Embarkment 2577 Read online

  I really needed to stop overthinking everything, or I would drive myself crazy. I scooted into a sitting position and clutched the sheet so it wouldn’t fall down and reveal my breasts. He was polite enough to look away, and pretended intense interest in the wall while I got myself settled, pulled a hand through my hair, and squinted at the lights.

  “No, no, if you’re here it’s probably morning. C’mon in. What time is it?”

  The computer and Adam answered simultaneously, “It’s 6:02 AM,” and I could barely contain a groan. Too early. Six in the morning might always have existed, but that didn’t mean one had to pay attention to it.

  He winked at me and disappeared out of view. It was a good opportunity to prop the pillows up behind my back. I had the robe, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to it without leaving the sheets behind, so I’d have to stay where I was for now. Android or not, I had no intention of running around naked in front of him.

  I still sat rubbing my eyes when Adam returned moments later, holding a tray with my favourite breakfast on it. How could he know what I wanted? It was unnerving to have someone around who knew every detail about me when I didn’t know the first thing about him.

  He put the tray on my lap and sat down on the edge of the bed. I expected it to make at least a complaining noise at having to carry a big man made of metal, but it didn’t even squeak. There were probably new alloys in this time I didn’t know about. He might only weigh a few pounds, or maybe about the same as an ordinary person.

  I wanted to ask who built him, why, and if androids were common, but it didn’t seem like the right time. I reached for the cappuccino instead. “Thank you. This is the best breakfast ever.”

  Adam looked as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled something out of a pocket and looked at it. I saw a flash of silver between his fingers.

  “I have something for you.”

  He held a small object out to me, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was my necklace. The very same necklace I’d been wearing all the time, every night and day since I was a little girl. My mother gave it to me when I was five, and it held a small five-pointed star in white gold with a diamond in the centre.

  “Ima took this off when she healed your body. I saved it for you.”

  My mother told me to wear it always, said it would bring me good luck, and for all these years, I never took it off.

  He bent forward to put it on me, and when I felt it fall in place around my neck, I threw my arms around him. “Thank you.”

  It was the only thing left from my world. Everything else was gone, but now I had something to symbolize the life I lived and the person I’d been.

  My emotional outburst seemed to surprise him, but he hugged me back after hesitating just a little, and it felt good. He ran a hand over my hair. The gesture was comforting, and made me feel like a little girl.

  “I’m sorry for all you’ve lost, but for what it’s worth, I’m happy you’re here.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes, and I forced them down. Crying would make a big wet spot on his uniform. He might not care about that, but I did.

  Adam held me a few moments longer, stroking my hair and my back, before pulling free from my grip. “You should have your breakfast.”

  I did. I nibbled a croissant, had some strawberries, and sipped my coffee. “Have some.”

  He shook his head, and I insisted without thinking, “It’s really good,”

  At first, I didn’t understand why he looked so amused. He rolled his eyes and took a corner of a croissant. “I like these. I like the texture and the flavour; it’s funny how they’re layered. I wonder what it’s like to be hungry.”

  Oh yes, android… I just told an android to have breakfast. Great going, Alex.

  Never being hungry, never being tired, wouldn’t that be great? Maybe not. Maybe hunger and sleep were experiences uniting us carbon-based organisms.

  “I need help with something.”

  Adam looked up from the croissant and flashed a smile that made at least one butterfly flash its wings in my stomach.

  “I don’t have any clothes.” I should have asked Anya for more than a robe, but at the time, having anything to wear seemed like a luxury.

  Having a practical problem to solve spurred Adam into action. He stood up, but paused and looked at me in a strange way. Had I spilled food or coffee all over me? “What?”

  The look on his face was a bit too innocent. “Nothing. Just taking your new measurements.”

  He disappeared out of the room before I could think of a good answer.

  It was a matter of minutes before my friend returned, arms filled with clothes. “This should tide you over until you feel well enough to go shopping.”

  I looked at the pile and shook my head. “You never do anything little, do you?”

  He shrugged and sorted through the thin fabrics. It was strange to see those strong hands handle my underwear. Was this something that happened on a daily basis?

  “How ‘bout that?”

  He picked out an emerald green shirt, white pants, and a pair of low boots that looked very comfortable. I had to approve; I couldn’t have done it better myself. “Okay. Gimme that robe and get out of here.”

  His eyes glittered, but he didn’t move.

  “Well, at least turn to face the wall, or something. I don’t know if you’re used to watching me dress, but I’m not, so it’s not happening today.”

  My comment was met by soft laughter which really made me wonder about our past. He held his hands up in a pacifying gesture. “Okay, I’ll be out here. With my back turned.”

  He paused by the door and glanced over his shoulder. “Are you up for a little adventure today?”

  How could I say no? I was weak and tired, sad, and worried, but he was so considerate. He had no obligation other than possibly guilt to keep me company or help me. How could I say I wanted to stay curled up in bed all day, crying, and eating chocolate? “Maybe a little one.”

  Having real clothes made me feel a bit better, and being dressed helped my confidence. My new body looked good. I wanted to stay and admire it in the mirror, but that would be too vain.

  *****

  Clothes or no clothes, left to my own devices I would never have found the courage to leave my rooms. I stood just inside the door, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Outside would hold more new technology, more aliens, more of everything different, new, and frightening. Nothing anywhere would be well known to me.

  Adam held out a hand to me. “Come on, Alex. It’ll be okay.”

  I took it, and he gave mine an encouraging little squeeze. When the door opened and I didn’t move, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders instead, leading me into the corridor. It seemed to go on forever to each side of us.

  The walls were painted light beige with a flower pattern at waist height. There were statues and art along the walls. The vastness and grandeur had been wasted on me the previous day. Now, it dawned on me how big the ship was. “If I followed this until it ends, where would I be?”

  “It’s a long walk, but you’d get back here. There’s a main corridor like this going around every deck. You can’t see it from here, but it’s a little curved. There are lifts in six places on each floor, and the main shaft for the hover-rounds goes all the way from top to bottom.”

  “Hover-rounds?”

  He nodded towards something behind me. The thing reminded me of a golf-cart without wheels. It was two-seated with a storage compartment behind the chairs, and hovered in the air.

  “Get in, I’ll show you.”

  From the vehicle’s looks I expected a leisurely ride. I was wrong. It was small, but quick, and I held on as we raced through the corridor. “So, how many accidents do you have with these things each year?”

  “None. Most people don’t drive them themselves, the ship’s computer does, especially in the shaft.”

  For about two seconds his words made no sense at all. T
hen, we reached said shaft and I stared at a huge vertical tunnel. It glowed with an eerie blue light. “We’re going in there?”

  There was a railing around the edge, probably to keep people from falling in, and Adam suspended our vehicle above it to let me get a good look of all the other hover-rounds travelling up and down.

  I did not want to look. My fingers clutched the door so hard my knuckles turned white, and the very thought of looking down gave me vertigo. Surely, any movement would make us topple over and fall in.

  “You should wear your seatbelt.”

  Great idea. I would love to, if I could find one, or dare move enough to put it on.

  Adam lifted an eyebrow, reached over me, and pressed a button. A second later, a force field pressed me gently towards the chair.

  “You’re not scared of heights, are you?”

  I kept my lips pressed together, but managed to shake my head.

  He flipped a control and the cart hovered higher. What could possibly make it able to fly like that? No point in asking, even if I managed to move my mouth. I wouldn’t understand the answer anyway.

  We hung over the edge for an eternity before plunging in, and the sensation of sinking was truly eerie.

  It didn’t take long before we pulled up outside a door looking exactly like all the others. The only difference I could see were the walls being blue, and the spacing of the doors. Maybe the rooms here were larger.

  Adam looked quite happy. “Come on, Alex, you’ll love this.”

  *****

  The room was easily big enough to hold a few blocks of villas, and at first I couldn’t decipher what I saw. Row after row of big birds stretched out in front of me, but they weren’t birds, they were spaceships.

  “I’ve wanted to show you this for so long. It gets better outside.”

  “Better?” How could it possibly get better? These were actual spaceships that had been in space and seen things I could never even imagine. The fact that I myself was travelling the galaxy in a spaceship, only much larger, was lost on me.

  Adam waited patiently for a while before putting a hand on my back and pushing me forward. Only now, as we approached one of the metal eagles, did his words sink in. Had he said outside?

  “It’s okay to touch it. I know you want to.”

  The feeling of cold metal against my palm connected me to reality. I wasn’t home anymore. I could pretend everything around me was a fantasy, but this was real.

  Walking around to the front, I tried to peek in through the windows, but they were too far up.

  “Come, let’s go in.”

  I trotted after him and sat obediently in a plush chair, clad in a material looking and feeling almost like white leather. Adam checked controls and talked to someone on the bridge, but I hardly heard him. I was too busy staring at everything. I didn’t recognize one single thing.

  He turned to me and flashed one of his rare boyish smiles, “We have a little over two hours before the Bell goes back to warp speed. Should be enough time for you to get a good look.”

  Playing cool was impossible. I could feel a big grin on my face as the small ship lifted off the floor and headed towards the side of the shuttle bay, where a giant door slid open. “I don’t understand. How do these things fly?”

  Adam made an adjustment. “It’s a little complicated, but I’ll explain later if you really want to know.”

  He followed my gaze towards the open door where one could clearly see space outside.

  “There’s a force field that will let ships through, but keeps space out and air in. There is a force field around the ship too, forming sort of a shield, like in Star Trek you know. The windows are polarized so even if you look at a star it won’t hurt your eyes.”

  Star Trek… I liked Star Trek. Had we watched TV together, or had the shows of my time survived this far into the future?

  I couldn’t see the force field when looking at it through the window, but I did see energy sparkle when we passed through.

  A moment later, we were surrounded by blackness and stars. I was in space! My hands tightened their grip on the armrests. “Oh My God.”

  There was a lot of humour in Adam’s answer, “I don’t think so, but it is pretty cool.”

  Cool? What an odd choice of words for a person like him. Maybe he picked the expression up from me, some time in the past…

  “That’s Deneb. It’s a blue supergiant, approximately 200 times the size of your sun.”

  Even seen from a distance the star was larger and brighter than anything I could ever have imagined. “You don’t say…”

  He steered away from the Bell towards a planet. It was a blue and green gem hanging in space, and it wasn’t Earth. No one had ever seen this before. Well, no one from my time, anyway. “Is it… Does it have people?”

  “Yes. I don’t know if you’d like them, but it’s populated.”

  Considering my reaction to Lupe, he might be right. I wasn’t up to aliens yet. The planet, on the other hand, was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my life, and my eyes filled with tears.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “It’s just so… Wow.”

  He took us closer, and I wanted to babble about the continents and the ocean and the amazing grandeur of it all, but I didn’t have any words to describe the turmoil of emotions.

  “Now, look here…” The little ship turned around and he let it coast. “I wanted you to see your new home.”

  Captain Jones told me the dimensions of the ship, but hearing about it and seeing it was two completely different things. The Bell was enormous.

  Chapter Six

  Days went by and I lost track of them. I had no frame of reference to time other than my friends coming and going. If I was alone and the computer kept the lights dimmed, it was probably night. If Adam was there, it was either morning or evening, and the rest of the time would reasonably be day. I found it ironically funny how the people closest to me were two computers and a cat, but hey, what do you do. I did my best not to take them for granted. They didn’t need to spend all that time with me, but I would be miserable if they didn’t.

  It took about three rings on the doorbell before I asked the computer to always let Adam in. It should probably be unnerving to have a near stranger barge into my room every morning, so early it was almost night, but it wasn’t. I even looked at myself in the mirror and said, “A man you don’t know walks in here while you’re sleeping.”

  My reflection looked back at me and came up with the answer, “If it is Adam, it’s okay. If it’s anyone else, we should panic.” Seemed like a plan. I gave up on figuring out why he did it. Sometimes it’s best to just count one’s blessings and accept life for what it is.

  Imagine my surprise when I opened my eyes one morning and he wasn’t there. No cappuccino, no croissant, no fruit, no android. “What time is it?”

  The computer answered, “It is six forty five.”

  Odd. Every day, Adam went right from the bridge to my rooms, and always arrived at 6:02 AM. If he was this late, he probably wasn’t coming.

  Maybe he tired of me. He didn’t have any obligations to spend all his free time with me. There might be other, more interesting things to do. What an unpleasant thought!

  I plodded out of bed, slipped on a robe, and stared at the person in the mirror. “You need to start taking care of yourself.”

  Not even an imaginary voice answered.

  “You can’t rely on other people to do everything for you. Go make breakfast.”

  Good advice. With such brilliant intelligence, talking to myself might be a splendid idea. Maybe I should do it more often.

  A green light blinked on the replicator unit, and I decided to regard it an invitation. “Hi computer. I would very much like a cup of coffee and a croissant, please.”

  The machine hummed to life, and presented a weird-looking piece of blue bread and a cup of liquid that smelled like chicken soup. I tasted the bread, and spit the piece out as
quickly as it entered my mouth. “This is hideous!”

  I was sure Adam used this device to feed me every morning, every evening, and sometimes in the middle of the day.

  I dumped everything in the recycling unit and tried again. “Hmm, you’re sneaky, aren’t you? You gave me the equivalent for some weird alien species. I’m human, okay. Please give me a cappuccino and a French croissant.”

  The panel hummed and I could almost taste the coffee. It gave me a grayish goo vaguely reminiscent of spoiled oatmeal. Maybe the thing was malfunctioning. This was clearly food for someone like the creepy head of security and not for humans.

  Showering and getting dressed did nothing to make the day better. I wanted to call someone, call him, but that seemed much too needy, so I walked around the room instead.

  Lacking anything better to do, I roamed over to a window and peeked out. I usually kept the blinds closed because there was too much space outside. Now, the view astounded me.

  We were near a big red planet, and it was surrounded by ships. I hurried to close the blinds again. There was clearly too much alien stuff going on out there. If I shut the window, I might also be able to shut them out of my mind.

  The Bell wasn’t moving anymore, and I hadn’t even been able to tell the difference. Shouldn’t braking affect the passengers, like in a car?

  Was this our final destination? I had assumed the ship just roamed around the galaxy. The idea of arriving somewhere never crossed my mind.

  My stomach took over. It claimed it was used to being fed by now, and it was hungry. I needed to give the replicator another try.

  I still stood in front of the machine five minutes later, cursing the thing loudly after having recycled a number of courses clearly not meant for my species. “You’re doing this on purpose. You’re throwing something random together to see if you can make me eat it.”

  My tirade cut off when I heard the door slide open. Adam came up to me and lifted an amused eyebrow.

  “What do you want it to do?”