His friend went through the necessary surgeries and rebirth, and unlike a few patients, she quickly adapted to her new state. And fifty years later, while Rococo was leading a distant mission, he received news that his friend died in a tragic accident involving plasmas and AI errors.
The two of them were never lovers. Yet the woman was first in his thoughts that evening, and she stayed with Rococo throughout the sleepless night. Long stretches of conversation came to mind, word for word, and there were intervals where memory was far larger than the present. Once again, Rococo was sharing a drink with a perpetually young lady who was throwing her new cognitive skills at new languages and exotic faiths, all while touring exotic corners of the Great Ship. She was also making friends and then throwing the same friends aside when they proved to be the wrong sorts for a girl who was preparing for the next million years.
“A million years,” she said.
Night had reached its middle, and Rococo sat on the deck, in the open. Sometimes he looked at stars, sometimes down at his empty hands. But all he saw was a girl who was so thrilled, standing on the edge of Forever, and all she was asking from the Universe was a brief million years.
Three times, Mere came to him in the night. The first two visits proved nothing but that the man didn’t want to speak to her, regardless of what she said. But that didn’t stop her from explaining that Amund was a shit. He was a shit who should have told them what was happening, even if the river forbad any warnings. “He could have used the Highland language to keep us ready. I learned enough words to follow the topic. If he had thought about doing that, which he would have. If the shit had ever bothered to try.”
Shrugs didn’t capture Rococo’s indifference.
Silently gazing at the back of his hands. That’s what convinced her to walk away. Twice.
Somewhat more effective was the third visit. With the sun rising behind them, Mere sat on the deck, legs crossed, near enough to Rococo that they might bump knees. With a careful quick voice, she said, “Of course it’s possible that everything is a lie.”
He looked at her, looked away. “About a sacrifice.”
She nodded.
“And he’s the one who decides who.”
This time, Mere glanced at her own hands. Waiting him out, apparently.
Finally, Rococo said, “I believe the man.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know him,” he explained.
Face and mouth both asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean that if I did know the man, then I’d be able to yank the fabrications from the truth. For instance, if I’d slept with the fellow. Then I’d have a perspective. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel as if I’m guessing about everything.”
“Everything,” she repeated. “Including this alleged agreement,” he said. “We don’t know if this world has offered worlds to us, much less tossing us most of the solar system. And how can we be sure that luddies are the only organisms that are welcome here? We have no details. We have nothing but words and posturing from a creature that you don’t know either. Do you, Mere?”
“Not particularly well,” she said.
The sun was suddenly bright and wonderfully warm, baking into his flesh. “All right,” Rococo said. Then after a long pause, he added, “I’m going through the morning as a doomed man. All right? That’s how I want to approach my last day, even if it isn’t today. All right.”
When they reached the ocean, the river had built itself into a towering blue-black wave. Five hundred meters above the surface of any normal river, they were being shoved forward so fast that the air blasted past them. But Rococo remained outside. Stress or habit was at play, or maybe the absence of imagination that comes with the gallows. The man could do nothing but watch the ocean retreating before the gelatin wall and before him. What wasn’t calmness had come into him, or maybe this quiet had always been present, in secret. Being someone who was always loud or ready to become loud, he didn’t know the tricks about lasting silence. But he was trying to learn. How much time remained? Don’t calculate that. The best trick was to do nothing but sit and watch everything at once, committing nothing to memory because nothing was more useless now than fresh remembrances. Not for Rococo, not anymore. Just sit still and merge with each breath and the glorious sight of saltwater fleeing from a giant that was bearing him faster and faster toward their destination.
There.
The streakship was waiting exactly where it was expected, where it promised. Thick legs straddled an island that had sunk into the waves, just from its terrific mass. Where the destroyed streakship had been minimal hyperfiber and maximum vacuum, this beast was a marvel of deep armor and utter indifference to its surroundings. It was a bright gray cone that could have hidden happily inside a mountain range. It was a machine that would welcome them and protect them, and if the resident AIs were tweaked just so, the ship would fall in love with each of them, probably forever.
“What if Amund was lying?”
Rococo said it to the
