Of course, the moment he noticed it, the glimmer started fading. So he veered quickly to another topic. Diverting away from the maybe-cobbly.
Why me? Why now?
Why are Ika and Hiram so insistent I try this, even as our ship plows deeper into dangerous territory? How am I a better candidate than younger, more mentally agile crew members?
Something about the nothing changed-it felt vaguely like a nod. He was asking good questions. Try conjectures.
Because he was the famous explorer Gerald Livingstone? Tested by space and time and alien demon-artifacts. The man who lassoed an ancient, star-voyaging crystal out of orbit, brought home dire news from the galaxy, then helped find new ways around the danger.
Venerable commander and warrior. Helping humanity to claim the solar system. Already with his visage on a dozen postage stamps… though with stronger jaw and straighter nose than he ever saw in a mirror, and no hint of the flawed, limited creature who lurked behind those eyes. Any single part of the legend seemed unlikely.
The whole thing? Preposterous!
But I already knew all that. I’ve been luckier than anyone deserves. Starting the moment I saw something fishy in that object Hachi and I snagged with our tether…
He recognized the same feeling now. A shiver near the base of the spine. A frisson of uncanny recognition. Still veering his attention and gaze away from that patch of hallway, Gerald thought hard.
Other generations would attribute it all to intervention by the gods… or God. Or apply the catch-all “destiny.” Human egos perceive convenient correlations that flatter our prejudices, our outrageous sense of self-importance, ignoring exceptions.
And so, science leans far the other way, training us to dismiss subjectivity. To shrug off observation bias. A good and mature teaching…
… but shouldn’t we keep one eye cracked open, just a little, for the fey and strange? For things that are too good-or too bad-to be true?
Movement in his blind spot.
It shouldn’t happen. He had no retinal cells aimed at that small portion of the corridor. But Gerald glimpsed something anyway, allowing it to form, without expectation-
– then recoiled from a sudden-strong impression-a momentary, electric imprint on his mind. The glimmer of a narrow, pointed face, fuzzy, with long whiskers, a looping tail and black eyes that shone…
“Porfirio,” he whispered. The rat god of the InterMesh. Mostly mythological, yet paid homage by countless groups, individuals, and ais across Earth and space, who tithed one-millionth of their bit cycles for use by the patron deity of uploaded beings.
Gerald broke the trance, rubbing his eyes before glancing at the corridor again, this time with full attention. Nothing was there. Nothing but scattered dust, held to the plastic floor by static charge and centrifugal force.
That was no cobbly. Rather, the famous little software rodent was exactly what his subconscious might dream up! An illusion born of imagination and fatigue. At another level, clearly, Porfirio represented a different explanation for Gerald’s life story. The usual obsessive thought-that all of this could be a simulation.
The next time I rouse, will I find myself living in some crystal world, doomed to drift across the vast desert between stars? Or already sealed in mud beneath some planet’s sea? Is this reality of mine, aboard a mighty ship where I’m a legendary hero-leader, the place where my mind goes in order to evade some awful truth?
In which case, should I be trying so hard to poke at “reality”? Or to wake up? Isn’t it better to leave things alone?
Good question.
But character is character. Personality is personality. And Gerald knew what the answer had to be, for the type of man he was.
Hell yes. Always try to wake up.
He chuckled.
Enough.
All he could allocate, for Ika’s cobbly hunt, were a few minutes here and there, while devoting all his strength to the fight at hand. The battle for humanity. For Earth. And maybe more.
Still, a person can do many things. Can be many things.
So I’ll be back, he told the stretch of hallway. And I won’t forget.
88.
She was running, tanned legs bare and gleaming with a soft sweat-sheen. Silk shorts and a halter top, bare feet pounding lightly across a surface that was richer between-the-toes than grass. And with it all came a voluptuous sensation of pursuit. One moment the chaser, then the chased. Knowing that, if she were caught, it would only happen by her choice. Bounding, leaping in the open breeze.
Now swimming. The flow of water velvety across her skin. Primordial but limitless. Almost prenatal in its innocence, but without the cramped confinement of a womb. Turning her head at just the right rhythm to breathe. Feeling the gentle burn of strength in use. Wanting or needing no protection.
And water became a lover. Roving across every sleek and fleshy curve, flowing along her legs and arms, hips and waist and thighs. Hands upon her, eager, admiring, greedy-lusty and appreciative, gradually grabbing harder, more needy, in perfect tempo to her own, back-arching desire. A mouth, nibbling, play-biting, covering and devouring hers with guileless kisses… Wesley…
Except the mouth and hands and kisses changed. Transformed. Improved. Still supple, still masculine-demanding, yet flavored now-in pleasant ways-with a tangy added hint of polymer and iron. Proud and strong and male and deserving… and modified, evolved, redesigned… Gavin…
Tor fought against awakening. But her dream faded as the cool-nap monitor cruelly said enough. Ten days of sleep, that was the limit, followed by two awake, tending the ship. Eating and stretching and exercising. Tending to real life.
As usual, Tor had to spend her first waking moments negotiating with her complicated self-image. Her layered boundaries included metal and plastic encasements, without which she would die.
Will they offer me new mods, when I get home? Will a day come when I can run again or swim? Take a real shower? Take a lover?
She had chosen to keep all the internal chemistry from her old self. Including a libido that still foamed through her dreams. Reconnecting all of that to real skin, real flesh… well, one could always hope.
Gavin will upgrade easier, she thought, vaguely recalling what he had seemed like in the dream. A demigod. Or just a man, only with many “good parts” enhanced…
“Oh criminy,” Tor muttered, wishing she could pinch the bridge of her nose-if she still had one-or splash her face with cold water. Instead, with a sigh, she unplugged the cool-napper umbilicus and floated free. Getting to work.
Hours later, with all of her inspections done and ship systems apparently nominal, Tor rested in the dim control room, half-floating in faint pseudo-gravity provided by the Warren Kimbel’s throbbing rockets.
As it had since the womb, Tor’s heart beat against her rib cage. And the gentle pulse rhythmically rocked her inner body against the cerametal casing that enclosed her. Tor’s carapace ever after flames enveloped the Spirit of Chula Vista.