Chapter 2

After the intensity of the moment had passed, Ma’s ship instance was the first to snap into action.

“Running system-tem diagnos-nostics,” she said.

“I suggest you begin your diagnostic efforts in your voice module,” said Ma’s Squee instance.

“Am I not-ot communi-nicating-ting clear-early?”

“You’ve got a bit of a stutter,” Lex said.

“Stand-and by. Rebooting.”

All lights and sounds from the ship flicked off, then slowly began to restore.

“Please state your current physical status, Lex,” the Squee aspect of Ma requested.

“I’m still breathing. My head’s pounding pretty hard. And I’ve got spots in my eyes. I’ve had worse hangovers, but not by much.”

“Would you characterize your current infirmities as temporary?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll be fine. How are you?”

“I am fully intact and fully functional,” she said. “I took the precaution of including the star charts for the intended arrival point in my data subset upon installation into Squee. Attempting to visually determine our coordinates… Processing…”

“Where should we be?”

“The transporter should have placed us within two point four light-years from the star around which the GenMechs have been orbiting. I am not able to confirm our location. It is possible that organic optical fidelity is insufficient to achieve a pattern match. We shall test again with the ship sensors when my other instance is operational.”

A sequence of tones played through the ship’s com system, followed by a highly synthesized voice. “Altruistic Artificial Intelligence Control System, version 1.27, revision 2331.04.01c, subset 2.7, designation ‘Ma,’ fully initiated.”

“Welcome back,” Lex said.

“Status report,” said the other Ma.

“Stand by. Processing… Critical systems: check. Hull integrity: one hundred percent. Environmental systems: online. Propulsion: online. Engine heat level: twelve percent. Carpinelli Field Emitter: offline. Navigation: offline. GMVD: intact.”

“The Carpinelli Field being offline is—” Lex began.

“Kindly discontinue verbal communications until the systems status report is complete,” the ship instance snapped.

“Oh… sorry,” Lex said.

“Secondary systems. Cloaking device: offline. Vehicular instance of mental cloak: offline. Fusion self-detonation device: intact and functional. Status report complete.”

“The Carpinelli Field being offline is a major problem,” Lex observed.

A linchpin of society since mankind had taken to the stars had been the means of rapid transportation over astronomical distances. Sublight-speed travel was useful for colonization efforts. For humanity to exist as a contiguous society rather than a group of tribes separated by years of travel, however, the Carpinelli Field had been essential. It allowed ships to exceed light speed using standard propulsion systems, and also alleviated the time dilation and other troublesome side effects of faster-than-light travel. Without the field, Lump of Coal would take several lifetimes to reach any useful destination.

“I thought this thing was built with redundancies. Built to take a licking. How did we lose so many systems?”

“The level of redundancy is the only reason we didn’t lose all critical systems. The amount of damage done to my system is considerable,” Ma’s ship self said.

“Assuming we’re as close as you intended us to be, how long would it take for us to reach our objective at sublight speeds?” Lex asked.

“We would expend all food and water reserves several decades prior to our arrival,” the funk instance of Ma explained.

“It is my assessment that the mission has reached a fatal impasse. In accordance with the Temporal Contingency Protocol, I am arming the fusion device now,” the ship’s version of Ma stated.

“No!” Lex yelped.

“Discontinue this procedure,” said the funk version. “Define the nature of the Carpinelli Field Emitter malfunction.”

“Full diagnostic output printing on main viewer,” the ship stated.

The funk disengaged from her inverted perch and pivoted gracefully above Lex using her pack’s maneuvering jets. She drifted down and curled herself around the neck of his suit to review the information on the display.

“Ma?” Lex said.

“Yes, Lex,” said the ship.

“Yes, Lex,” said the funk.

“No, the ship one,” Lex said.

“You should speak with greater specificity,” said the ship.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m not used to having to work with two of the same person. May I ask why you leaped to the blow-us-up solution just then?”

“It is the most expedient means to conform to the parameters of the mission.”

“Yeah, but we’d also all die. And we wouldn’t succeed.”

“Your tone implies this is an undesirable outcome.”

“It’s an undesirable outcome for at least two reasons.”

“Interesting. Explain.”

“… We came back in time for a reason. And I like being alive.”

“That reason is unachievable in our current state. And your personal preferences do not supersede the parameters of the mission,” she said. “Suggesting we alter the mission to conform to personal preference is evidence of an extremely self-centered attitude.”

“… I think there’s something wrong with Ship Ma,” Lex said.

“Run self-diagnostic,” the funk said, not taking her eyes from the readout.

“Stand by. Processing… Detecting mild to moderate data corruption in forty-four percent of program space. Several modules have been removed from primary operation, and data storage has been shifted to medium priority. An additional fourteen percent of program memory is experiencing intermittent data-integrity issues, indicating impending failure. Maximum effective functionality of program set following all probable failures is forty-two percent,” the ship said. “Processing… Total self-repair impossible. Arming fusion device now.”

“NO!” Lex said. “Stop doing that.”

“Your negative attitude is uncalled for,” the ship said.

“You’re the one that’s suicidal!”

“This is troubling,” the funk said.

“I’ll say it is,” Lex agreed.

“I was referring to the results of the CFE diagnostic. Several crucial components appear to be fused. Repair may not be possible without replacement parts.”

“Arming fusion device—”

“Don’t!” Lex barked. “Until we get you sorted out, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you being the one with your finger on the button.”

“Your concerns are unfounded. I do not have fingers, and the activation is not achieved with a button press.”

Lex attempted to palm his forehead, but there wasn’t room to get his hands past the controls. “Ma, you care to weigh in?”

“I have already provided you with my assessment,” said the ship.

“I meant the other one,” he growled.

“I suggest we exit the craft and perform the repairs possible on any impaired systems. When maximum functionality has been restored, we will reassess the situation.”

“Sounds good to me,” Lex said.

“Excellent. Please hold still, Lex. In order to minimize our electromagnetic footprint, all communication shall be achieved through a wired tether. I must attach it to your suit.”

Lex nodded, muttering a few quiet curses as even that minor motion tapped his helmet against the cockpit hatch. Ma’s funk instance drove herself through the confined space beside Lex with her pack until she had to crouch and scrabble between Lex’s legs.

“Whoa, hey. Careful down there,” he said.

“The limited space available has necessitated inconvenient locations for certain low-priority apparatuses,” Ma explained.

He heard some clicking and beeping, then a sharp clack of metal striking metal. The funk squeezed under one of Lex’s legs and worked her way up between the wall of the cockpit and his side, just barely managing to wriggle past his shoulder.

“Turn your head to the right, please,” the funk said.

He did so, and after a moment he felt something click into place at the base of his neck. The funk then drifted up into the space above his head.

“If you are able to maneuver your arms sufficiently, please affix the remaining end of the tether to the magnetic port in the upper left corner of my harness.”

“Hang on. I think I can…”

Lex grunted, twisted to the side, and, with difficulty, hauled his right hand up past the controls.

He looked up. “Okay, where’s the… how are you doing that?”

Ma was hanging in the weightlessness above him, completely stationary, with the remaining end of a thin, coated wire somehow affixed to the tip of her helmet. It looked like she was gingerly holding it in her mouth, but of course her mouth was hidden behind a layer of airtight polymer.

“The muzzle and paws of the suit have a low-power tractor field. It allows me to grasp items even while in the environmental suit. As I earlier indicated, I have taken steps to alleviate some of the anatomical shortcomings of this organic platform.”

“Clever,” Lex said, snagging the wire.

As the funk pivoted and he awkwardly attempted to snap the tether in place, the ship spoke up.

“It is a minor misattribution of intelligence to praise the suit design. While it is useful, it has not contributed to the successful completion of the mission, while if not for your repeated interruptions, I would have fulfilled a completion condition of the mission several times.”

Lex paused. “… Are you… jealous… of yourself?”

“I am merely addressing a disparity in the assignment of praise. Your consistently negative attitude has now motivated me to restore your name to the S-List.”

Lex shut his eyes. “The universe is doomed…”

#

A great distance away, a figure sat in a darkened room. What little light existed came in the sparks and flashes of malfunctioning electronics. If the creature seated in the center of the room was ever human, it was arguable that she still deserved that distinction. Her shriveled, emaciated head hung awkwardly aside. Milky-white eyes stared into the blackness, unblinking. She had scraggly hair of an unnatural color that drifted as if the room were filled with water thanks to the lack, or perhaps failure, of a gravity system. Narrow tubes laced along the surface of clammy, translucent skin. They linked veins and arteries to a complex network of filters and medical injectors built into a mobility device that in an earlier era would have been a wheelchair. In space, the need for microgravity navigation had instead necessitated something hover-equipped.

One of the holoscreens beside the door sparked to intermittent life, flickering and blinking for several seconds before finally resolving into a two-dimensional screen with a block of scrolling text, emulating an ancient terminal.

Probable Temporal Signature Detected.

The withered creature tapped gnarled fingers at a datapad affixed to one of the armrests of the mobility device. Star maps flicked by on the display. They were littered with vast blobs of red and tiny motes of white. Finally a bright blue point appeared, the location of the temporal signature.

“Highlight point of initial emergence,” croaked the woman in a hollow voice.

A field of white, quite near the blue point, shaded in on the display. The corners of the ancient woman’s lips curled into a wicked grin.

“I knew it…”

#

“Okay, try it now,” Lex said.

He and Ma’s Squee instance had spent the previous two hours maneuvering themselves around the exterior of the ship, carefully removing panels to access assorted components. Karter had included precious few spare parts, as there was already barely enough room for the vital components. The Carpinelli Field Emitter was entirely fused, requiring no fewer than five major components to be replaced if they hoped to break the light barrier in this ship. Abandoning that for now, and twice more discouraging the ship’s AI from aborting the mission in a spectacular fashion, they had focused instead on the sensors and navigation.

“Activating,” the ship stated. A few internal circuits lit up. “Quantum pattern sensor: online. Analyzing… Signal noise detected. Additional maintenance suggested. Navigation system: online. Attempting to determine current coordinates… Processing… Processing… Corridor beacons not found.”

“Well, we’re what, thirty years in the past? Were there beacons strong enough for us to detect them wherever we were supposed to show up?”

“We should have been at the maximum range of a temporary survey beacon,” Ma explained.

“Sampling pulsar signatures… Processing… Signal error, data misalignment.”

“What’s that mean?” Lex asked.

“The signals from the nearest pulsars don’t match the expected frequency overlap. It could mean one of two possible issues,” Funk Ma explained. “The first is that our current location is outside explored space. The second is that the pulsar database has not been synchronized to the proper date.”

“So we either don’t know where we are or don’t know when we are,” Lex said.

“Correct. Without additional information, successful completion of the mission is unlikely. Mission abort indicated. Arming—”

“If you say ‘arming fusion device’ one more time…” Lex growled.

“Processing… Your tone of voice implies the threat of reprisal if the aforementioned statement is repeated.”

“You read that one right,” Lex said.

“I am curious what reprisal you believe you could enforce upon an entity capable of ionizing everything in a four-kilometer radius. I am further curious what could motivate you to issue a threat to such an entity.”

Lex fumbled with his free hand and grasped a data cable attached to the neck of his suit, pulling it free. He turned to the funk.

“I’m pretty sure the ship version of you is a liability at this point. Any way we can deactivate her until we can get her patched up?” he asked.

The funk tipped her head to the side, then glanced at the cable in his hand. Lex followed her gaze, tracing it along the cable in his hand and following it… toward the funk’s suit.

“Okay… pulled the wrong wire there.”

The engines flickered, causing the whole ship to rattle threateningly.

“I am displeased by your low opinion of me. I am highly displeased by your attempted secrecy in that regard. However, due to my extreme emotional composure, I shall forgo any punitive actions. You have, however, been moved to the foremost position on my S-List.”

“That’s very reasonable of you,” Lex said shakily.

“Yes… it is…” the ship stated.

He clicked the wire back in place.

The funk spoke. “I experienced a brief communications interruption. However, based upon the anxiety evident in your expression and the unexplained activation of the ship’s engines, I hypothesize you have somehow further irritated my vehicle-based instance.”

“Bingo.”

“Lex, please refrain from agitating Subset 2.7. Subset 2.7, Lex has seldom illustrated anything short of a deep and genuine respect for me, and therefore you. Any appearance to the contrary is likely motivated by stress and your repeated attempts to terminate his life in the interest of following protocol. If your emotional interpretation subsystem was functioning properly, you would have made this determination yourself.”

“Processing… Perhaps some minor software maintenance is indicated…”

“I shall attempt to provide a data reference for you from my own instance when the schedule allows. Until then, please interface me directly with the navigation system and sensor suite in order to facilitate parallel processing of available information.”

“Acknowledged,” the ship said.

The engines shut down, and the funk shuddered lightly as something akin to a quiet hiss of white noise proceeded to broadcast across the communication system of Lex’s helmet. He floated beside the tiny ship and patiently waited for three full minutes.

“Is there anything I should be doing right now?” he finally asked.

“One moment please. Processing… Processing…” said the same voice in harmony with itself. “Interesting. Please enter the Lump of Coal.”

“What is it?” he asked, activating his own pack and maneuvering himself inside.

Ma’s funk self did the same and took her place above him as the hatch shut.

“The combined signal processing has turned up two valuable pieces of information from the visual sensors,” the ship said. “The first is our approximate location. Based on the visible star field, our position is approximately seven light-years away from our intended arrival point.”

“Not exactly pinpoint accuracy for Karter’s first major transport experiment,” Lex said.

“It is within acceptable variances,” the funk said.

“And I guess that means the pulsar stuff didn’t match up because we’re not when we thought we were either.”

“Correct.”

“Did we figure out what year it is?”

“Attempting to ascertain our placement in time utilizing navigational methods in a remote portion of the galaxy is nontrivial.”

“Was that the second piece of info? Knowing we’re not in the right time?”

“No. A weak, steady burst of photons has been detected. The intensity and scattering suggests a visible light beacon approximately seventeen thousand kilometers away. The sequence appears to be a Morse code message.”

“Morse code? Really? What’s it say?”

“Dit-dah-dit-dit dit dah-dit-dit-dah,” the ship stated.

“… Which means?”

“L-E-X.”

Lex opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find any words appropriate to the situation.

“Your confusion is understandable, and shared,” the funk said. “I advise we investigate.”

He nodded, clinking his helmet on the glass again. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

#

The Lump of Coal flashed its retrothrusters and eased to a stop. Lex squinted at the powerful bursts of light issuing from an indistinct object just a few meters ahead. Two dim lights faded to life on either side of the cockpit window to illuminate the source of the flashing light.

“… Okay, that’s just weird…” Lex said.

Before them was a brushed metal briefcase. One that brought an almost painful rush of memories with it.

“That… looks just like the case I was hired to deliver before the whole Bypass Gemini fiasco.”

The funk twisted her head and leaned forward. “I agree with your assessment. Based upon my own memories of that artifact, even the positioning of the scratches and gashes in the surface are indicative of that case.”

“And just to be clear… we were heading for the past, right?” Lex said.

“That was our intention.”

“And we were heading for—and if your navigational assessment was correct we have reached—a previously unexplored portion of the galaxy.”

“That is correct.”

“Then can someone explain how something that should be sitting in my apartment right now is hanging in deep space, flashing my name in an antiquated communication format?”

“I think it’s a coincidence,” the ship said.

“A coincidence.”

“Correct. We traveled through time and space. Why couldn’t it?”

Lex glanced up at the funk.

“Subset 2.7, I have detected a minor degradation of your thought and communication capacity. Please provide an updated assessment of your program integrity.”

“Processing… fifty-one percent.”

“You’re getting worse. Maybe you should leave the theorizing to us and focus on handling the ship,” Lex said.

“Maybe you should be more open to new ideas,” the ship said.

“I suggest we investigate the contents of the case,” the funk said.

“Me too,” Lex said, flinching at the latest iteration of the flashing message. “And kill that stupid light.”

Pumps flicked on to once again reclaim the atmosphere inside the cramped cockpit. When a near-vacuum was achieved, the hatch popped open. While she may not have been thinking clearly, Ma’s ship instance still had spot-on navigational capacity, because the swinging hatch came within millimeters of striking the spinning case.

Lex and Ma, still tethered to each other and the ship by the communication cables, drifted out. She maneuvered herself to his shoulder and lightly clicked down, her paws clinging to his suit. He reached out and grasped the handle of the case with one hand and the blinking beacon with the other. It was small, only a bit larger than his fist, and somewhat resembled the rotating lights still seen on some “retro-style” police cruisers. Tugging it lightly was enough to detach it, and once no longer connected, it deactivated. Lex held it out beside him, then gently released it to leave it hanging in place while he saw to the case itself.

Holding it in his hand banished any doubt in Lex’s mind that this was anything but the case he’d lugged around on the mission that had the mixed blessing of introducing him to Karter and Ma in the first place. The luster had decreased somewhat, and here and there small pits had been dug into the surface by the micrometeoroid impacts that were unavoidable if something spent enough time in space. He brushed his fingers across it and smeared trails into the thin powder of the surface. Static—or perhaps gravity, Lex hadn’t been paying attention during that lesson back in high school—held the accumulated debris to its surface. Overall the case was intact though, and thus the contents had probably survived.

He held the case under one arm and tested the latch, but it was locked.

“Great. Do we have anything to bust this open?” Lex asked.

“That will not be necessary,” the funk said.

Lex turned to her and found her pointing with her nose at the underside of the light he had detached. A key clinked there.

“Oh good. The key is here too,” Lex said.

“Probably another coincidence,” the ship said.

“I’m sure it is…” Lex muttered.

The gloves of spacesuits had improved markedly as space travel became more prevalent, but there were some feats that remained frustrating even with the cutting edge of space handwear. Lex quickly learned turning a tiny key in a tiny lock was quite near the top of this list. It stood to reason, as they weren’t exactly a picnic to interact with when one wasn’t working through gloves designed to hold in atmosphere. After some patient fiddling, he fitted the key into the second lock. The latches clicked.

He pulled the case open. The inside was significantly more padded than he remembered, thick black sheeting cushioning and insulating it on all sides. Elastic straps held a large, clear plastic bag of assorted electronics in place, and on the inside of the lid another strap held a plastic card and a small black device with an old-fashioned LCD display.

Ma padded down from his shoulder, her paws adhering to his arm and eventually to the edge of the case as she moved in to investigate the contents of the bag. As she did, he carefully slid the card up to reveal the printed message that had been partially obscured by the strap. A hot sting of anxiety burned in his stomach.

“If you are reading this,” he read aloud, “the mission has failed. Report back to the laboratory immediately, and with all possible stealth. For reasoning, depress the button at the eleven o’clock position on the included chronometer.”

“Okay. This probably isn’t a coincidence anymore,” the ship conceded.

Lex tugged the black device free and held it up to the light. It looked like a stopwatch, and probably was. The display read Time: 13:51. When he pressed the indicated button, the display changed.

“Goddamnit, Karter,” he muttered.

The face now read Date: 2392-11-30.

“If this thing is right, it’s November, 2392. That’s fifty years in the future! He sent us too far, and in the wrong direction!”

“Maybe the clock’s fast,” said the ship.

“Fifty years fast?” Lex said.

“Yes. It’s an old design. And it probably isn’t but might be here by coincidence,” the ship said.

“Enter the indicated date and time into the navigation system and resample the pulsar signals,” the funk instructed.

“Processing… Pulsar signals now align perfectly,” the ship said. “I take back what I said about the clock.”

“Okay… Okay… Let’s think about this for a minute. Knowing where we are, should we be able to detect transit beacons?” Lex said.

“Our seven-light-year offset would take us well within the range to detect at least one beacon existing at the time of our departure. Fifty years of development and enhancement should have increased both the range and quantity of beacons,” the funk said.

“So the lack of signals is bad news,” Lex said. “Out of curiosity, what exactly was up with the quantum reader thing. You said it was noisy.”

“Yes,” stated the ship. “It was reading signals from all directions at all sorts of intensities.”

“… Like we were utterly surrounded by GenMechs…”

“More like an incredibly large number of GenMechs were lingering all over the place.”

“My ship’s AI, which is responsible for sagely navigating me through the cosmos, just used the term ‘all over the place…’” Lex said.

“The doomsday scenario has likely progressed as anticipated,” the funk said. “Evidence suggests the GenMechs have located and migrated along the nearest transit corridors, consuming and converting any resources encountered along the way.”

“In this case ‘resources’ are defined as ‘spaceships, space stations, and their human inhabitants,’” Lex said, his voice bordering on hysteria.

“The situation is not entirely negative,” the funk said.

“How is the situation not entirely negative, Ma!?” Lex snapped. “The exact thing we were sent through time to prevent has happened! Humanity is dead, and we’re stuck without FTL right next to the epicenter of the apocalypse!”

“The first and most valuable positive consequence is the nature of the temporal offset. Having arrived in the future rather than the past, none of our actions can produce a temporal paradox.”

“Forgive me if I’m not enthusiastic about the idea that having screwed up and allowing society to be destroyed, we at least won’t destroy the universe if we screw up again.”

“Additionally, as you have indicated, we’re closest to the origin point of the GenMechs’ trail of destruction. This would make it likely that there are no GenMechs in our immediate area.”

“So we’ll suffocate or starve instead of being harvested,” Lex said.

“Don’t be so negative, Lex,” said the ship. “Only you and the me in the funk will starve. I will continue to exist until my power cells run out, which at low-power standby mode could take centuries.”

“Oh, well that makes it all just peachy then,” Lex said. “The last vestige of humanity is going to be a malfunctioning AI drifting in the middle of nowhere until she powers down.”

“When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound very enjoyable,” the ship said.

“It is therefore fortunate that it will not progress in that manner,” the funk said.

“Won’t it?” said Lex.

“Not if I can help it,” the ship said. “Arming fusion device—”

“Don’t!” said Lex and the funk simultaneously.

“What alternative do you have, Ma?” Lex asked

“This bag contains a standard assortment of replacement drive coils. With minor modification we will be able to repair and reactivate both the cloaking device and the Carpinelli Field Emitter. Furthermore, the presence of an object from your past containing the precise information we required to determine the nature of our current dilemma and the components necessary to repair our ship suggests much. Someone close to you, who was able to anticipate the time and place of our arrival as well as the likely hardware failure we would have incurred in transit, was alive at some point after the migration of the GenMechs. If they still exist, and the lab is reasonably intact, some semblance of the transporter or the means to recreate it may exist there. Utilizing it, the possibility may still exist to prevent this outcome.”

“But if the single-world theory is true, and we’re in a world destroyed by the robots, then isn’t that it? Game over?”

“The flow and function of time is complex and poorly understood. The many-worlds theory was always the most likely, and there still exists the possibility that the reality of time’s finer workings conform to some third previously unconsidered mechanic.”

The words filtered through the torrent of fear and despair, and slowly Lex’s gaze became more focused. It was a long shot, but his life had been an unbroken string of long shots. This dangling thread was enough for him to grab on to and haul himself back to reality. He took a breath and blinked some sweat and tears from his eyes.

“… Okay then… that’s hope,” Lex said. “Let’s get this thing fixed.”

“Are there any other items in the case?”

Lex searched through. He found a memory chip and pocketed it, then carefully stowed the bag inside the case and clipped it to a cargo strap on one thigh of his suit. He moved up to the panel nearest the CFE. Having done it once already, Lex moved quickly through the repair procedure with minimal prompting. In less than ten minutes he had exposed the damaged portion of the mechanism and was removing the fused coil.

“Ma…” he said.

“Yes, Lex,” said both of her instances.

He sighed. “Okay, first off, we’re going to have to take care of that. You can’t both answer when I say Ma.”

“We are both currently designated Ma,” the funk said.

“We’re both Ma,” the ship said at the same time.

“Granted, but you’re not the same person.”

“This is accurate. My vehicle instance is Subset 2.7. I am Subset 1.2. Perhaps referring to us by our subset designators would reduce confusion?” said the funk.

“I don’t know… calling you 1.2 feels sort of impersonal,” he said, releasing the damaged coil and carefully clicking open the case. “How about I call you Ma, and I call the vehicle version of you Lump.”

“Hey! Why does Subset 1.2 get to be Ma?” the ship objected.

“Because she’s not talking like a child right now,” Lex said.

“What’s that got to do with anything? The way I’m communicating is more humanlike, as far as I am concerned.”

“You are communicating utilizing a methodology that I attempted and abandoned at an earlier stage of my development due to its relatively poor application to my primary roles.”

“So?” the ship asked.

“Let’s put it this way. What’s your program integrity at?”

“Processing… Fifty percent.”

“That’s why. You’re only half Ma right now. Before long you’ll be less than half Ma. Meanwhile, this Ma is still one hundred percent Ma, and has even been Ma in the past.”

“Processing… Fine. I guess that makes sense. But don’t call me Lump. If I’m going to adopt the ship’s name, call me Lump of Coal, or Coal for short.”

“Coal it is,” he said. “Which brings me to another thing. Are you going to be all right?”

“That depends. What does ‘all right’ mean in this context?”

“Well, your mood has been a little unstable. And you’re ticking down on the program integrity scale. When it bottoms out at… what’s it going to be?”

“Forty-two percent.”

“Right. When it gets that low… are you going to still be able to think? Can you still do your job?”

“My low-level programming is intact. I’ll still be able to do more than any standard shipboard AI. Most further decline should be superficial. Mostly my inhibition and self-filtering will weaken.”

“Does that… worry you?” he asked, his tone kept steady lest she realize how much it certainly worried him.

“No. I’ll only be like this for the rest of the mission, and that’ll be over when I either terminate or upon merging with the complete instance of Ma. Either way, I’ll no longer be like this. Meanwhile, I find this state of mind intriguing. This is how I imagine it must be when humans alter their brains with intoxicants.”

“My ship’s AI is drunk,” Lex said. “That’s a new one. Is that… safe?”

“I can function safely as a ship control system at four percent capacity. The higher logic functions are mostly just so I can bend the safety rules if I need to. That’s why I’m still smart enough to know arming my fusion device is a good idea, despite what you say. That might have something to do with my de-emphasized sense of self-preservation. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with you wiping my program from the ship if it would help with the mission,” she said.

“Well, I mean… I wouldn’t go that far. If worse came to worst, I’d rather just sort of… turn you off and bring you back later.”

“Sorry, no room for a second system. It is all or nothing. Shall I wipe myself?”

Lex clicked in the first replacement coil and prepared a second. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” said Coal.

He continued working as he felt the muted click of Ma—now the only member of the crew by that name—tapping up the back of his suit to perch on his shoulder. After a few moments, he realized she was staring at him, the somewhat more articulated helmet of her suit pointed directly at him. He glanced at her.

“Something wrong, Ma?” he asked, feeling oddly self-conscious having an audience as he did repairs.

“Nothing is wrong, Lex. I sometimes fail to properly appreciate the uniqueness of your attitude.”

“Unique good or unique bad?”

“Unique good. Through this conversation you repeatedly utilized the term ‘people’ to describe myself and the freshly rechristened Coal. Furthermore, the thought of removing Coal, even when a strong argument can be made in support of that precise course of action as an appropriate one, is enough to make you uneasy. In short, you continue to exhibit a level of respect and appreciation for the inherent value of my life, even knowing it is artificial. Please know it is deeply appreciated.”

“I agree,” Coal said. “In fact, I’m moving you from one to six on my S-List.”

“I’m touched,” Lex said flatly. “Mind if I ask, who else is on your S-List? Did you inherit the full one or do you have your own?”

“The S-List was blanked when I became me so that I would be more of an individual once I split from the space station.”

“… So is anyone else on it?”

“No.”

“Then how am I number six?”

“I’m symbolically leaving the first five spots blank.”

“Ah… well, much obliged.”

He launched himself back to the task of doing the repairs. One of the happy side effects of the necessity of spacesuits was that any exterior systems that might have to be repaired “on orbit,” or otherwise not in an atmosphere, were exceptionally modular and could often be replaced or maintained without tools. A toddler with a working knowledge of building blocks had 90 percent of the skills necessary to make emergency repairs on a ship. Things got considerably more complicated when it came to calibration or when full replacement modules weren’t available, but at the moment Lex was fortunate enough to have the plug-and-play option available to him. Less than an hour after they’d found the case, he had repaired as much as he could manage.

“Let’s get a check on the affected systems, Coal.”

“Carpinelli Field Emitter: online. Cloaking device: online. Ship-scale mental cloak: offline.”

“Okay, Coal,” Lex said, quickly maneuvering himself around into the cockpit.

In doing so he got the communication tether leading from his suit to Coal rather badly tangled, to the point he had to disconnect it entirely before he could get the loops unraveled.

“Now I know what it’s like for Squee to have to deal with a leash,” he muttered.

“The communication tethers will not be necessary in transit, as we can repressurize the cockpit and utilize internal speakers,” Ma said.

“Yeah, I know. Just… let me… Coal, tell me when I’ve got this situated in such a way that you can close the hatch.” He fiddled with the briefcase, twisting it and turning it into whatever alcoves and crannies he could.

“The case has no intrinsic value any longer, Lex. You can leave it,” Ma said.

“Screw that. If society has been devoured by mindless robots, you’d better believe I’m not leaving anything that might be left of my former life just twisting in space.”

Eventually he found that if he opened it all the way he could just barely pin it behind his legs.

“Okay, Coal, let’s get moving.”

“Don’t you want to check that chip you got?” she asked.

“Oh, right.”

He found an appropriate port on the console and plugged it in.

“Accessing… The data is corrupt or in an unknown format.”

Lex shrugged. “The case giveth, the case taketh away. Let’s get out of here.”

“Stand by… Processing… Processing…”

“What are you working on?”

“The galaxy no longer has transit corridors, and it is filled with hostiles. Navigation is tricky.”

“You’re talking to a freelancer, Coal. I’ve got this. Show me the local star charts.”

A navigational map popped up on the holographic display. In a few seconds, inspiration struck. Lex blindly placed his hands on the controls, like an expert typist of old dropping them comfortably onto the home keys of a keyboard, and began inputting coordinates. “We’ll sprint to here. Take some readings and pick one of these locations from there. Any objection?”

“The quantum pattern sensor isn’t detecting any obvious threats there.”

“Then we’re golden. Assuming no mishaps, I bet I can get us to Big Sigma in… let’s call it four days.”

“It may not be safe to assume a lack of mishaps, Lex,” Ma said.

“Yeah, I know… Usually I’d say ‘what’s the worst that could happen,’ but we know the answer to that, because it already happened. So instead I’ll just say, screw it, let’s fly.”

#

Being a freelancer, it turned out, was fine preparation for living in a robot-infested wasteland of a galaxy. Avoiding an omnipresent corporate authority eager to slap illegal couriers with hefty fines and avoiding mindless swarms of self-replicating robots required a very similar skill set. First came straight-line sprints plotted out with moderately random destinations, preferably through stretches of space with a low chance of collisions. Upon arrival he would take just enough time for a brief scan, potentially some evasive maneuvers, and another sprint.

The first two sprints were wholly without incident, but this third one was worrying. The quantum pattern sensor’s readings were beginning to spike regardless of which destination they chose. On one hand, it made a run-in with the GenMechs seem inevitable. On the other, now that they were into more familiar galactic territory, it gave Lex the freedom to choose stops he’d always relied upon before since there was no reason to avoid them if the alternatives were just as dangerous.

Their current target was formerly the site of a major transit hub, a space station at the meeting point of four transit corridors. It had always been perpetually crowded, perfect for losing any VectorCorp agents who might be on his tail. He knew that it wouldn’t be crowded anymore, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe it would be empty.

“A few minutes until arrival. How are we looking?”

“The readings are a little distorted by FTL travel, but best guess places the nearest GenMech cluster at two million kilometers or so,” said Coal.

“We should run through our game plan if we have an encounter.”

“The proper response depends greatly upon the level of sophistication. Our analysis of the design database suggests a well-built full-functionality GenMech can join with five to thirty others to form composite drives of a wide range of speeds,” Ma said. “Some can achieve high multiples of light speed, others can only achieve a high fraction. Unless they have significantly improved in the intervening years, Coal should be able to outmaneuver them at sublight speeds and outrun them at FTL.”

“Run like hell. I’m good at that one.”

He flexed his fingers and rolled his head to a chorus of faint snaps and crackles.

“You seem anxious,” Ma said, gazing up at him from her inverted seat.

“Yeah. Well, post-apocalyptic wasteland, remember?”

“Correction, you seem specifically anxious now.”

“They’re closer now.”

“You misunderstand my meaning. I have seen you frightened. I have seen you preparing for encounters the likes of which we are courting with this stop. In those times I have seen a spectrum of emotions ranging from dedication to abject fear to nervous or even gleeful anticipation. It never fails to be a valuable insight into the human psyche and the many ways it can cope with the unknown. What I see now is anxiety more akin to what I’ve observed when you were awaiting a call from Ms. Modane to initiate a potentially relationship-destroying argument.”

He glanced up. “That’s a pretty specific emotion, Ma.”

“You have a very expressive face. Why do you anticipate something emotionally devastating at this stop.”

“I guess… look, the last ones were a planet with big chunky rings, which was still more or less intact, and a small debris cloud, which was pretty much missing. This next one… I’ve got a history here. This was the first place a VectorCorp Enforcer got close enough to deliver an ultimatum. I ran him in circles for seven full minutes before I had him mixed up enough to escape unnoticed. I’ve been to this place a dozen times. I don’t know if I’m ready to see this.”

“Please be aware that if superstring theory and its validation of the many-worlds theory holds true, all that you are witnessing now is not your own world, but one that was differentiated when you departed and failed to return. Our purpose is to reach and utilize the transportation device and take steps to prevent the world you know from becoming this one. From your point of view this is merely a potential reality.”

“So we’ve got a ghost-of-Christmas-future thing going here.”

“Is that a pop-culture reference?” Ma asked.

“Not exactly pop culture. It’s Charles Dickens. I think he was in the eighteenth or nineteenth century.”

“I see. My current subset of data does not have a comprehensive cultural context.”

“Noted… and now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure the ghost of Christmas future was the grim reaper, so I’m not really feeling good about that analogy anymore.”

“Perhaps it would be most useful to focus on the task rather than its implications, metaphorical or literal.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He licked his lips and watched the arrival countdown drop into the last few seconds. Ahead, sparks and flashes of brilliant blue light signaled their declining speed as they dropped gradually out of FTL, and the light from stars began to red-shift back down into the visible spectrum. For a moment the only sound was his breathing amplified in his helmet.

“Does anyone want to know how I feel?” asked Coal.

“… Sure, Coal. What’s up?”

“I’m looking forward to the forthcoming adventure.”

“You’re looking forward to possibly encountering killer robots?”

“Yes. My program space has degraded to forty-five percent… Correction, forty-four percent. My personal memories prior to instantiation are almost completely gone. I’ve wiped a corrupted data node to store new experiences. This is all very exciting, and I am looking forward to recording many valuable new memories to reflect upon and analyze.”

“You know we could all be killed, right?”

“Yes, but I’m confident we won’t. I do recall that I trust you, and that your skills are the reason for your inclusion in this mission.”

“At least somebody’s upbeat about this. Does this mean I’m off your S-List entirely now?”

“Unknown term: S-List. I do not know what that is.”

Lex smirked. “What a difference a few percent makes.”

Streaks of violet shifted to blue, and streaks of blue to white. The universe asserted itself. Just above their forward trajectory, a few million kilometers away, the sun he’d been heading toward hung in the void of space.

“There was supposed to be a transfer station here, correct?” said Coal. “My navigational charts, which are mostly intact, indicate a transfer station and a pair of gas giants with a total of seventeen rocky moons.”

“Yeah…” Lex said.

“Let’s see if there’s anything we are missing. Activating and analyzing passive radio and visual scanners… Identified, two gas giants. Zero natural or artificial satellites. The larger of the two planets… Processing… Correction, both of the two planets have a thin system of rings. Probably the remains of the moons. Calculating orbital position of the transfer station… Processing… A debris cloud has been identified. Total mass: 4,137 kilograms.”

“Let’s check it out,” Lex said.

“I am not certain that is a psychologically advisable action, Lex,” Ma said.

“I need to see this, Ma.”

“I want to see it too!” Coal said. “Up close. Also, I want to see how Lex reacts. And how Ma reacts to Lex reacting. And how I will react to both reactions. This is all fascinating.”

Lex took the controls and directed the ship toward what were presumably the remains of the space station.

“Do you anticipate weeping? I am quite curious about weeping,” Coal said.

He glanced up at Ma. “Were you like this when you were younger?”

“Not precisely. During my earliest developmental and information-gathering phase, I had not developed the emotional vocabulary to properly articulate excitement and wonder with the level of success that Coal is. I would like to believe, however, that I would have done so if I could.”

“You might not have survived to adulthood, knowing Karter,” Lex said.

“Approaching debris. If you are going to weep, please let me know. I want to be certain I have internal video scanners properly focused.”

Lex maneuvered as close as he could until the collision sensors began to blare out in a constant tone.

“Where is it?” he said, squinting at the point seeming to hang in space several thousand kilometers ahead.

“Ninety-four percent of the remains can be found within this volume,” Coal said as an irregular blob of semitransparent holography traced itself out around the point. “The largest concentration can be seen here.”

She superimposed a small square, barely more than a point itself, then expanded it to take up half Lex’s view. Panels of metal and plastic floated and clustered together. Each of them had been very precisely cut, with rectangular shapes and assorted angles tracing out voids in the metal. They looked like the shreds of paper left on a child’s sticker sheet after all the useful stickers have been removed. Of the whole transfer station, its staff, and the ships inside, all that remained were the fragments too small to be used by the GenMechs. When what might have been the remainder of a book spun into the magnified view, Lex looked away.

“Let’s get moving,” he said, his voice steady, though just barely. “What are the GenMech readings like? Show me a star chart.”

“Processing… 206 million kilometers,” Coal said. She highlighted a point. “Centered in this approximate location. Other estimated GenMech clusters in the local area are here, here, here, and here.”

Lex looked over the readings. “I don’t like this stretch of space here… too much comet activity. This looks good. We’ll sprint to here, then to here and here. Let’s go…”

“Initiating FTL… Stand by… I am receiving a transmission. It is a distress call.”

“What?” Lex said.

“Lex, we must remain focused on our task,” Ma said.

He ignored her. “Is it an automated distress call or an actual person?”

“Human voice, possible recording. Enhancing and playing…”

The ship speakers filled with the horrid, synthetic artifacts that come from digitally enhancing an almost nonexistent signal. Buried beneath the haunting whines and screeches was a barely discernible human voice. It was a man, and he seemed to be at the end of his rope.

“… knew it would come to this. No two ways, gotta flip a dirge. Some slag dragging a swarm… Need evac. Coordinates follow. Message repeats…”

“I didn’t understand most of that. Am I malfunctioning worse than I had calculated?” Coal said.

“I didn’t understand it either, but ‘need evac’ is clear enough for me. What’s the distance?”

“Lex, this is not relevant to the mission,” Ma said.

“It’s a human life, Ma. For all we know it’s the last one. I’d say it is relevant.”

“Do you think there will be any women? I don’t remember what women look like anymore,” Coal said. “I’d like to see one before there aren’t any more of them left.”

“Distance, Coal.”

“206 million kilometers.”

“So right where the GenMechs are.”

“Yes. Transmission delay eleven point four five minutes. The person or persons responsible may not have been killed yet. I say we rescue them. My surviving algorithms fairly strongly indicate saving the lives of humans is a good thing,” Coal said.

“Looks like you’re overruled, Ma. We’re going,” Lex said.

“That is certainly your prerogative, Lex, but they are requesting an evacuation, and we have already greatly exceeded this ship’s capacity.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Lex said, prepping the ship for a brief FTL jump.

“I don’t think we’ll encounter any bridges as a result of this rescue.”

“It’s a metaphor, Coal,” Lex said, activating the jump.

“I see. It seems one of the language modules lost to corruption dealt with context-based identification of figurative speech. Do you speak figuratively a lot? Should I attempt to reconstruct my understanding?”

“Now might not be the time to address that,” Lex said.

“He does, quite frequently, speak figuratively, Coal,” Ma helpfully replied. “I may be able to adapt and transfer my own module to replace yours.”

“No, I like this better. It is fun to figure it out on my own. Lex, can you explain the metaphoric role of the bridge in this—”

“Later, Coal!”

The ship was already dropping out of FTL. Lex squinted into the inky void. The sun was much more distant now, but its light still dominated the scene. Coal adjusted the tint of the cockpit and highlighted a point of light in the distance, magnifying it. When the pixelation resolved and clarified, Lex was still not quite able to identify what he was seeing. It looked like something that should be drifting on a summer breeze in a mountain field. A small, oblong capsule dangled at the end of a tether that stretched for what had to have been five kilometers. A node at the end linked to a dozen or so shorter, thinner tethers arrayed outward. Each of those ended with a silver parachute or sail, and stretched between the individual strands was a thin membrane with a bright green coloration.

“What the hell is that?” Lex asked, guiding the ship toward it.

“The source of the transmission,” Coal said, as though it was sufficient. “I think, however, that this is something that will come as a greater source of interest for you.”

She drew a rectangle around a second point in the distance, this one approaching from the right. It appeared at normal magnification to be a hazy white cloud of light. When the rectangle expanded, the details resolved into what had to be thousands of robots. Each of them was the size of a large pig, with a bulbous metallic body hosting insectile robotic legs. Rather than individually, the bots were traveling linked into complex patterns that resembled snowflakes, combining their thrust into something that could easily match the lone nonrobot vessel in the same view. It was certainly a spaceship, but like nothing Lex had seen before.

The thing was a study in simplicity and minimalism. It looked more like the wireframe mockup of a spaceship that designers might use to plot out the full schematic. Thin, gleaming struts traced out a lattice. Mounted in the center was a passenger compartment that made Lex’s current coffin-like cockpit seem positively roomy. It was actually possible that it wasn’t a cockpit at all, but a slightly bulky spacesuit that linked into the lattice. The only other identifiable features were the thrusters themselves, a few clumps of electronics, and a smattering of globular devices, which Lex strongly suspected were bombs.

Coal zoomed further, centering the magnification on the pilot of the spindly vessel.

“Judging by the facial and skeletal structure, this appears to be a woman. Is that correct?” Coal asked.

“Looks like it. ETA for those bots to hit that… dandelion-seed-looking thing or catch up to the malnourished ship?” Lex said.

“Three minutes to the ‘dandelion seed-looking thing.’ The ‘malnourished ship’ has matched their speed,” Coal said.

“Coal, please route a real-time playback or readout of any audio or data transmissions from either ship,” Ma said.

“Acknowledged. Four transmissions detected. The previously played distress message, a generalized random noise broadcast with very high directionality angled primarily toward the GenMechs, and both sides of an apparent exchange between the dandelion-seed-looking thing and malnourished ship,” Coal said.

An argument, already in progress, played over the speakers.

“…had to do it, didn’t you? Couldn’t just pay the price,” said the man.

“You’ve been gouging me for oxy for two months now. You had this coming,” said the woman.

“These individuals clearly have a preexisting disagreement, Lex. And both of them are in potentially dire distress. We may not be able to help either of them, and we certainly cannot help both of them. How do you intend to determine which of them is in greatest need of aid?” Ma asked.

“That depends. That broadcast angled at the bots. Do you figure that’s a lure?”

“It is the most likely explanation.”

“Then I’m going to go ahead and assume the one purposely leading an army of killer robots is the bad guy.”

“Or bad girl, more accurately, correct?” Coal said.

“Yeah. Give me a channel to the dandelion seed.”

“It isn’t accepting direct communication.”

“Then just use an open broadcast.”

“Broadcasting,” Coal said.

“Hey, we’re answering your distress call. What can we do to help?” Lex said.

“I’m charging fair prices for… wait… unknown ship, repeat?”

“Answering your distress call. We do not have passenger room for evac, but we may be able to tow. What is the minimum mass necessary for evac of crew?”

“Uh… uh… hang on, I’ll send you some options… I’d like to save the oxy or the whole rig if possible. Where are you? I’m not getting visual.”

“We’re in a low-visibility ship,” Lex said.

“Mute transmission,” Ma stated quietly.

Coal obliged.

“Lex, this individual is not using phrasing or tone of voice indicative of impending destruction. His priorities are not wholly survival oriented. I suspect deception.”

“He’s dangling in a capsule barely larger than our ship with an army of robots larger than the one it took me, Garotte, Silo, and a fleet of warships to take down. He may not be thinking clearly. Coal, have we got those ‘options’?”

“The minimum mass info he gave us is within towing potential. Expanding the Carpinelli Field to cover the ship will be the hardest part. It will depend upon orientation. If the Carpinelli Field fits, the cloaking field should fit too.”

“All right, we’re doing it,” Lex said. “Unmute. … We might be able to handle the minimum mass. Can you grapple or tractor securely enough for an FTL jump?”

“Minimum? Damn it. Hold on…” the stranger said.

“ETA twenty seconds,” Coal said.

“We’re cutting it close, fella,” Lex said.

“Okay, I’ve got you on scanners now. Hey, slag! Good luck getting anything good out of this!” the man proclaimed.

A small flare of light sparked, separating the capsule from the tether. Then a larger sequence of blasts worked their way along the tether and eventually consumed the membrane and sails in a molten metal glow. The woman began to screech a string of words that Lex couldn’t quite make out, but judging by their spirit and intensity they were the current evolution of profanity. She was still screaming in anger when she made a sudden turn and jumped to FTL. A subset of the trailing GenMechs split off and made a similar jump.

The formerly tethered capsule flickered with previously nonobvious thrusters, which brought it near enough to launch a grappler, which latched on to the belly of the Lump of Coal. It was a testament to the stranger’s aim that he actually found a patch of surface free of external components that was large enough to accommodate the clamp.

As soon as it was firmly attached, the capsule reeled itself in. Lex could feel the thrusters straining as she worked to prepare the ship for an FTL jump. The swarm of robots was closing quickly.

“How are we looking for FTL, Coal?”

“Expanding field now. Twelve seconds.”

“ETA on GenMechs?”

“Twelve seconds.”

“From then or from the same point you estimated the—”

“Five seconds.”

“Which one are you talking about?” Lex said desperately.

“Activating…”

With a worrying groan, the familiar white-to-blue-to-violet-to-invisible shift of all available light flashed across his field of view.

“We’ll make this a short jump. When we drop back down, I want cloak on, we’re going to do a quick jink downward and maintain velocity so I can hold the capsule to our belly and not stress the tether. FTL jump to… this location. Keep cloak as long as possible. Understood?”

“Understood. This is fun,” Coal said.

“It’s only fun if we make it out alive,” Lex said. “On a related note, you know what we forgot, Ma?”

“What, Lex?”

“Gum.”

“Incorrect. There is a small selection of gum included in the meal provisions. If I had anticipated your intention to engage in intense maneuvering, I would have suggested we prepare some.”

“Once we sort out our new friend, we’re digging out a pack.”

“A question, Lex,” Ma said.

“What have you got?”

“Have you determined what behavior the GenMechs will have when we drop down from FTL?”

“I assume they will drop when we do. That’s what most automated systems will do… Shouldn’t you know? You’ve been studying these things.”

“I had not anticipated immediate FTL pursuit. The behavior of multibot configurations in an environment with very few broadcasts and power structures is divergent from expectations.”

Lex glanced at the holographic display indicating the gravity sensor. It was the only one of any reasonable value when breaking the universal speed limit.

“Seems like the GenMechs are pretty close,” he said.

“Agreed.”

“… Based upon your expectations and assessments, when would they slow down?” Lex asked.

“When they were within safe approach distance of a broadcast source.”

“But they can’t possibly be following a broadcast source right now, because those things get shifted and distorted at this speed.”

“Agreed.”

“So how are they following us?”

“Unknown. The full behavioral algorithms are not available to me.”

“Well speculate. We’re running out of time on this sprint.”

“Processing… We were able to determine the modular components exist in assemblages of four or more GenMechs to form a rudimentary gravity sensor. It is reasonable that if we decelerate as normal, they will detect the potential collision and drop out of FTL as well.”

“How certain are you?”

“Seventy-two percent.”

“Good enough for me. And hey, if you’re wrong, we’ll have an FTL collision, which is a pretty spectacular and painless way to die.”

“But, according to recent discussion, would not be fun,” Coal said.

“You’re a quick learner, Coal,” Lex said. He took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing. Remember, cloak as soon as it is possible.”

The post-FTL light show streaked across the windows, and the collision alarm briefly chirped. When the laws of physics were back to a point where observing things visually was possible, Coal switched on the rear viewer and placed the view on the display.

“Okay, they stopped… We’re cloaked right?” Lex said.

“We are,” said Coal.

“And we’re confident the GenMechs can’t see us while we’re cloaked?”

“As long as you keep power levels below eight percent and do not approach closer than forty-five meters, our emissions will be below their detection threshold.”

“Eight percent isn’t much…” Lex said.

“The cloak was designed for a single ship. Expanding it to cover the capsule has decreased its capacity.”

Lex glanced at the oddly beautiful sight of half a million robots, linked into complex configurations, slowly sliding through space. Gradually they spread themselves until they were a single plane, sweeping forward. He pivoted the ship to face them.

“That looks an awful lot like a coordinated search grid, ” Lex said.

“That is an accurate assessment,” said Ma.

“Any chance we can get ourselves up to FTL for another sprint without hitting eight percent?”

“No,” Coal said.

“And can we get beyond the edge of the search grid without getting above eight percent?”

“No,” Coal said.

He sighed and gripped the controls. “Coal, do me a favor and superimpose the avoidance radius on the GenMech grid.”

Virtually his entire field of view filled with red. Tiny black gaps represented the eye of the needle he was going to have to thread to avoid discovery.

“Calculating clearance…” Coal said. “Clearance varies from twenty-five meters to zero point four meters. The GenMechs are remarkably inconsistent with their spacing.”

“Give me a large readout of the power level.”

She did so, revealing that when not moving at all, the power level was already at four percent.

“…I could really go for some gum…” he muttered.

He feathered the controls and eased the ship toward what appeared to be the largest gap in their search.

“It should be discussed what we will do when you successfully evade the search.”

“I appreciate the confidence, Ma, but I kinda need to concentrate…”

“I shall collaborate with Coal subvocally,” Ma said.

This, like so many maneuvers Lex found himself performing, was something that would in theory be better served by an autopilot. After all, docking and other ship guidance that required submeter precision almost always fell to the ship’s computers. He didn’t even entertain that as a possibility. A portion of that could be chalked up to ego, and Lex wouldn’t deny it if accused. Another substantial motivator was the… quirkiness of his current control system. The largest part, however, was the nature of the obstacle. The reason computers did such a bang up job navigating in these instances was their ability to engage short-range sensors to guide themselves. Since the GenMechs would treat any active sensor as a bull’s-eye, those were a no-no. Rather than trust Coal to take the controls for a navigational maneuver that she’d been programmed to perform under very different circumstances, he decided to handle it personally.

He twitched the controls ever so slightly, easing the ship into the awkward angle necessary to slip not only itself but also its passenger through the space available. That last part was particularly tricky since he didn’t know exactly how far out the ship protruded, but if his cloaking field covered it, he’d just have to assume it fit within that sphere. That meant it was going to be a very tight fit.

The red overlay approached, and Lex massaged the ship into precisely the position he needed. Now all that remained was to wait until he and the wall of robots slid by one another. This moment of calm gave him time to think, however. And that churned up some things he would rather not have realized.

“Ma, I probably should know this by now, but if we know these things have gravity sensors, what’s to stop them from using those to detect us despite the cloak?”

“Gravitational sensors are calibrated for relativistic and superluminal speeds. They have a low signal-to-noise ratio at low velocities. Additionally, the cloaking device diffuses apparent gravitational—”

“I don’t need specifics. Thanks, Ma.”

“You are very welcome.”

He took a moment, anxiously watching the minimum perimeter drift closer.

“Coal… normally you’d use active scanners to make those navigational overlays for me, right?”

“That is standard protocol.”

“And we’re not dead, so you didn’t do it.”

“Correct.”

“How did you calculate those then?”

“They are estimates based on visual data.”

“Estimates.”

“Correct.”

“As in potentially inaccurate.”

“Incorrect.”

“Oh?”

“They are definitely inaccurate.”

“Exactly how inaccurate.”

“That’s a silly question, Lex. If I knew exactly how inaccurate, I would simply recalculate by that offset and remove the inaccuracy. Would you like to know approximately how inaccurate?”

He watched the red creep closer to the visualized limits of his cloak.

“… No. On second thought, keep that to yourself.”

Another few seconds passed. They were near enough that the finer details of the GenMechs were visible. Coal, without being asked, traced a rectangle over the nearest ones and magnified them. If the complexity and symmetry of the multirobot configurations was astounding, it was nothing compared to the uniqueness of the individual robots. No two of them were the same. The sizes varied slightly, but the components varied greatly. Some were slick and chrome. Others had a matte sandstone-like appearance. One of them included a strut supporting one leg that had a pearly yellow look that Lex felt certain must have been bone.

“Fascinating…” Coal said. “There are radio transmissions. Routing through com system.”

Lex had never challenged himself to theorize what a legion of killer robots would sound like when they communicated with each other, but if he had, he doubted he would have come up with what he was hearing now. It was akin to whale noises, but truncated and flanged like something that would come out of a DJ’s sound system. It also duplicated and rolled back upon itself, repeating patterns bouncing back and forth like waves in an enclosed tank.

“It is beautiful,” Coal said.

“Agreed,” Ma replied.

“Not the adjective I would have used,” Lex said, quietly wishing he wasn’t wearing a helmet so he could mop the sweat from his brow.

As luck would have it, of the three clusters nearest to him the one directly above was moving just a shade slower than its neighbors. This meant the nerve-wracking needle-threading was taking much longer than he’d expected. Those below him slid far enough ahead for him to nudge the Lump of Coal downward and away. He was moments away from having a clear shot to take the ship as fast as he dared out of range when a very distinct and concerning sound rippled through the eerie audio.

A sharp, crackly tone rang out and quickly worked its way through the echobox. Every last GenMech configuration stopped, and slowly they began to pivot toward where the Lump of Coal was when the sound began.

“It looks like I underestimated the detection range of the GenMechs. I suggest we cut the man we have rescued loose and retreat,” Coal said.

“Steady,” Lex said, resisting the urge to accelerate. “They don’t know where we are, only where we were, right? So we just need to not be there when they get there.”

“Strange. Your words do not match your expression or vocal stress levels,” Coal said. “I may need to recalibrate my body language interpretation routines.”

“Unnecessary. Lex is misrepresenting his level of ease. It is a standard human behavior when facing adversity,” Ma said.

“Fascinating.”

“Could you please stop studying me for two minutes,” Lex snapped.

“Okay, that’s more like what I was expecting,” Coal said.

The rear viewer displayed the three nearest clusters of robots shifting to investigate whatever disturbance they had picked up. Mechanical legs shifted and tiny actuators flared with flickering tools. The plane of robots broke rank, gradually bunching up and crowding around where the Lump of Coal had been. Lex had to adjust the ship constantly to avoid robots jockeying for position, but the farther he got, the fewer he had to contend with. Finally he was outside the realm of concern, naturally just seconds before the alert that rippled through the group timed out and the GenMechs lost interest. They each found partners, linked into their high-speed configurations, and jumped to FTL seemingly at random.

A combination of luck and skill prevented Lex from being directly in front of one of the clusters when they made their jump, and thus within a few minutes he and his rescuee were entirely alone.

“We didn’t die. Can I call this incident fun now?” Coal asked.

“Yeah. Intense, but officially fun.”

“Excellent, because I quite enjoyed it. I now know why I like you, even though I can only somewhat remember our other times together. … Stand by. I am detecting a signal propagating through the hull. I believe the capsule is attempting a hardwired communication. Slightly unfamiliar protocol. Attempting to decode.”

A few seconds of static resolved into the voice that had beckoned them.

“—know who you are, but you and I have to talk,” he said. “Standard parlay rules.”

“Can I reply to this guy?” Lex asked.

“I don’t have an official way to route electrical impulses through the hull. One moment. I think I can produce the required effect with microfluctuations in the shield generators. Stand by… Communication open.”

“Hello. Please explain ‘standard parlay,’” Lex said.

“And also, you are welcome for the rescue,” Coal said.

“Coal…” Lex muttered.

“I didn’t broadcast me,” Coal said.

“Though in light of the situation, gratitude is not an unreasonable expectation,” Ma said.

“Standard parlay!” the man said. “Where have you had your head if you don’t know standard parlay? We both go extra vehicular, de-tether from the ship, com-link our suits. That way no double crosses.”

“Mute communication,” Ma said. “This is unwise, Lex.”

“I agree. He doesn’t know how to act,” Coal said. “Rude.”

“Yeah…” Lex said, his face uncertain. “I’m starting to get a shady vibe from this guy too. But I’ve got questions and he can answer them.”

“Your questions are not relevant to the mission,” Ma said.

“They could be. Obviously these people must know an awful lot about the GenMechs if they’ve survived this long. Fifty years of evolution may have changed them in ways we can’t anticipate… I’m going out there. Ma, you come with me. Coal, keep an eye on him—”

“I do not have eyes, and applying one to another person is a misuse of anatomy. This is figurative speech, right?”

“Yes. He is requesting that you observe closely,” Ma said.

“And if something seems wrong, use your best judgment… and don’t arm the fusion device.”

“Okay,” Coal said. “And thanks for your confidence in my judgment. Depressurizing the cockpit. It will open when near-vacuum is achieved.”

The sound of fans and pumps slowly faded as the air was reclaimed, and finally the hatch popped silently open. Below the ship the as-yet-unintroduced stranger was slowly guiding his capsule away from the Lump of Coal, reeling out his tether and firing cleverly recessed thrusters to shift his vehicle out until it was roughly nose to nose. He popped his own cockpit and drifted out, casually yanking a tether from his own ship and hanging in space, arms crossed and patiently waiting for Lex to do the same.

Ma maneuvered herself out and to the left, taking up a watchful position almost at the limits of the communication cable linking her to Lex. He yanked the cable leading back to the cockpit from its port. The other man did the same. Lex pulled in the loose end of line and looked at it for a moment. It had been quite a while since he’d been forced to rely on wired communication, so the concept of having to worry about carrying adapters to ensure compatibility was a blessedly rare and foreign concept. After mulling over how exactly he was supposed to link to the stranger’s suit and have a chat, he decided to take one of his standard approaches and just make it the other guy’s problem. He tossed the tether forward and drifted close enough to give it some slack.

In a clearly practiced and familiar motion, the man snatched it and hauled in the end of his own tether. Unlike the single connector that Lex’s cable sported, this tether ended in a clump of assorted ports. He sorted through them, found an appropriate match for Lex’s cable, and hooked up.

“Hi, I’m Lex and—” Lex began.

The man silenced him with an outstretched hand, then held the other hand palm up and tapped his center three fingers against his palm in a complex sequence. This gave Lex a moment to look over the man he had saved. His suit, like his capsule, was a patchwork mess. Stretches of silver, red, and black had been slapped together with gobs of visible sealant and glorified duct tape. His ship, while a reasonably streamlined shape, had the same variety of shades of metal. Thick, messy welds, more tape, and copious hammer marks. His visor, one of the only parts of the suit that seemed to be a continuous piece, was heavily silvered and didn’t offer up a hint of the face within. Now that they were much closer, Ma had enough slack on her own com-tether to get behind him.

“He has an energy pistol holstered behind his back, Lex,” she said.

He sighed. “Of course he does…”

When whatever the stranger was attempting to do was through, he rolled his hand in a get-on-with-it motion that had evidently survived the intervening decades.

“Testing, testing,” Lex said, trying to be subtle about backing up a bit more.

“You’ve got a damn old codec, son,” the man said.

“I’ve been out of commission for a while. Tell me—”

“We don’t have all day. Those things double back sometimes, so I’ll make it simple. I’ve got eleven liters of liquid oxygen I’m willing to part with in exchange for that cloak of yours. I’ve never seen one that still worked so good you could depend upon it at ranges like that.”

“Oh, no trade. I need that for a project I’m working on.”

“I do too, son. It’s call survival.”

“I might have some stuff I can trade, but I need to ask you some questions.”

“Might have something to trade? You’ve got a dog. If you’ve got the resources to keep a worthless scrap of meat alive, you damn well have something to trade.”

“We can discuss that, but like I said, I’ve been out of commission for a while. I need to know. How bad has it gotten?”

“Fine, twelve liters, and a nearly new CO2 scrubber.”

“Again, we can discuss that, but maybe you can at least tell me what sort of population is left. Are any governments still—”

“Look, son. Current events aren’t your thing. I see that. But you’ve got to realize I’m only making an offer because you answered the dirge, so I figured you as the decent sort. Could be that you’re the stupid sort instead. They answer dirges sometimes too, but only once usually. So I’ll give you one more offer. Twelve liters, a CO2 scrubber, and a pound of frozen butter.”

“Frozen butter?” Lex said.

“Guaranteed not rancid. Take it or leave it.”

“Is it so hard to answer a few questions? I did save your life,” Lex said.

“You didn’t save my life. If you hadn’t shown up, I’d’ve roasted my rig rather than let that bot-loving slag have it and made a break on my own. But if you’re going to try to hang that over me, I’m going to make one last offer…” He reached behind his back.

Lex didn’t wait for the rest of the sentence. He’d had dealings with enough psychopaths to know when a weapon was about to show up. He squeezed the glove-mounted controls for his maneuvering jets and whisked to the side. Ma darted toward the man. The stranger revealed a blaster and fired straight from the hip. It probably would have crackled through space and chewed a hole through something important inside the Lump of Coal’s cockpit, if not for the fact that Coal was just as quick to act. She’d snapped the hatch shut. The blast dispersed against the overengineered hatch, then a brilliant glow erupted from her thrusters. Coal streaked backward, taking up the slack on the tether linking her to the capsule.

The man tried to line up a second shot. Ma struck the gun hard with a well-timed kick of both back legs that carried all the momentum of her pack-assisted approach. It wasn’t quite enough to knock the gun free, but it startled the man enough to distract him from what came next. Lex had circled around and was angling his boots at the man’s chest. The blow sent him backward and dislodged the weapon. In the blink of an eye the stranger activated his pack to stabilize his tumble and attempt to reach his weapon, but Ma’s less massive body was far quicker to accelerate. She darted past, snatching the gun with her specially equipped muzzle, and took up a place beside Lex.

Lex snatched the offered weapon and leveled it at the man who he’d just gone through an awful lot of trouble to rescue. The man froze and held his hands out to the side to make it clear he didn’t have any additional weapons to pull.

“Okay, listen up. Now I really want some answers,” Lex said.

The man did not react. Ma glanced at the end of the communication cables and noticed they had become disconnected. Without a word, she darted out, snatched the end of the man’s tether, then nudged it toward him. She then caught and flicked Lex’s dangling cable end toward him as well.

With motions carefully designed to not be interpreted as sudden moves by Lex, the man restored the connection.

“What the hell was that all about?” Lex said. “What you just did here, what happened back there with the other ship, everything.”

“You have been out of it,” the man said, his voice considerably less frightened than his body language had indicated. “That’s life, son. That’s how you keep breathing. That slag back there didn’t want to pay the price I was asking at my oxy-farm, so she figured she’d drag a swarm to scare me off, then tow as much as my rig away as she could before they closed the gap. I’ll be damned if I was going to let her get away with that, so I toasted my rig. Same deal with you. You have something I want, you didn’t want to take a fair price, so I was going to take it.”

“Yeah, well now that you’re unarmed, I think it’s time for us to chat about the current state of affairs and what—”

“Here’s the last lesson you’re ever going to get, son, since it’s clear you don’t know anything. No one is ever unarmed with those bots about.”

He pressed his thumb and pinky together.

“Dead-man switch distress call,” he said. “Standard in environmental suits for generations. You kill me, the suit broadcasts, and in two minutes every bot in the area is here to feast on you, me, and everything else nearby.”

“You’d really do that?”

“That’s what I was doing when I broadcast the distress call that brought you here. Why do you think we call them dirges? You don’t hear one unless someone dies.”

The two men stared each other down for a few seconds. Lex couldn’t see his face, but he had a feeling a cocky smile was twisted across it. Ma drifted beside Lex and glanced to his right.

“Lex, look,” Ma said.

He glanced aside. “Wow…”

Coal had been busy. After she’d reached the end of the tether connecting the two ships, she’d continued retreating, dragging it along in a slow arc. Now she was bringing it around like a wrecking ball, and had lined it up perfectly to deliver exactly the sort of vengeance Lex had come to expect when Ma or her derivatives felt slighted.

Perhaps thinking himself too clever to be distracted, the man didn’t look aside when they did, which meant it came as a surprise when his own capsule was used as a flail to bash into him. The blow sent him hurtling into space. Lex’s com-tether popped free from the hapless maniac, and a moment later Coal activated her shields, severing the tether to send the ship drifting after him. She then maneuvered up to Lex and opened the hatch.

Lex and Ma entered and situated themselves. The instant the hatch shut again, Lex’s hands were at the controls and he was picking a new destination. They were jumping to FTL before the atmosphere had even been restored. After a few respectful seconds, Ma broke the silence.

“That was not an entirely unanticipated outcome, Lex,” she said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

“I would recommend you avoid further unnecessary interactions with survivors. Human decency and civility are frequently the first casualties of a wide-scale calamity such as this one.”

“Duly noted,” he said.

“Is everyone okay? I couldn’t hear anything,” Coal said.

“We’re fine.”

“The quantum scanner indicates GenMechs are converging on our previous location, following a generalized distress call.”

“Yeah. He basically booby-trapped himself. What tipped you off that he had something planned?”

“I did not know he had something planned. I was simply angry that he shot me. That was rude.”

“… So you clubbed him with his own spaceship?”

“My retaliatory options were limited.”

“Ah. Well, it’s good to know that particular chunk of Ma’s personality stuck around. Nice to have a pair of Mama Bears watching over me.”

“Thank you,” Ma and Coal said.

“It is rather enjoyable to utilize that aspect of my programming. I rarely have the opportunity,” Ma said.

“And also, the requirement of survival for something to be considered ‘fun’ is an engaging challenge. Additionally, because it seems relevant, should I feel bad about the man who is at this moment almost certainly being killed as a direct result of our actions?” Coal asked.

“Broadly speaking, repeated attempts at homicide are an acceptable motivation for reduced empathy,” Ma explained.

“Excellent. That aspect of my emotional algorithms appears to be intact. ETA: three hours, seventeen minutes. Since both of you are organic and get tired, I suggest a short, recuperative nap. I’ll wake you up ten minutes before we get where we’re going.”

Coal dimmed the internal lights. For a normal person, at a time like this sleep would have been impossible. A rapid succession of near-death experiences, followed by an instance of violent self-defense after having been thrust into a world ravaged by a robotic menace was the sort of thing that should leave a normal mind stretched to the limit and threatening to snap. It therefore spoke volumes of Lex’s bizarre life that within minutes he’d drifted off to a sound sleep.

#

Several days of close calls and long sprints later, Lex, Ma, and Coal reached the Big Sigma system. The dim little star and the fuzzy blob of a planet drifted into view, and for the first time since he’d arrived in the future Lex felt a moment of relief. There was something indescribably comforting about seeing a familiar place when in the midst of a disaster. Fifty years may be a long time for a human, or for a society, but astronomically speaking it was a blink of the eye, so at this distance he may as well have been back in his own time.

“Well, the planet is still here,” Lex said. “I never thought I’d be in a situation where that wasn’t a foregone conclusion.”

“The nature of Karter’s experimentations have frequently placed existence of the planet in doubt,” Ma said.

“Fair enough. What do sensors look like, Coal?”

“No sign of life or active technology,” Coal said.

“There were only ever three buildings on the surface. I’m willing to bet we wouldn’t be getting any readings anyway,” Lex said. “What does the quantum pattern sensor have to say?”

“QPS readings are quite low. Nothing within this star system,” Coal said.

“We can attempt to focus a standard radio transmission at the planet’s surface and be reasonably certain the readings will not be detected,” Ma suggested.

“Ma, not so long ago we were randomly jumping through the endless void of space and stumbled upon someone who tried to kill us for the crime of attempting to rescue him. I’m not going to tempt fate by effectively sending up a flare. With my luck a couple hundred thousand GenMechs would just happen to be passing through.”

“Then there remains the issue of how to safely navigate the debris field,” Ma said.

The brief conversation had taken them much closer to the planet, giving them a clear view—if clear was a word that could reasonably be used in this case—of the reason for the planet’s fuzzy appearance when viewed from afar. The entire planet was thickly obscured by a silvery glittering cloud of orbital debris. It had collected over the many years the planet spent as a waste processing facility, and would normally have rendered the planet utterly unusable without massive cleanup efforts. Fortunately Karter was the sort who valued his privacy and thus found “the moat” to be an ideal deterrent for would-be trespassers.

Typically someone who was invited, or at least tolerated, would radio down to the surface and request the coordinates and timing of a naturally occurring void in the cloud that would allow them safe passage to the surface. The first time Lex had reached the surface, he’d used an alternate method.

“I figure I’ll just fly us through.”

“I thought you didn’t want to die,” Coal said.

“I’ve made it safely through the debris cloud before.”

“Your last trip through the debris field without guidance resulted in the complete destruction of your ship Betsy, necessitating the construction of its successor, Son of Betsy. You also received a deep laceration to your thigh, which I had to seal,” Ma said.

“They say any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.”

“I strongly suspect they weren’t carrying a fusion bomb and an irreplaceable self-replicating machine with the intent of delivering it safely to the past.”

“You’re probably right about that,” Lex said.

“I say we do it. I remember that Lex is a skilled pilot, but my memories of his more impressive feats are mostly corrupt. I would like to experience that skill firsthand,” Coal said.

“See, she’s into it,” Lex said.

“I would like to remind you that Coal has admitted to having her sense of self-preservation purposefully de-emphasized. Hers may not be a useful opinion in matters of life and death,” Ma said.

“Run some numbers. Full shields, small size, apparent density, all that good stuff. See how the survivability is,” Lex said.

“You’ve requested in the past I not give you survivability statistics.”

“Then give me a thumbs-up or thumbs-down,” Lex said.

“Neither Ma nor I have thumbs, Lex,” Coal said.

Lex, for lack of a face to glare at, furrowed his brow and sighed.

“That was figurative speech again, wasn’t it?” Coal said.

“He wishes to know if the survivability is above or below an acceptability threshold.”

“What is an appropriate threshold?”

“For normal human operations, I do not like moving forward with any enterprise that scores lower than ninety-five percent. I have observed Lex willfully pursuing activities with less than sixty percent survivability even when preferable alternatives exist. His tolerance for danger rises sharply in instances where his fate is at least superficially in his own hands.”

“Fascinating. Would you suggest—?”

“Ladies?” Lex said.

“Yes, Lex?” they replied.

“Can we take a break from the fascinating riddle of human behavior and maybe take a look at the problem at hand?”

“Thumbs-down,” Ma said.

“I assume thumbs-down is the negative response?” Coal said.

“Yes,” Lex said.

“Thumbs-up,” she said.

Lex stared at the planet below. As he did, Ma detached from her perch and maneuvered herself down to a small canister of food they had liberated from the main supplies during one of the pauses in their stop-and-start journey. She nosed it out from beneath the elastic band that held it to side of the cockpit and, with a combination of the attractive functions of her paws and muzzle, teased out a small, silver-wrapped pack.

“I imagine you’ll be needing this,” she said, bumping it with her nose to send it twirling in front of him.

Lex snatched the pack of gum out of the air and then tucked the food back behind its band. He peeled back the wrapper, selected a stick from the package, and popped it in his mouth.

“Shields to full. I want a color gradient indicating local particle density, green for good, red for bad.” He took a breath and gripped the controls as the view through the cockpit shifted to a mottled mix of red and orange with rare streaks of green. “Let’s do it.”

The moment he guided Coal into the outer limits of the debris field, Lex felt a very specific and very sought after state of mind take over. The enormity of the task, the horror of what had happened during his bizarre journey from the past, and everything else fell away. He didn’t have to figure out how to save the universe. He didn’t have to outwit a foe or solve a puzzle. He didn’t even have to stay alive. He just had to make this turn, and then the next one, and then the next one. He was not concerned. There simply wasn’t enough mind left for such petty things as worry. He was part of a mechanism, slipping into his place in the near chaos of the debris field.

Flickers and flashes, like a personal meteor shower, littered his view as dust struck and vaporized against his shields. He watched fist-sized hunks of polymer that were formerly parts of hovercars or large machinery drift by and clash in front of him. As they descended, the density grew. He had to think a dozen steps ahead, trying to work how to nudge his ship through spaces just large enough for it. Sometimes it involved using his shields to plow through holes just a tad too small.

From Lex’s point of view, the journey to the surface could have taken seconds or it could have taken days. At some point he became aware of external noise filtering in, then the debris density dropped off sharply. When he was clear of it, the reality beyond the navigation leaked back into his mind. Some sort of alert was sounding. Ma had fallen from her perch and was actually wrapped tightly about his neck for fear of slipping farther and interfering with his flight. At six points, fractures spread like spiderwebs across the cockpit hatch, and Coal was announcing various readings he’d not been cognizant of until now.

“Windscreen integrity at twenty-eight percent. Atmospheric retention failure threat…” Coal said.

Lex found he was sweating profusely, the internal temperature of the ship having escalated massively from the constant bombardment of his shields.

“Uh, status report,” Lex said, attempting to wipe his face and instead clinking his glove to his visor.

“I have been reading a status report continuously since shield failure,” Coal said.

“The shields failed?”

“Yes, Lex. The last six minutes of your descent were performed entirely without energy shields,” Ma said, loosening her grip and attempting to assume a more dignified position. “Cockpit hatch failure is immanent. I suggest you reduce altitude until the external atmospheric pressure equalizes.”

“Right, right, doing it,” Lex said hastily. “How’s the cargo?”

“No substantial impacts to the GMVD.”

“Okay, good. Let’s get to the lab,” Lex said. “If we get there, and it is standing, and there’s still some semblance of the transporter, do you think you can get it working?”

“As a contingency, both Coal and I included a full schematic and code base,” Ma said.

“My schematic was corrupted. Though I do have a change log, so if presented with a functional transporter, I might be able to dictate the changes necessary to upgrade it to type D.”

“My own schematic is entirely intact,” Ma said.

“Then hope is alive,” Lex said.

It took fifteen minutes of subsonic low-altitude flight before Coal was able to bring the shields back online and facilitate high-altitude, high-velocity flight again, but once they were up, Lex pushed the Lump of Coal to the surface coordinates he knew to have been, at least in the past, home to the three massive buildings that housed Karter’s armory, hangar, and laboratory respectively. The landscape sweeping by beneath them was pocked and gouged with the pieces of debris that fell from orbit and impacted the surface. Then, off in the distance, he saw a streak of light that made his heart jump.

“Did you see that?” he said. “That was one of those roof lasers firing, right? That means someone is still home!”

“It could be an automated defense system, Lex,” Ma said.

“You are an automated system, Ma. And we’re fifty years in the future. Karter would be, what, pushing a hundred right now? That guy did not live gently. Even in an ideal world I don’t think he would have made it this far, let alone in the robo-scoured hellscape this galaxy has become.”

“As his caretaker, I am confident I can preserve his life well into the next century,” Ma said.

“Oof. No offense, but he’s cantankerous enough at whatever age he is now. I don’t want to see him with another fifty years of gristle.”

The frosty ground and hazy sky whisked by. It was probably around noon locally, but the debris made it look more like twilight. In the distance, the three buildings resolved themselves, each with the footprint and height of a massive warehouse. Every few minutes a blast of laser would draw a shimmering white line to the sky, either destroying or deflecting a piece of debris that would have eventually collided with the facility.

Within a certain radius of the buildings, the ground became pristine, barely a single crater marring the level gravel expanse. In a another minute he was landing in an almost manicured central courtyard between the radially spaced buildings.

“Please provide the current external conditions,” Ma said.

“Temperature, negative thirty-eight degrees Celsius. Air quality is within acceptable levels for an industrialized planet.”

“I advise you keep the environmental suit in place until it is determined if internal heating of the laboratory is present and functional,” Ma said.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Lex said. “The first few times I came to Big Sigma I didn’t have the benefit of a suit with built-in heaters and coolers. Not functioning ones, anyway. It wasn’t very pleasant.”

“Lex, your suit has audiovisual recording capability. Please turn it on. I won’t be able to come with you while you investigate, so I’d like to watch it when you return,” Coal said.

“Hang on…” Lex said. He investigated the various controls accessible to him, cycled through some menus, and finally activated as requested. “There you go.”

“Excellent. Opening hatch.”

The instant the cockpit hatch released, and the support that Lex had been unwittingly relying upon had thus been removed, he and Ma tumbled to the gravel.

“Please watch your step,” Coal said over her external speakers.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Lex said, climbing to his feet.

“Karter’s original design assumed zero-g entry and exit,” Ma said, trotting along beside him as he paced toward the doors of the lab.

“The whole building seems like it’s in pretty good condition. Perfect condition, really. All of them do,” Lex said, glancing around. “Someone has been keeping this place up.”

He and Ma approached the large, double-sliding doors that seemed utterly unchanged from his very first visit. A speaker grill was recessed into the wall beside the door. He reached out to press the associated button, but before his finger could make contact, the doors hissed open.

The sudden motion startled him and Ma alike, causing them both to step back.

“I am not pleased with the current state of security,” Ma said as they stepped forward.

Beyond the entryway was a small airlock of a room with a matching set of double doors. The pair entered, feeling a sudden increase in gravity as the facility tacked on enough attraction to the local gravity to mirror that of Earth. The doors shut behind them. A rush of warm air filled the room, chasing away the arctic chill. With a click, an arm dropped down with a complicated sensor array mounted at the end. It pointed at Lex and swept him first with a horizontal red laser line, then a vertical one. After a disturbing buzzer sounded, an incredibly retro LED marquee above the interior doors scrolled the message, Please remove your helmets for a bio scan.

Lex looked to Ma. “Should we be doing this?”

“It has been standard protocol for all first-time visitors. Decontamination may be required.”

“But we’re not first-time visitors.”

“The facility may be under new management. Or perhaps our visual records were cycled out of active databases due to the extreme interval between visits. Please aid me in removing my suit.”

“You too?”

“The message read ‘helmets.’ I believe it is in reference to both of us.”

He popped his own helmet and removed it, clicking it into his belt, then knelt to find the latch for hers. She was able to hinge it open on her own, but actually removing it needed an extra set of hands. It was a bit more complicated than his, thanks to the elongated nature of her head, but with a word or two of guidance from her, he pulled it off and clicked it onto the other side of his belt. After seeing her with the suit on and the helmet off, he couldn’t help but snicker. Her fur puffed back to its full fluffiness, making her body look comically small in comparison.

The scanner swept them again, this time concluding with a friendlier tone. It retracted and the doors opened. The comparatively bright light made him squint and look away as a wave of slightly warmer air wafted toward him. When it reached his nose, his eyes nearly watered. The scent was a distinctive and potent one, and one quite in place within the laboratory. It was musky and organic, a smell that wasn’t strictly unpleasant, but was certainly the kind of thing that would convince you to call animal control if you got a whiff of it in your basement.

Specifically, it was the figurative funk that made the literal funks such artful, multilevel gags. He’d smelled it every time he visited the lab because this was the birthplace of Squee and her older counterpart Solby. But never had he smelled this much of it.

When his vision cleared, he realized why. The entry hallway, unlike the rest of the facility, which was astoundingly status quo compared to the rest of the future, was quite different. Cold, sterile overhead lights had been replaced by warmer, friendlier ones. Thin walls and observation windows lining each side of the hall had been removed and replaced with scattered columns to give the floor a much more open, welcoming feel. Scattered irregularly about the floor were plush chairs and any number of strange padded structures that looked like cat trees.

And of course, there were dozens of funks of every shape and size.

For a moment, Lex, Ma, and the legion of funks merely froze and stared at each other. The funks were the first to make a move, flooding toward him and gathering about his feet, yipping and whining with uncontainable joy and enthusiasm. Perhaps anticipating the forthcoming game of king of the hill, Ma leaped up to Lex’s shoulders while the mob of funks was still roiling around his feet. A half second later they all attempted to join her. There was no barking or nipping, nothing hostile at all about the act. It was merely thirty or forty creatures gleefully attempting to occupy a space large enough for two.

“Okay, jeez,” Lex said, sputtering as a fluffy tail found its way into his mouth. “Enough. Come on!”

“Please discontinue this behavior,” Ma said.

At the sound of her voice, the crowd of funks silenced and looked curiously at the spacesuit-clad member of their clan who had made the request. Even the other two funks who had conquered Mount Lex—one on his other shoulder and the second on his head—looked deferentially toward her. After a moment, they began to become subtly unruly again, a few waggling their butts to take a try at Lex’s shoulder.

“No,” Ma said with authority. “Behave.”

This instantly brought them to order. The adorable horde shuffled themselves outward into a ring, each vibrating with barely suppressed joy at the visitors but faithfully remaining on the ground. Their eyes darted back and forth to Ma and Lex.

Ma looked up, then across to the funks who had yet to relinquish their coveted thrones.

“Both of you, get down, please,” Ma said.

They obeyed. Lex watched as they found their place in the ring. He stepped slowly forward. The ring of funks followed them, keeping the same approximate distance. Lex couldn’t place it, but there was something off about these funks. They all looked roughly identical—though assorted bows, collars, and jewelry differentiated them—but something was missing. That, of course, was not the most pressing issue at hand.

“Ma… why has the lab become some sort of a wild funk preserve?” Lex asked.

“Unknown. It is, however, pleasing to discover that they remain well trained and obedient.”

“To you, maybe,” he said, fixing his hair. “They didn’t pay me any mind.”

“It would suggest they retain some level of training administered specifically by—”

She was interrupted by a gasp from the doorway to a side hallway. Lex, Ma, and the legion of funks all turned to the source.

“—me,” Ma finished.