Remnants 13 - Survival (11 page)

And so your fingers keep scratching, moving over your skin even after it’s raw and bleeding.

You can’t give up.

You itch.

And itch.

And itch.

And —

Finally, it was over.

Finally, Tate was able to reach out with her mind and take control of her body again.

She had a mouth. She could talk. “Ollie, ollie, all come free,” she whispered.

Silence.

Tate’s heart nearly stopped from fear. And then

<> Yago said.

<> Amelia asked.

And then they were all laughing.

THIS WAS A DREAM.

20,842 cycles later

Tate stood calf-deep in black goo — a sticky, oily mud that covered this entire nameless planet. Okay, it wasn’t entirely nameless. Tate called it Gooville.

She hated the tarlike stuff. Somehow it always worked its way into her boots and drenched her socks. Back on the ship, she’d have to scrub for hours to get it off, and the rotten excuse for soap Daughter produced always gave her a rash.

Still, Tate crouched down in the goo, keen for any movement. She ignored the ache in her thighs, her knees, her back, her neck. The pains had accumulated slowly over many years. They were almost like a background hum she didn’t notice anymore.

<> Yago said.

“I see it,” Tate said happily. She watched as a bug the size of her hand leisurely poked its horned face into the air like a dolphin surfacing to breathe. Its front claws looked lobsterlike as it hauled its shiny body out of the goo.

Tate pulled a camera out of her exploring suit and snapped a few photos. She couldn’t see the bug’s face from where she was standing. With effort, her knees popping, she pulled her boots loose from the clinging goo and scurried around in front of it. She wanted all the angles.

“Was the shell this shiny last time?” she asked.

<> Yago said. <>

“I’m not,” Tate said. “I remember writing down ‘dull black,’ and this definitely isn’t what I’d call dull.”

<> Yago asked doubtfully.

“It wasn’t that long ago,” Tate said.

<> Yago said.

“That long?” Tate tried to ignore how the years had begun rushing by. The speed frightened her.

<> Yago challenged with mild enthusiasm.

<> It was Amelia.

For a moment, Tate and Yago were stunned into silence.

As usual, Yago was the first to recover. <> he said warmly. <>

Tate was also pleased.

Amelia had been silent for at least ten cycles, maybe more. Tate had gotten used to her pouting over the years, of course, but the long silences still worried her. After Charlie — well, Tate didn’t understand how Amelia could bear to be silent for so long. Of course, it was still her only means of protest, of punishment.

<> Amelia said with disgust. <>

“Evolution often makes surprising moves,” Tate said patiently. She chose her words carefully, not wanting to say the wrong thing and force Amelia back into silence. “A change in the shell’s sheen could suggest a great number of adaptations —”

<what?>>
Amelia exploded. <>

“No,” Tate said wearily.

The old arguments. Amelia hadn’t wasted any time bringing them up. Tate felt a great sadness well up. Amelia was their pessimist — no, worse: their existentialist. She never let Tate lose herself in her experiments for long without pointing out how useless they all were.

<> Amelia said coldly. <>

“I don’t know,” Tate said quietly. “As many as we could find.”

<> Amelia said angrily. <>

<> Yago said, playing the role of Tate’s defender as always. <>

<<— were castaways,>> Amelia interrupted. <> Tate didn’t argue. She couldn’t.

Amelia had a point.

Tate had spent sixty years searching the universe— more than three times longer than she’d lived on Earth. She’d learned the universe was a big and empty place. The messy human civilization on Earth had been a more precious thing than anyone had ever imagined. Even Attbi had turned out to be empty, dead.

“We’ll just have to keep looking,” Tate said sadly as she began to pack up her camera and notes.

The bug had long since vanished into the goo. It might be hours before another appeared and Tate’s knees weren’t up to the wait.

<> Amelia asked, a challenging note in her voice.

<> Yago began. <>

<> Amelia burst out.

Tate sighed as she slowly made her way up the ramp and into the ship. She suddenly found herself wishing Amelia had remained silent. What was the point of going over the same ground again and again?

She preferred to look forward to a long bath. The goo was already crusting in her boots. Field-work took a lot out of her these days. Not surprising, considering she was nearing her eightieth birthday. She sat on her bed and peeled off her filthy socks.

Over the years, she’d transformed the bridge into a more human-friendly space. She’d gotten rid of some of the old Shipwright furniture and replaced it with what she needed — a bed, a bathroom. The view screens were still there and so was a chair that allowed her to control Daughter. She rarely ventured into the other parts of the ship now. It had been years, maybe even a dozen years, since she’d visited the basement.

Tate was lost in her own thoughts, hardly paying attention to Yago and Amelia’s banter Then she realized they’d grown quiet. They were waiting for her to answer a question she hadn’t heard.

“What?” she asked irritably.

<> It was Yago asking, not Amelia. Yago — who had always been her defender. Tate was stung. Yago had betrayed her. After all these years.

“We can’t go because I don’t want to go,” Tate said mulishly. She was aggravated to be having this conversation yet again. Why couldn’t they just accept the way things were?

The discussion made her feel like a petty tyrant. Yago and Amelia couldn’t do anything but nag her.

They couldn’t go anywhere she wouldn’t take them. Well, too bad. Earth wasn’t on the itinerary.

<> Yago said quietly, patiently, earnestly, <>

Tate froze in the middle of untying her boots.
This
wasn’t the old argument. Yago was taking them in a new direction. Tate stared at the floor — and then flung her boot across the room. It looped through the air and landed harmlessly.

“Why?” she yelled angrily. “Why go back there? What’s it going to prove? You — you’re hoping some green Eden is waiting for us there and it’s not, it’s not! All that’s waiting for us is devastation! It’s only been sixty years. Nothing will have changed!”

<> Yago said softly. <

after seeing all of those empty planets — to see even the relics of a civilization …>>

<> Amelia admitted. <>

“Enough,” Tate said with disgust. “This isn’t an argument, it’s nostalgia.”

<> Yago asked.

<> Amelia said simply. <>

“Well, snap out of it,” Tate said. “I said we’re not going and that’s final. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to take a bath and rest.”

<> Yago promised. <why
you don’t want to go? Are you afraid to face the — the remains of the other Remnants?>> Tate didn’t answer. “Daughter, a bath!” she roared instead.

Yago didn’t press the issue. Perhaps he guessed she’d never answer his question.

She couldn’t tell him. Telling him would mean giving up the one secret Tate had successfully kept from Yago and Amelia for all these years. Her dreams. Her dreams had kept her alive.

They’d come to her regularly for sixty years. She’d walked with the ragged bands of people thousands of times. Sometimes the dreams were indecipherable. Sometimes they were sad. But often they were hopeful. And, occasionally, she dreamed of the green Earth, of Jobs and his children, of a society born again on Earth. A dream like that could sustain her for weeks. She fed off the joy. If she went back to Earth, she’d be forced to admit that her dreams were just that — dreams.

That was never happening.

The sorrow of it would kill her.

The dream came again that very night.

One part of Tate’s mind was aware of her body, sleeping aboard Mother, the goo still caked under her fingernails. Another part of her brain was on Earth, the good green Earth.

Billy was there, looking as young and fragile and strange as he had on that day long ago when they’d gathered to board the
Mayflower.
He was holding her hand gently and leading her through a lush forest. They were barefoot. Twigs and ferns and tiny saplings broke under their feet. Leafy trees towered overhead. Tate heard crickets and birds and the chirping of chipmunks. The air was warm and moist on her skin, the thousand tones of green soothing to her eyes.

She’d never had this exact dream before.

It was lovely.

Billy led her to a clearing and Tate saw Mother. She had no sense of surprise. Her dreams were always haunted by the same elements, recombined in endless ways. Billy, the ragged band, Mother. The same pieces shuffled over and over.

This time, in this dream, Mother was nothing more than a ruined hulk, half-submerged in humus and vegetation. A huge hole was torn in her hull, exposing the bridge.

Mother crashed on Earth. That was part of the puzzle.

Billy squeezed Tate’s hand and pulled her forward. They climbed up a small crumbling embankment of soil the wind had piled up under the ship and stepped into the bridge.

Tate saw that Billy’s face was heavy with sadness. She tried to step back. She didn’t want to have a sad dream. She wanted one of the sweet, idyllic ones. But Billy shook his head vigorously and pushed her on.

Tate stepped reluctantly onto the bridge. She saw the forest was claiming Mother, burying her, hiding her Vines grew over the consoles. Mushrooms sprouted on the soft cushioning of the seats. A bird of some sort had built a messy nest of sticks above the door.

Seeing this, Tate’s chest ached with longing. The simple organisms humans took for granted, or even despised — the spores, the fungi, the bacteria — Tate had spent most of her life searching for them in the dead universe. They seemed precious to her now.

Tate turned to Billy. “How can you be sad here?” she asked. “This is glorious! This is life!”

With a heavy slowness, he nodded toward one of the Shipwright’s chairs, toward a lump or clump of

—
something
she hadn’t noticed because the bird’s nest and the mushrooms had claimed her attention.

Tate moved closer. More puzzle pieces. She wanted to understand. She, too, knew her time was short.

Some rotted colorless fabric with a darkish stain underneath. It moved faintly, undulating in an unseen breeze. Tate leaned forward and pushed the material aside.

A body. A human body. Two arms, two legs, a head.

Dead.

Tate stepped back, her hands hovering in front of her mouth.

Someone had died sitting in one of the Shipwright’s chairs on Mother’s bridge. Nobody had come to claim the body. Nobody had slipped it back into the Earth and hid It out of sight. What was that?

Tate caught sight of something gray, coarse, fuzzy. It looked like hair It looked like
her
hair, her nearly eighty-year-old hair No. No, it couldn’t be.

One of the band. That had to be it. One of the band had gotten onto the ship and died. Of course, none of the people she had dreamed about had kinky hair like hers. None of them were African or African American. But — so what!

This was a dream. Mother wasn’t on Earth. She hadn’t crashed. Tate couldn’t possibly be looking at her own final resting place. She turned to flee. She didn’t want to contemplate her own corpse.

Billy was right behind her. Tate stopped running when she realized he was moving toward the corpse. She recoiled as he leaned over it and gently pressed his lips to its skull.

“Thank you, Tate,” he whispered. “You were always the most generous of the Remnants.”