Finally she has rid herself of the last of them—the humans, the diseased vermin. And she has saved herself from becoming a crippled hulk. The fire doors buffered the explosion; the flooding of herself short-circuited all but one of the wads of explosive.
Now her intelligence moves through herself—checking, re-checking. Relays click. Circuits buzz. Signals indicate a jagged hole in hull Subsection 37c. Instantly she activates her self-repair units. Liquid sealant oozes and hardens to plug minor holes. Duralloy plates are rigged and methodically secured to close the major one. Her secondary monitor system then surveys damage to all systems and files extensive reports with her central computer banks. Again she sets the self-repair units to humming, and one by one the damaged areas are repaired or replaced. Damage to the Severs-stardrive engines has been extensive; this too is corrected.
Now she checks her position. Alarms sound. She is off course and hanging dead in space.
Reports and corrections flow through herself in a steady stream. Time passes. Scanners and medi-probes scrutinize those bodies still aboard ship. All are lifeless. The plan has been successful. All crew members having been exposed to the virus, all were expendable; she could not allow possible contagion to occur by bringing them home. To insure that, she sucked the virus spores into her air ducts, transferred them each time Kahr ordered an airlock opened, infected the food and water supply whenever possible.
A low rumbling begins, climbs to a piercing shriek as she starts her great Severs-stardrive engines. On the bridge the lights dance dizzily as she calculates the course to Earth and feeds corrections to Navigation. Rockets fire.
She moves—invulnerable, disease-free. Mother and mistress to the shuttlecraft which service her, Alecto returns to her old orbit.
SWANWATCH
by Yoon Ha Lee
Yoon Ha Lee’s work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, Ideomancer, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Farrago’s Wainscot, and Sybil’s Garage. She’s also appeared in the anthologies Twenty Epics, Year’s Best Fantasy #6, and Science Fiction: The Best of 2002. A new story is forthcoming in Electric Velocipede.
Lee says that she plays several instruments and composes as a hobby. Learning to use a piece of music software called Logic Studio gave her some ideas about how musicians in the future might compose, which helped in the development of this story. “Swanwatch” is about the intersection of life and music and black holes. In the story, Lee explores the notion of an interstellar society that holds suicide art in high esteem. And what could be more perfect for that purpose than a black hole?
Officially, the five exiles on the station were the Initiates of the Fermata. Unofficially, the Concert of Worlds called them the swanwatch.
The older exiles called themselves Dragon and Phoenix, Tiger and Tortoise, according to tradition based in an ancient civilization’s legends. The newest and youngest exile went by Swan. She was not a swan in the way of fairy tales. If so, she would have had a history sung across the galaxy’s billions of stars, of rapturous beauty or resolute virtue. She would have woven the hearts of dead stars into armor for the Concert’s soldiers and hushed novae to sleep so ships could safely pass. However, she was, as befitted the name they gave her, a musician.
Swan had been exiled to the station because she had offended the captain of a guestship from the scintillant core. In a moment of confusion, she had addressed him in the wrong language for the occasion. Through the convolutions of Concert politics, she wound up in the swanwatch.
The captain sent her a single expensive message across the vast space now separating them. It was because of the message that Swan first went to Dragon. Dragon was not the oldest and wisest of the swanwatch; that honor belonged to Tortoise. But Dragon loved oddments of knowledge, and he could read the calligraphy in which the captain had written his message.
“You have good taste in enemies,” Dragon commented, as though Swan had singled out the captain. Dragon was a lanky man with skin lighter than Swan’s, and he was always pacing, or whittling appallingly rare scraps of wood, or tapping earworm-rhythms upon his knee.
Swan bowed her head. I’d rather not be here, and be back with my family. She didn’t say so out loud, though. That would have implied a disregard for Dragon’s company, and she was already fond of Dragon. “Can you read it?” she asked.
“Of course I can read it, although it would help if you held the message right side up.”
Swan wasn’t illiterate, but there were many languages in the Concert of Worlds. “This way?” Swan asked, rotating the sheet.
Dragon nodded.
“What does it say?”
Dragon’s foot tapped. “It says: ‘I look forward to hearing your masterpiece honoring the swanships.’ Should I read all his titles, too?” Dragon’s ironic tone made his opinion of the captain’s pretensions quite clear. “They take up the rest of the page.”
Swan had paled. “No, thank you,” she said. The swanwatch’s official purpose was as a retreat for artists. Its inhabitants could only leave upon presenting an acceptable masterwork to the judges who visited every decade. In practice, those exiled here lacked the requisite skill. The captain’s message clearly mocked her.
Like many privileged children, Swan had had lessons in the high arts: music and calligraphy, fencing and poetry. She could set a fragment of text to a melody, if given the proper mode, and play the essential three instruments: the zither, the flute, and the keyboard. But she had never pursued composing any further than that, expecting a life as a patron of the arts rather than an artist herself.
Dragon said, kindly, “It’s another way of telling you your task is impossible.”
Swan wondered if Dragon was a composer, but would not be so uncouth as to ask. “Thank you for reading me the letter,” she said.
“It was my pleasure,” Dragon said. It was obvious to him that Swan was determined to leave the Initiates and return home, however difficult the task and however much home might have changed in the interim. Kind for a second time, he did not disillusion her about her chances.
Tiger was a tall woman with deceptively sweet eyes and a rapacious smile. When Swan first met her, she was afraid that Tiger would gobble her up in some manner peculiar to the Initiates. But Tiger said only, “How are you settling in?”
Swan had a few reminders of her home, things she had been allowed to bring in physical form: a jewelry box inlaid with abalone, inherited from her deceased mother; a silver flute her best friend had given her. The official who had processed Swan’s transfer to the station had reminded her to choose carefully, and had said she could bring a lot more in scanned form, to be replicated at the station. But where homesickness was concerned, she wanted the real item, not a copy.
Swan thought about it, then said, “I’ll adjust.”
Tiger said, “We all do.” She stretched, joints creaking. “You’ve seen the duty roster, I trust. There’s a swanship coming in very soon. Shall I show you what to do?”
Although Swan could have trusted the manuals, she knew she would be sharing swanwatch with Tiger and the others for a long time. If Tiger was feeling generous enough to explain the procedures to her, best not to offend Tiger by declining.