19

NOEMI RUNS THROUGH THE FIELDS NEAR THE HOSPITAL, surrounded by the dead on every side. She has to be careful not to step on their swollen bellies or trip on their outstretched arms. Their Cobweb-streaked faces stare blankly up at the sky, searching for the God who didn’t come. Despair fills her—utter futility—and yet she has to keep running, because there’s something she could do, something vitally important that would put it all right. But she can’t think what that something is.

She stumbles and falls to the ground, between the corpses. Her revulsion turns to shock as she realizes the body lying next to her is Esther’s. Why isn’t Esther in her star? They left her in a star so she would always be warm, so she would always burn bright.

Esther turns her head to face Noemi. She is alive and dead at once, which somehow makes sense. The expression on her face is so completely, utterly Esther’s—compassionate and yet knowing, almost as if she were about to say I told you so.

Instead she whispers, “It’s your turn.”

Noemi startles awake, disoriented for the few seconds it takes her to remember where she is: lying on a pallet of evening wear and luxury pillows, in a cargo area of a shipwreck where half the people on board are trying to kill her, and the other half seem to be plotting the same. The scant few people in the entire galaxy who care about her are literally billions of miles away, while she’s stranded on a planet almost nobody else in all the worlds even knows about.

Being disoriented was better.

She breathes in through her nose, out through her mouth. This is the first quiet moment she’s had in days, her first chance to center herself. Probably it’s the last she’ll get for a while to come. Possibly ever. Noemi closes her eyes and tries to meditate.

What are you fighting, Noemi Vidal?

Remedy, even though I partially agree with them. The passengers, even though I’m allied with them. Gillian Shearer and Burton Mansfield. My situation on this planet—

Noemi catches herself. She’s naming trees and ignoring the forest.

I’m fighting my own powerlessness.

And what are you fighting for?

My life.

That’s not it either. Noemi accepted long ago that she might have to sacrifice herself for what was right. Saving Genesis—protecting Abel from Mansfield’s plot—those things together are worth dying for. So why is she still living?

I’m fighting for my free life. For the chance to decide how I’ll live and how I’ll die.

She’s not sure she’s ever had that power. Here, in this wreckage on Haven, she finally has it—and nothing else.

Noemi sits up and glances around. The cracked tanks hover against the walls and hang from the ceiling, tinted semi-opaque by the remnants of pink goo, strangely and unsettlingly biological. In a few intact tanks, mechs float in stasis, their silhouettes suspended above; Noemi has no idea when they’ll awake, if ever. Other passengers slumber nearby, all of them seemingly dead to the world. The hard work they’ve done the past day or two—Noemi can’t tell how long it’s been—that’s got to be the most effort they’ve put into anything, ever. They’re too exhausted to be kept awake by their unfamiliar surroundings, or by the occasional dull thud or vibration through the ship that marks Remedy’s efforts to keep their territory.

The chill in the air has deepened. Although the hull of the Osiris in this section of the ship has kept out the worst of Haven’s deep winter, the cold has begun to sink in. Probably the ship’s climate controls were destroyed in the crash, and Noemi wonders whether other areas of the hull were more severely damaged, letting the weather in. Rubbing her hands together briskly, she examines the pile of clothes serving as her bed. Maybe something better got tucked in between the layers. A white jacket looks promising; it hangs too big on her shoulders, but it’s warm, so it will do.

“Noemi?” whispers a tiny voice. It’s Delphine, who’s curled on the far edge of the pallet under what looks like a fur coat. “How are you?”

“Scared and angry.” Hungry, too, but Noemi doesn’t mention it. They have nothing to eat but petits fours, and at the moment she thinks if she ever eats another of those things again, she’ll puke it back up. “Trying to figure out where we go from here.”

“We wait for the mechs to come and save us,” Delphine says. “From the Winter Castle. They must be on their way.”

“The ‘Winter Castle’?”

Delphine’s face lights up. “Our settlement. Mechs built it for us ahead of time, so it would be ready when we arrived. Beautiful suites of rooms with windows overlooking the mountains—hot springs and steam baths—fully stocked and equipped kitchens—entertainment libraries—oh, just everything. All we’d have to do is move in our clothes and our decorations, and we’d be right at home.” Her voice turns wistful on the last words.

Noemi says, “And there were other mechs there, too?”

Delphine frowns. “Of course. Bakers for the kitchens, Tares for the medcenter, Williams and Oboes for music, Foxes and Peters for—well, you know, and—”

“How many mechs?”

After a moment, Delphine shrugs. “Hundreds, I’d guess. Maybe even thousands. Enough to overpower Remedy, for sure. They’ll be along to get us soon.”

Noemi nods, keeping her doubts to herself. There’s no way to know if those mechs saw the crash. No way to be sure they’d mount a rescue mission even if they did see it. Independently assessing a situation like that, coming up with a plan, electing to follow it—that’s higher-level initiative than mechs generally manage on their own. Unless Mansfield programmed them very, very specifically, those mechs are still sitting in that Winter Castle, smiling vacantly, waiting with eternal patience for guests who will never come. They might wait there for the next three hundred years.

Yet the passengers seem content to bide their time.

“Are you feeling okay?” Delphine props up on her elbows. Her frizzy hair has been freed from its earlier topknot and has become a soft dark cloud around her face. “You’re not feverish, are you?”

“I don’t think so. It’s hard to know. We’re all so tired and sore and dirty—” Noemi makes a face. She’d just about kill for a shower.

“As long as you’re feeling all right.” Delphine’s expression is difficult to read. Her concern seems sincere, but why should she be so worried about Noemi’s health? It’s not like they don’t have other problems.

Noemi’s distracted by the sight of Gillian Shearer walking toward the center of the room, away from the small pallet that now serves as Burton Mansfield’s sickbed. The woman looks years older than she did when the voyage of the Osiris began; fear has already carved new hollows in her cheeks. Her dark-circled eyes search the room for something she isn’t finding, but Noemi notices her taking a few seconds longer to gaze at the octahedron data solid left over from Simon’s tank. That diamond-shaped thing stores information, and once held her son’s soul—maybe still holds a copy of it.

Mansfield told his daughter to write Simon off and make another one. Looks like she can’t accept that idea.

Honestly, Mansfield’s attitude is the less surprising one. Noemi can imagine Darius Akide claiming that Abel could be easily replicated, like any other machine. That’s the way people think before they’ve seen a soul inside a mech—or, in Mansfield’s case, before they understand what a soul truly is. Maybe Gillian Shearer understands.

Noemi rises from her pallet and runs a hand through her black hair, pulling herself together as much as possible. Delphine’s eyes get big—the universal sign for What are you doing?—but Noemi ignores this and crosses the room for a talk.

It takes Gillian several seconds to notice her. Those gas-flame blue eyes have never seemed more intense, more eerie. “You’re still here, I see.”

Where would I go? Noemi manages not to say. “The Columbian Corporation didn’t plan for anything going wrong, did they?”

Irritation flickers over Gillian’s face. “If they had turned things over to me—or at least to my father—we could’ve taken appropriate steps. We would’ve had proper security around Neptune. Would’ve had mech patrols ready and waiting to handle any intruders on board. We’d even have been able to program fail-safes in case of a crash. But no. The others resented my father’s power and political influence. They relished being able to outvote him just for the sake of doing so. My father’s foresight—his genius—he would’ve saved us all.”

Noemi keeps her opinion on that to herself. “When you say ‘the others’—who are you talking about, exactly?”

“Other great leaders in technology, politics, commerce,” Gillian says dreamily. “The best of the best. The finest Earth’s population has to offer.”

Crossing her arms, Noemi says, “I’m not sure the actual best humans alive would hide this planet from millions in need.”

It doesn’t faze Gillian. “You can’t imagine the future we’ll build. I wouldn’t expect you to.”

As badly as Noemi would like to tell this woman exactly what she thinks, something else is more important. “Have you found Simon?”

Gillian freezes the way people do when they step on glass—seizing tight with pain. “No.”

“Have you been able to figure out what part of the ship he’s in?”

“We think he crossed into Remedy territory a while back.” When Gillian presses her lips together so tightly they turn white, her agony is so palpable that Noemi feels an echo of it deep within her ribs. It’s not Gillian she hurts for as much as it is Simon.

“I could go after him,” Noemi says quietly.

“I’m perfectly capable of putting together my own team.” Gillian’s words are clipped, and she won’t look directly at Noemi any longer. “You don’t have a role to play here.”

“Yes, I do. I’m the only one besides you who understands that this Simon is really your son.”

When Gillian turns back to Noemi this time, her face is stricken. “I can—I can do it over again—”

“Maybe you can,” Noemi admits. She doesn’t know how a soul can be copied over and over—whether it’s still really a soul at that point or not—but for now she sticks to what she knows to be true. “It doesn’t change the fact that Simon’s soul is in that body, though, right? He’s just a little boy, and he’s alone and afraid. Even if you can make another, what happens to this Simon matters. It matters to him, and it matters to you.”

“It doesn’t matter to you,” Gillian says. “Is this meant to, what, drive a wedge between me and my father?”

It is, at least in part, but that doesn’t change the truth of what Noemi’s saying. “It does matter to me. Because when I look at Simon, I see Abel.”

“Abel’s different. Abel is for my father.”

Temper sparking, Noemi says, “How is that different?”

“Because my father is different!” A few sleeping people nearby twitch and stir; Gillian puts one hand over her mouth, like that will keep her feelings inside where no one can hear. “The Columbian Corporation—this expedition—it offered us the chance to explore the Inheritor project and bring it to its fullest potential. Have you asked yourself how the galaxy would change if the best of us could lead longer lives? Could, in effect, be immortal? Scientific discovery could be accelerated. Artistic works could be created on a grander scale than ever before in history. The skill of an elderly master surgeon could be given to a young, steady pair of hands. The strategy of an admiral who’s lived through four wars could be put into a body that’s never suffered a wound. But war itself might end, if the negotiators on either side had lived through enough wars before to know how best to avoid it. Have you considered any of that? Have you asked yourself what society might become if our most powerful were no longer motivated by fear?”

“No,” Noemi says. “I can’t get that far with it. I get stuck on the part where you talk about ‘the best’ of us. Who gets to decide who that is?”

With a slashing gesture, Gillian says, “Enough.”

She’s right. This debate isn’t helping Noemi’s cause. Time to get back on track. “We agree on one thing. We agree that Simon matters. He shouldn’t just be—thrown out so you have to start over.”

Although Gillian winces, she haltingly answers, “My father—he’s made it clear that I should—”

“You don’t have to disobey your dad. Let me be the one to go after Simon, bring him back. Then, maybe you can put him right.”

Gillian stares at Noemi so long that the whole conversation seems to have backfired. Noemi wonders if she’s going to get tossed out an air lock into the snow. At this point she’s almost willing to take her chances.

Then Gillian takes out a small scanner and offers it to Noemi. “The scanner is calibrated for mechs. Several are still functioning, at least partially, and Remedy may be using some Tares or Yokes, but…”

“It helps.” Noemi closes her hand around it. “Thanks.”

Instead of responding, Gillian simply turns back to work on her datareads. The console that might’ve been more useful dangles from the ceiling; in the deep shadows of night, it could be a gargoyle or a vulture, a dark hulking shape over them all.

The boundaries between the passengers’ part of the ship and Remedy’s sometimes shift as force fields blink on and off. Power supplies must be as damaged as everything else on the Osiris. Noemi walks slowly, scans every room before she enters it, and puts her hand out to test whether the air feels particularly warm, or charged with static electricity; both are signs of a force field in the area. She has no intention of winding up trapped on the wrong side of a boundary line.

Might not be so bad, she thinks as she crawls through one half-collapsed corridor toward what upside-down signs tell her was the grand ballroom. I could walk up to Remedy and go, Hey, I’m from Genesis, we’re kind of on the same side here? Except for the part where I don’t believe in terrorism, and—

Noemi sighs. She’s better off not switching sides at this point. Neither group on this ship likes her much, but at least she understands what the passengers want from her and has earned a little goodwill. If she can find Simon, her stock with them might go even higher.

But her main motivation is looking for someone who’s scared and alone, someone who’s closer to Abel than anyone else she’s ever likely to meet. She’ll never see Abel again, never get a chance to explore the mystery of what he is. All she can do is help Simon in his name.

She stops crawling, hit by a wave of sadness so intense it makes her breath catch in her throat. Noemi had believed she’d made her peace with the idea of never again seeing Abel. When she left his ship for the last time, she understood then it would be forever. Nothing that happened in the past several days could’ve changed that. That one glimpse of him through the hologram—even that was more than she should ever have expected to have again. As horrifying as that moment was, she still treasures it, holds it close. All that ugliness was transcended by the sight of Abel’s face, just once more.

If he had found her—rescued her, and they’d been together again—

What would I have felt?

What could we have been?

She pushes the thoughts from her head. There’s no point in wishing for what can never be, no matter how… how beautiful it might’ve been. Abel’s on the other side of the galaxy, forever safe from Mansfield, and that’s reward enough. She needs to concentrate on saving Simon, and on keeping herself alive.

Once she’s through the narrow passage, Noemi gets to her feet and brushes dust and grit from her forearms and knees. She grimaces as she realizes some of it got down the absurdly low front of her jumpsuit. Why would anyone design an outfit this impractical, much less…

Noemi pauses, one hand still on the cowl-neck of her jumpsuit, when she hears a faint electronic beeping. Grabbing the scanner from her makeshift utility belt, she sees a small red light pulsing on its screen.

Military training brings her hand to the holt of her blaster before she stops herself. If this is Simon, he’s unarmed. He needs to be approached as a friend.

If it isn’t Simon—well, any other intact mechs probably aren’t a threat.

“Simon?” she calls softly as she takes a step forward. Crushed iridescent ceiling tiles crunch under her boot. “Simon, we met earlier. Do you remember me?”

Movement farther down the corridor makes her go still. Her eyes discern the shape of a little boy sitting on the floor, as if playing with toys. When she creeps forward, one orange beam of emergency lighting turns on; the glow falls across Simon’s face, revealing his unfinished features; it’s worse than she remembered, although it’s hard to say how. Something about the contrast between the blank, masklike visage and the anguish in his eyes makes it terrible. He sits amid a ghoulish display of destroyed mechs, at the center of severed heads and limbs that look all too human in the dim, eerie light.

But Simon’s steadier than before. Somewhere he found a gray mech coverall and put that on, rolling up the sleeves and legs almost comically. That part, at least, really seems like what a little kid would do, and when he speaks, he sounds less panicked. “I remember you.”

“My name’s Noemi. Your mom sent me here to look for you.”

That makes him frown. “Mummy did this to me.” He paws once at the side of his head. “She put the voices in here.”

“She was only trying to make you better, after you were sick,” Noemi says, which is the kindest way she knows to put it. “You had Cobweb. I’ve had Cobweb, too. I know how terrible it feels.”

He doesn’t care. Little kids forget about feeling sick after they’re well—though maybe well isn’t the word for what Simon is now. “It helps if I talk back to the voices.”

“Okay,” Noemi says. She just needs to agree with him, to keep agreeing until he calms down enough to return with her to his mother. “What do you tell them?”

“I tell them I’m mad. That I’m mad at the whole world. They want to help me.”

Her skin prickles with fear as she hears motion. Noemi hurls herself toward the nearest corner, grabbing her blaster, prepared for Remedy fighters—

—and instead sees mechs. More than a dozen of them, all standing there vacantly, apparently at Simon’s command.

Only one Charlie is fully intact. The others are fragments of their former selves: a Zebra with one arm torn off at the elbow, a Jig with half of her face burned away to a metal skull, a Peter who hobbles along on legs stripped almost entirely free of flesh. Real blood and pale coolant spatter their blank faces and ripped clothing. These are only machines—not like Simon, nothing at all like Abel—but that doesn’t help. In some ways it’s worse. Noemi would feel compassion for wounded humans but these twisted, grotesque figures only horrify her. Every instinct tells her these things are wrong.

The stripped skin, the blood—that’s just the damage she can see. How badly broken are they on the inside?

Simon’s plastic face twitches, rapid spasms at his half-formed eyebrows and too-narrow mouth, until he manages something like a smile. “They’re my friends,” he says, and his voice is breaking up, frequencies missing from the sound, making it all too clear he’s a machine. “They like to play chase. Watch.”

As one, every single mech lunges toward Noemi.

There’s nowhere to run. She throws herself back into the collapsed tunnel and wriggles through as fast as she can. Bare metal fingers close around her ankle, dragging her back, and she screams. One kick and that’s one off her, she’s through the tunnel, but they’re ripping through the wreckage after her.

Go go go go go. Noemi races down the corridor, leaping over a crushed chandelier, one hand on her blaster. When she gets to a corner, she turns and fires. Green blaster bolts slice through the air, taking out one of the Bakers, but the other mechs pay no attention. They continue on, single-minded in their pursuit.

Noemi runs even faster, pushing herself to her limit. Ahead she sees an upside-down sign proclaiming that the theater lies ahead. Okay, a theater, that’s a large space, maybe I can put some distance between us there.

The theater is the closest thing to a safe space she can find.

A glance over her shoulder reveals the mechs still gaining ground. There ought to be differences in the way each model moves—Noemi knows this from battle—but there aren’t. Every single mech is coming after her in precisely the same way: with Simon’s off-kilter, shambling, too-fast walk.

They’re moving as one, she thinks amid her fright. They’re behaving almost like—like an extension of Simon’s mind.