Neptune sent a think-tank themselves, like they were a real planet and not an Earth colony. They’ve never said how they keep things going on that tiny ship, if it’s cloning or bio-reproduction or what; every generation they elect someone for the job, and I guess whenever Carthage shows up they’ll put forward the elected person and hope for the best. Brave bunch, Neptune. Better them than us.
Centauri was the smartest planet. They sent an AI. You know the AI isn’t sitting up nights worrying itself into early expiration. It’s not bothered by a damn thing.
Octa makes rounds to all the ships. She’s the only one of them who does it, and it works. Canis Major sent us help once, when we had the ventilation problem on the storage levels. She didn’t ask for help; they’re not obligated to share anything but information. But when she came back, an engineer was with her.
“Trust me, I know everything about refrigeration,” he said, and after the computer had translated the joke everybody laughed and shook his hand.
Octa stood beside him like a mother until they had taken him into the tunnels, and then she tucked her helmet under her arm like she was satisfied.
“They’re good people,” she said to the shuttle pilot, who was making a face. “With no ambassador to keep them going, they must feel so alone. Give them a chance to do good.”
“I’ve got the scan ready,” I said. (I scan her every time she comes back from somewhere else. It’s a precaution. You never know what’s going on outside your own ship.)
“Let’s be quick, then,” she said, already walking down the corridor. “I have to make some notes, and then I need to talk to Centauri.”
(Centauri’s AI is Octa’s favorite ship; she’s there far more often than she needs to be. “Easier to come to decisions when it’s just a matter of facts,” she said.)
Octa did a lot of planning, early on, like she had a special purpose beyond what Alpha had promised—like time was short.
Of all the copies, she was the only one who ever seemed to worry that her clock was ticking down.
All the Yemennis have been different, which is unavoidable. Even though each one has all the aggregated information of previous iterations without the emotional hangover, it can get messy, like Hepta and Dorado 214. Human error in every copy. It’s the reason her machines all have parameters instead of specs; some things you never can tell. (Poor Hex.)
It’s hard on them, of course—after fifty years it all starts to fall apart no matter what you do, and you have to shut one down and start again—but it’s the best way we have to give her a lifetime of knowledge in a few minutes, and we don’t want Carthage to come when we’re unprepared.
I don’t know what’s in the memories, what they show her each time she wakes. That’s for government guys; techs mind their own business.
There’s a documentary about how they picked Alpha for the job, four hundred years back. One man went on and on about “the human aesthetic,” and put up a photo of what a woman would look like if every race had an influence in the facial features.
“Almost perfect. It’s like they chose her for her looks!” he says, laughing.
Like Carthage is going to know if she’s pretty. Carthage is probably full of big amoebas, and when they meet her they’ll just think she’s nasty and fragile and full of teeth.
They have a picture of Alpha up in the lab anyway, for reference. No one looks at it any more—nobody needs to. When I look in the mirror, I see a Yemenni first, and then my own face. I have my priorities straight.
Wren Yemenni is why we’re here, and the reason none of us have complained in four hundred years is because she knows what she owes us. She’s seen the video, too, with those ten thousand people who gave up everything because someone told them the message was beautiful.
No matter what her failings are, she tries to learn everything she can each time, to move diplomacy forward, to be kind (except to Dorado 215, but we all hate those ass-kissers so it doesn’t matter). She knows what she’s here to do. It’s coded deeper than her IQ, than her memories, somewhere inside her we can’t even reach; duty is built into their bones. Alpha passed down something wonderful, to all of them.
Octa doesn’t look like Alpha. Not at all.
Just before Dorado 215 hits his twenty-year expiration, he messages a request that Octa accompany him on an official visit to the Xpelhi. There’s something he wants to show them; he thinks they’ll be interested.
Everyone asks her to go when they have to talk to Xpelhi. We gave everyone the code once we cracked it (we promised to exchange information, fair and square), but no one else is good at it and they need the help. The Yemmenis have a knack for language.
“I hate him,” she says as I strap her into her suit. (It’s new—our engineers made it to withstand the pressure in the Xpelhi ship. It’s the most amazing human tech we’ve ever produced. Earth will be proud when they get the message.)
“If peace didn’t require me to go…” she says, frowns. “I hope they see that what he’s offering won’t help anyone. It never does.”
She sounds tired. I wonder if she’s been up nights with the playback again.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You can hate him if you want. No one expected you to love him like the last one did. It’s better not to carry the old feelings around. You live longer.”
“He’s different,” she says. “It’s terrible how it’s changed him.”
“All clones feel that way sometimes,” I say. “Peril of the job. Here’s your helmet.”
She takes it and smiles at me, a thank-you, before she pops it over her head and activates the seal.
“I feel like a snowman,” she says, which is what Hepta used to say. I wonder if anyone told Octa, of if she just remembered it from somewhere.
I stay near the bio-med readout while she’s on the Xpelhi ship; if anything starts to fail, the suit tells us. If her lungs have collapsed from the pressure there’s not much we can do, but at least we’ll know, and we can wake up the next one.
Her heart rate speeds up, quick sharp spikes on the readout like she’s having a panic attack, but that happens whenever Dorado 215 says something stupid. After a while it’s just a little agitation, and soon she’s safely back home.
She stands on the shuttle platform for a long time without moving, and only after I start toward her does she wake up enough to switch off the pressure in the suit and haul her helmet off.
I stop where I am. I don’t want to touch her; I’ve worked too hard on them to handle them. “Everything all right?”
She’s frowning into middle space, not really seeing me. “There’s nothing on the ship we could use as a weapon?”
Strange question. “I guess we could crash the shuttle into someone,” I say. “I can ask the engineers.”
“No,” she says. “No need.”
It was part of the message, the first rule: no war before Carthage comes. We don’t even have armed security– just guys who train with their hands, ready in case Octa tries to shove any more people in airlocks.
She hasn’t done that in a while. She’s getting worn down. It happens to them all, nearer the end.
“There’s been no war for four hundred years,” she says as we walk, shaking her head. “Have we ever gone that long before without fighting? Any of us?”