Chapter 1
When I open my eyes, the world looks no different. I’m blind.
Ting-ting buzz.
I haven’t been blind—I have been in the absolute dark.
The reel is still going. The soldier relaxes against a tree, the camera panning sensually over their body. But what my voice is saying has nothing to do with a vigorous forest outing.
What my voice is saying is definitely not sexy.
“I know you’re telling yourself this is an elaborate voice-skin prank.
But think of what I’ve done. I’ve known which exact video you’d go for first, because I did as well, and I have an identical neural structure to you, and lived in the same environment.
You can’t remember the launch, and that’s for a good reason.
Your memories were nanoteched during your medical exam at the Cusk Academy, before the clones were installed on the ship.
In my lifetime I learned that the original you, the original me, never left Earth.
He died there many thousands of years ago.
Maybe in the arms of the original Mother.
His remains, and those of the civilization that produced him, are a layer in the geological record of Earth, thin as a piece of notebook paper by now.
As far as I know, you and Kodiak, and your remaining clones, are all that remain of humankind. ”
I pause the reel. My voice is correct about at least one thing. I am definitely feeling overwhelmed.
The paused slip of a soldier stares at me, their eyes hard and lucid. What do they know to be true?
Hand trembling, I start the reel again. My voiceover continues while the soldier bathes. “We both know,” that me says, “about Plato and the cave.”
He’s right, of course. I remember that academy seminar when I learned that Plato had this allegory of the cave, where he imagined prisoners shackled so they could see only the shadows of puppets on the cave wall, and not the true world outside.
How would they know that the shadows they were watching weren’t the real thing?
If one of the prisoners did escape and discovered the truth and then returned, why would anyone believe him?
Maybe the other prisoners would be so threatened by his ravings that they’d kill him.
It wasn’t my favorite class, to be honest.
I think I get the thrust of past-me’s warning: I’m alone on a spaceship with someone who might not take the truth well.
Maybe that person is me. Maybe it’s Kodiak.
Maybe it’s our operating system, I don’t know.
Of course, I also don’t know what the end of those astronauts’ days looked like. I do know that it was on this ship.
If all of this is to be believed.
I rap my knuckles against the window. Or screen. How can I know what’s on the other side? I’d never thought to ask. Apparently, it’s a dangerous question.
“Come back to this recording once you’ve had time to think all this through,” my voice finishes. “I’ve left some . . . helpful surprises on the ship for you. Some schematics that will be useful.”
I let that one go for now. There’s too much else to think about. “OS,” I say, “how far are we from this exoplanet destination?”
“I do not understand what you mean,” my mother’s voice replies. “You are on your way to Titan to rescue Minerva Cusk.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say, then cringe. Now OS knows where the information from my previous self was likely located. I’ll need to find a new place to store it for the future me. If that’s really a thing I’m going to be doing.
“Whatever you’ve decided to believe,” OS responds, “I still need you to focus on the mission at hand. The Coordinated Endeavor has undergone numerous small damages over the course of its journey. I need you and Spacefarer Celius to repair them, to maintain the integrity of our vessel.”
“OS,” I say against the pit in my belly, “I’m inclined to believe that the only reason we have so many small damages is because you’ve been flying this ship without a human crew for thousands of years.
There’s no reason there would be so many tasks to complete that Rover couldn’t handle.
That simply shouldn’t happen over the months it takes to get to Titan. ”
OS goes silent. I get to my feet. “I need to see Kodiak.”
“You are not alone on this ship, you are correct. But Spacefarer Celius does not wish to see you.”
“I know that’s what you claim, OS,” I say, dusting my palms. “But I have some things to say to him that he’s definitely going to want to hear.”
_-* Tasks Remaining: 4909 *-_
Kodiak and I stand before the wide screen of 06, looking out at the stars. They seem so real. But they can’t be touched or smelled. Despite the evidence before our eyes, I’m increasingly coming to believe they are not real.
“This is not how I expected this journey to begin,” Kodiak says gruffly.
“Believe me, I didn’t, either,” I say.
“I was all ready to lock myself away, to call you an enemy and be done with it so I could focus on my mission. But this evidence . . .” His voice trails off. I can feel him staring at me.
“Goodbye, Minerva,” I whisper as I press my forehead against the screen.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 4909 *-_
We stand beside the Endeavor’s airlock. The suits are all gone, except for one. Its helmet is intact but has been ravaged, a jagged scratch raked into the front of it. Kodiak holds it up to his face, examining the damage.
I watch him, wondering where this evidence will bring his mind.
Finally he speaks. “Sorry. I seem to have caused a mess our last time around.”
I reach out and grasp his hand. The hand of this stranger who will become anything but. He stiffens, then surprises me by clasping mine back fiercely. As if he’s lost his balance on a cliff, trusting the nearest stranger to hold him back from a fall.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 4909 *-_
I invited Kodiak to come for breakfast. I hear the orange portal open before my morning alarm even goes off.
I roll over in my bunk and ask OS to project the ship time.
It’s 4:25 a.m., back in Mari. Not that there probably even is a Mari anymore.
When I tap on my light, I’m startled to see Kodiak at the doorway, staring down at me.
I flail to my feet. “What is it, what is it?”
His voice comes out muted. “I couldn’t sleep. I was hoping—apparently you have a violin? Would you play it for me?”
“Yeah,” I say, running my hand over my hair. “Sure. Let’s go find where it is.”
_-* Tasks Remaining: 4909 *-_
I’m not sure how long I play. OS cuts in between movements, asking us to work on smoothing the ship’s exterior shielding, but Kodiak raises his finger to silence it before he goes back to his eyes-closed reverie, seated on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees.
“Could you start at the beginning of the quiet section?” he asks. “The one that goes dun, dun doop?”
I return to the start of the adagio, the polycarb bridge on my violin stopping the instrument from playing much louder than the hum of the ship. The softness of the music feels right. A smile spreads across Kodiak’s features, and the furrows in his brow soften. I continue to play.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 4799 *-_
No task OS can come up with is pressing enough to get in the way of our music sessions.
I scour the ship’s partial internet image for sheet music, surprising Kodiak with a new recital each morning.
Once I run out, I compose pieces of my own, space-inspired combinations of harmonics created by laying my pinkie lightly on the string to produce high-pitched frequencies.
I don’t think Kodiak enjoys them as much as the classics, but he puts on a good face.
Over the weeks, OS stops presenting us with tasks during the music hour. When I continue to push back against its tales of the Minerva rescue, it gives up on talking about Titan as well. Of course it does. Lying isn’t working, so it’s stopped.
After the daily music hour, we dutifully complete the tasks OS requests of us.
Kodiak uses the one spacesuit remaining in the Aurora for the exterior jobs, while I work on the ship’s insides.
OS appears to accept this truce of sorts.
All the same, I’m haunted by that image of Rover coming into my sleeping chamber, deftly slashing the throat of my previous self.
I set up traps and alarms, so I’ll wake if Rover is on its way in.
That’s no way to live. I hate this aching awareness that we will die once our tasks are completed. But Kodiak and I might have come up with a plan for that.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 3010 *-_
I sit cross-legged before the large window of 06, staring into the expanse.
We’re out of tea—the previous Ambroses must have enjoyed it a little too much—but I can sip hot water, steeped in the flavors of polycarb.
Yum. At least I don’t have to worry about the slow-growing cancers from heated plastic.
I’m sure I’ve got plenty of fast ones that will end things a lot sooner. So . . . hooray?
I hear the thump of Kodiak’s heavier tread, then his body is pressed against the screen, shoulder pushing on the window as he peers out at the made-up stars.
“OS, revert screens to windows,” I try, not for the first time.
OS doesn’t respond. It doesn’t respond to much these days; I guess it knows anything it reveals will only decrease its advantage.
“It’s certainly impressive,” Kodiak says, eyes up to the stars. “High resolution.”
“That doesn’t make it the truth,” I say.
“No, unfortunately it doesn’t,” Kodiak says. He looks at me quietly.
“What?” I ask.
He shrugs, still looking at me. He returns to stroking the stars, leading with his middle finger, a Dimokratía mannerism.
“What are you thinking about?” I press.
“The last Dimokratía election.”
“I see you’re using ‘election’ loosely.”