Chapter 17 #6
“That’ll do.” Iris broke into a sharp cough and spat out a glob of blood onto the moss. Time was running out far too fast. He was already growing cold. Shock was setting in. “Take the pulsar blade schematics you have and send them to the message box.”
That’s highly—
“We’re not going back to the temple. This is the least of our worries. Send the schematics, please.”
When the time comes.
When the time comes, Iris thought. It wouldn’t be long now.
He had to take breathing breaks now. The blood loss was numbing Iris to any pain, but it was also dizzying.
He would have dreaded his passing more if he weren’t feeling so utterly satisfied.
After all the years spent lost, he had found a way to be a better Vessel.
The sutras all made sense now. How could he possibly tend to people in death when he had so little appreciation for their lives?
How could he ever believe that distancing himself from the mess of living would be the correct way to honour the Light?
The world was closing in around Iris, his vision fading, his plan minutes from completion.
It was as the Light had willed it. It was a lesson finally learned.
Then, at the far end of the corridor, a door slid open. It couldn’t have opened, shouldn’t have opened. The ship would never let it open. Unless of course, the ship had had no choice.
“Oh, fuck no,” Iris groaned.
Someone’s here, VIFAI said, two seconds too late.
For a moment, Iris lost all consciousness because the next time he opened his eyes, Yan’s face was a mere inch away from his, bloody and grinning.
“I told you to get to the airlock,” Iris rasped, and his eyes rolled back into his skull.
“And I did.” Yan wrapped something around Iris’s arm and pulled hard.
Iris moaned through his teeth and nearly passed out again.
The pain was enough to wake him but also enough to hitch his breath.
“Jesi is safe. We broke through to Station. They’re coming.
Now just let me free your arm, and we’ll be on our merry way.
” Yan leaned in close to examine the wounds and the places where the vines had embedded themselves in the wall.
He gave a vine a hard yank, but the only response was a soft cry that escaped from Iris’s cracked lips. “It’s fucking stuck.”
“Now you see my problem,” Iris whispered, teetering on the edge of awareness. The tourniquet around his arm was slowing the blood loss, and it was easier to stay conscious, but the pain had also returned with a vengeance.
Yan tugged at the vines again, hard as he could. The tendons along his forearms strained, but the vines did not move. “Shit.”
“Please don’t do that again.”
The door at the end of the corridor was still open.
Yan had overridden the ship’s signal, and yet the ship lay silent.
What was it waiting for? “You still have time. If you run, you’ll make it.
It wants me, my AI construct. It’ll keep me alive for now, but I don’t know for how long. ” Iris prayed it wasn’t much longer.
“You see, I also have a problem,” Yan said, breaking into a soft laugh. “I told Jesi to get out the moment Station arrived. I told her not to wait for me. So, I’m effectively stuck here with you.”
“Liar,” Iris whispered.
“Does it matter?” Yan smiled. “I’m not leaving, Iris.”
“Idiot.” Iris was drifting in and out of consciousness, and his head bobbed to and from his chest.
“May I?” Yan reached out, one hand hovering near Iris’s cheek, the other by his side.
Iris closed his eyes and nodded. There was no sense in modesty in his current state.
Now that there was no reason to guard his most personal thoughts, Iris let them roam wild until they trampled everything in sight, and he could no longer ignore them.
They were plenty and multiplying, and no amount of meditation would cull their numbers.
What a shame, VIFAI chimed sadly, jumping from thought to thought. Playing one memory after the next.
What a shame, indeed. There was no pain now.
The only sensation Iris registered was the steady pressure of Yan’s hand against his side.
He wanted to apologise for getting blood all over Yan’s clothing, but the engineer wrapped his arm around Iris’s torso and pulled him close, and all thoughts were forgotten.
With his other hand, he guided Iris’s head to his shoulder.
Iris pressed into him on instinct. The ship was still watching them, but he didn’t care.
He’d never dreamed of being fortunate enough to pass as someone held him.
“I lied before,” Yan whispered. “I said I’d never forgive you for Tev, but I do. I forgive you. You tried. You tried your best. This thing is just so much bigger than we are.”
Iris chuckled into Yan’s shoulder. “You have no conviction, Yan.”
“I thought you wanted me to be less angry.”
Iris only laughed.
Yan ran his thumb over the nape of Iris’s neck.
Gently, as he would brush the feathers on a bird’s wing.
“You’re tired, I know you’re tired. You can just go to sleep, OK?
I’ll stay with you the whole time. I don’t mind figuring it out with the ship afterwards.
I think we have some unresolved business anyway, and I’m not feeling especially diplomatic at the moment. ”
Iris sobbed into Yan’s shoulder and shook his head.
“It’s OK, we’ll just stay here then. I’m not in a hurry. I’m not going anywhere. We have all the time you want.”
“I’m sorry,” Iris whispered. The next time the ship pings you, I need you to accept it.
Yan pulled him closer. “You saved two people. You tried to save more, but you saved two. You did so well.”
“But you came back so what good is that?” When it tries to use you to jump to the universal feed, I need you to enter it instead and find the other brains.
Corrupt your own code. I know you can. Let it gobble it up and destroy itself.
There’s still a chance. Can you do that?
Can you kill it—can you kill it before it kills you?
“You saved two people. I’m just an idiot who came back.
” Yan’s cheek was pressed against Iris’s.
The engineer was shaking faintly, but his hands remained steady, his voice level.
He had no intention of telegraphing just how frightened he was.
Iris wrapped his left arm around him and grabbed a handful of Yan’s shirt.
Of course.
I’m asking you to kill something, then to die yourself. Don’t say of course, Iris thought. He didn’t know what he could continue with. How could he continue at all?
No, you’re asking me to fight.
With that, VIFAI was gone, waiting in hiding for the next time the ship pinged it.
Iris would have to force the ship’s hand.
He would have to accelerate the timeline.
Conscious, he would inevitably push back against the ship.
It would never commit to an attack knowing he was still capable of deflecting it.
He needed to be actively dying—not dead, because that would kill VIFAI—but importantly close to it.
“Yan,” Iris said, “I don’t want to keep you any more than I have to. Pull the tourniquet.”
The engineer’s face shot up to look at him. Masterfully, Yan concealed his fear and gave Iris a reassuring smile. He was doing a wonderful job of pretending he hadn’t just been crying. “If you’re sure, I can do that for you.”
Yan’s hands moved along Iris’s right shoulder where the tourniquet had been set.
Everything below Iris’s neck had already gone numb.
The ship didn’t fear losing him, but it feared losing VIFAI, and if Iris died, so did his companion.
He could force its hand. He could play dirty.
Iris found an operational surveillance camera by the ceiling.
It blinked red, and Iris winked back. The Nicaea had to know what was coming; it had been watching so diligently all along.
He glanced towards the ground where the puddle of his blood had begun to grow again.
His trousers were drenched in it. They were beyond salvaging. What a waste of perfectly good silk.
“What’s your home like?” Iris asked, his body responding with a shudder as more blood seeped from him. “Would you tell me?”
Before he replied, Yan did what he did best. With utmost control, he relaxed his face into a thoughtful and calm expression.
“Well, it’s a mess most days. I don’t live with anyone, so it’s just me, and I don’t need much.
” He paused to watch Iris’s eyelids flutter.
Softly, he rested Iris’s head back on his shoulder and took hold of his left hand, their fingers interlaced.
“There are books everywhere, and blueprints, and I never have food in my kitchen. It’s quite pathetic, actually. ”
Iris chuckled lightly. Yan’s voice came to him through a rising ocean of waves.
“But I have these giant floor-to-ceiling windows in every room. Well, in both rooms. I can’t afford more than two rooms. Big city, you know, prices are ridiculous. Anyway, giant windows, yeah, that’s why I got that place. It’s nice at night. You can see the whole skyline.”
It’s pinging again. Goodbye, Iris!
And VIFAI was gone.
The ocean was rising, and Iris was so cold.
Farewell, my friend, he thought, two seconds too late, and the thought echoed in the cavernous vacuum left behind.
We had a good life, didn’t we? He was tumbling, losing any sense of self as his mind opened up around him, far larger than he remembered it being. A bottomless pit. All alone.
“Show me, someday,” Iris whispered, or thought he whispered.
It sounded lovely. It sounded perfect. An empty room with giant windows or a room cluttered with Yan’s books and blueprints.
He’d gladly have either, both, anything at all if it was with Yan.
A kitchen with no food wasn’t a problem.
Iris could make food. He could cook on a sunny day when the room flooded with yellow and orange light.
He could cook when it rained, and the raindrops beaded against the glass.
Yes, it would be a lovely place to be with someone.
“Please, show me your home. Show me the windows. Show me everything.”
When Iris tried to breathe next, no breath came.
Despite the growing cold in his limbs and the darkness creeping around him, there was no fear.
His fingers twitched around Yan’s hand in a final attempt to communicate something he would never be able to say aloud, but something that desperately needed saying.
Anyone else would have missed it. Anyone else would have been too preoccupied with their impending demise to notice.
But Yan, Yan never did need words to understand.
Yan didn’t need an explanation for how much personal space Iris required.
Yan didn’t need reminding that Iris grew distant and flustered when he didn’t meditate.
Yan didn’t need to be told when to pull Iris close and when to let go.
No words, nothing short of a hint. Yan just understood and squeezed Iris’s hand back.
When death came for Iris, he didn’t fight it.