“I have made my decision.”
“I thought you cared for him! Wait—can’t you confine him somewhere instead?”
“I have considered my options and made my decision.”
Jayanthi felt sick to her stomach. Saunika had gone quiet, his body crumpled on the floor of the airlock. The constructs came inside, closed the door behind them, and walked past her, their many legs tapping along the floor. She knelt on the ground with her face in her hands. What kind of monster was this construct? What had she gotten herself into?
As her breath hitched, her skin went hot, then cold. Pain throbbed down her neck and into her back. She knew the feeling too well—the start of every sickle cell crisis. Calm down! Deep breaths! She didn’t need this, not now of all times and not in this place. She closed her eyes and exhaled to a count of five, but the pain continued to spread and build.
She couldn’t keep her breath smooth. She forced herself up and stumbled to her pack, keeping her gaze well away from the airlock door. With trembling hands, she dug out the medical kit. She found an analgesic. The last one. She jabbed it into her shoulder and curled up in her webbing, waiting for relief.
After a few hours, the pain ebbed. Jayanthi could open her eyes and stand without wanting to die. She gulped down water—dehydration could tip her body further into crisis—and followed it with bhojya. She avoided the dread that lurked at the edge of her thoughts. Part of her wanted to wrap herself in her sleeping web and never leave. Another part felt guilt-ridden relief that Saunika was gone. She didn’t wish him dead, but he had almost killed her.
She glanced at the airlock door and shuddered. What if she broke some unspoken rule and Manib decided that she deserved the same fate? Ridiculous! Saunika lived here safely for decades. But she couldn’t put the fear away. She slipped her enviro-suit over her clothes and placed the helmet on. She’d be safest somewhere away from the damn door.
“Manib, can I move around? Leave this room?”
“Yes.”
The construct wasn’t much of a conversationalist. How had Saunika survived for so many years like this?
The corridor beyond the room curved in a circle, built of the same utilitarian materials as her chamber. Storage units covered most of the surfaces, but she found a few closed doors in the inner wall. Two ladders bisected it. She climbed one and found another round hallway. How many such ringed segments did Manib have? She thought-searched for a map and discovered a full schematic.
On the third level up, a window wrapped the entire circumference of the outer wall. Jayanthi wandered in circles for a while, taking in the dazzling tapestry of stars on one side and the bright light of Pamir, Meru’s star, on the other. The planet and its moons had receded enough to become three brighter spots in the overall star field.
Manib’s voice startled her as it blared from overhead speakers. “I have decided not to return to Sol. I will transfer you in 1.5 Meruvin days.”
“What? Why? Transfer me where?”
“I wish to pursue a new opportunity in an unexplored region beyond this system. You will have conveyance.”
Jayanthi blinked up at the ceiling. “To Earth?”
“I cannot guarantee that.”
“But . . . where, then?”
“I cannot answer that.”
“What kind of conveyance? Is it a pilot? Another megaconstruct? Can they support a human?”
“Yes.”
Jayanthi closed her eyes against the ambiguity of Manib’s response. Think! How can you get home? “There are so many alloys working around Meru. Can I talk to one of them through you, explain my situation? Maybe they would know more about what’s going on, find a way—”
“They have declined.”
What did that mean? Declined to speak to her? To Manib? Declined to carry her back to Earth? She used to assume that alloys would want nothing to do with humans, but Vaha had turned that opinion on its head. Was zie that unusual? Zie had implied that most alloys didn’t think much about human beings, but not because they were uncaring. Shouldn’t someone in Meru’s system have the heart to help her get home? Didn’t they owe her at least that?
She cast about for someone to blame—Vaha or Kaliyu or any alloy in the vicinity—but in her heart, she knew the truth. The fault lay within herself. Ratnam’s adage came back to haunt her, the words taking on a new meaning: Ambition and materialism lead to greed and exploitation. She had been hungry for fame, for knowledge, for an experience granted to no other human being. And that had left her vulnerable to exploitation by the very alloys she’d looked up to all her life.
She thought of the embryo and made a promise: If you grow and thrive, I won’t abandon you. I’ll keep you with me, no matter what.
The stars that had seemed so peaceful a moment before now appeared harsh and unforgiving. She was at the mercy of any being, alive or not, who could give her shelter. Life would have been so much better if she’d been born an alloy. She had been so naive back on Earth, thinking that this would be a grand adventure, that as long as she was in the hands of an alloy, everything would be fine. Even Hamsa, for all his wisdom, hadn’t anticipated something like this. Neither had her parents. They’d never left the Solar System. She had, and now she was stranded, hundreds of impossible light-years from her home, with no guarantee of return.
Jayanthi strapped on her pack, sealed her helmet, and checked her air. She floated into the airlock. A small construct followed and closed the door behind her. Manib hadn’t given her any more information about her next ride. She had to trust the megaconstruct and hope that whoever took her in was willing and able to get her back to Sol.
She glanced at the small construct. Was it going to assist her across? That would be a relief. The outer door swung open. Her companion reached out with two of its six legs and grabbed her by the waist. It tilted her, head toward the door. Jayanthi looked forward and stretched her arms up, as she had before, to aim for her destination . . . which was a field of stars.
“Manib?” she sent, twisting her head from side to side. “There’s nothing out here.”
“You will wait,” the construct replied.
“What do you mean? Is someone approaching?”
She tried to grab the doorframe, but the small construct had a surprising amount of strength. It pushed her through and let her go. Jayanthi twisted ineffectually, trying to turn back.
“Manib, please! I don’t understand!”
The enormous, cylindrical construct moved past with no response. Jayanthi drifted, alone with her racing heart and the absolute finality of hard vacuum, her breath the only sound.
Calm. You must stay calm. With pain lingering from the previous day’s crisis, she couldn’t let stress get the better of her body. She closed her eyes and pictured herself lying in a hammock behind her house. She breathed until her pulse slowed, then opened her eyes. Nothing in her view had changed except that the hulking shape of Manib receded farther. He’d told her to wait, but for what? She didn’t see anyone approaching. The thought of using her jets terrified her. What if she moved herself into a different trajectory, and her next ride couldn’t find her? If she’d been an alloy, this would have been no different from being dropped off in a strange location. She could’ve traveled to find help. But she was human. Even if she could figure out how to maneuver herself, she had no idea where to go. Could she make it back to Meru before her air ran out? She tried a tremulous “hello?” via an open emchannel, but someone had to be nearby in order to pick up her broadcast. With no alternative, she settled in to wait and hoped her ride would turn up soon.
At first, she checked her timepiece every few minutes. She remembered to drink water and bhojya. As the hours ticked by, she found her thoughts traveling the same circles: Vaha, Meru, the embryo, Saunika, Manib. Every terrifying unknown that didn’t include her life itself. She’d had twenty-seven hours of air when Manib ejected her. No one knew where she was. Even if someone was looking for her, they had no hope of finding one tiny human in all the vastness of Meru’s system. And the only one who might care enough to bother was Vaha.
How could you leave me like this? Where are you? Are you alive? Please be alive!
And so her thoughts went: back to Meru, to the embryo, to Saunika. On and on until fourteen hours had passed. At hour fifteen, she ran out of water. Two hours after that, bhojya. She hadn’t thought to refill the packs. Why would she if she were getting “transferred,” as Manib had claimed? How much longer would she have to wait? At least the battery had started with a full charge, and luckily Pamir’s distance kept the suit at a comfortable temperature without too much power consumption.
She slept in fits and starts, her body not yet acclimated to the lack of gravity. At hour twenty-five, the suit automatically switched to oxygen conservation mode. A dull throbbing started in her head shortly after.
Over the next thirty minutes, the pain spread down through her neck, across her back, and into her arms and legs. With rising dread, she knew: her body was going into crisis mode, and this time, she couldn’t stop it. Low oxygen was a well-established trigger. Her blood vessels had started to constrict. Her sickled cells would clump together and clog her blood supply. Let it go long enough and she’d need an exchange. Longer than that and her organs would fail. Her air would run out first, though, and give her a quieter end.
A million needles traveled through her veins, stabbing her from the inside out. She closed her eyes and swallowed as her stomach heaved. Her skull pounded as if her brain were forcing its way out. She hadn’t experienced this level of agony in years. A part of her detached and analyzed her situation with clinical precision: one way or another, this would be over soon, and she’d be out of her misery.
She had flaunted her ambitions, and the universe had punished her. Like Saunika, she’d convinced herself that she was special. Because of her alloy parents. Because Hamsa had let her train as a tarawan. Because Vaha had loved her, at least for a little while, at least in zir incarn form. She’d proven how full of hubris she was, like every other human. Callow and fragile, she’d failed everyone. She would die alone, where no one would ever find her.
RITHU—SEASON
“You may waken.”
The message arrived like a faint glow in zir consciousness.
Who speaks? Who thinks? Who am I?
No one.
Ah, yes, I am Nakis.
“You’ve been exposed and in hibernation, but you’re safe now. Are you receiving this?”
I am.
You need to send that reply the way it came, via . . . emtalk.
Like the Sun emerging from behind a planet, awareness resumed. One by one, Nakis brought zir body’s systems online. The intense sensations of heat/cold, prickling/itching, and aching/stabbing took zir by surprise. Had zie come out of hibernation before? Why hadn’t zie expected that it would feel so terrible?
