He never finished the sentence. From the other side of the gate, a single tiny tap sounded. Just once. They both turned and looked. Then another tap came. Two taps. Spaced apart.
“Debris settling,” Blip explained.
Syn started to believe him until two more taps came. A distinct rhythm. Tap. Tap. Fast, together. Then a pause, and another tap. Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap. Then again.
On instinct, Syn rapped against the metal with her knuckles. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The tapping stopped
Syn’s eyes went wide, and she stared hard at Blip. He looked up at her and then went pure green, turning on every single sensor he could.
“Space pirates,” Syn whispered.
His green glow pulsed over and over as Blip used every detection method possible. After a minute of the green glow and no tapping, Blip turned back to his normal white porcelain shell. “There is nothing there.”
“Tap? Tap? Tap?” Syn said, rapping her own knuckles on his hard shell.
“There’s nothing there!” he shouted back at her.
Syn pulled back. He had yelled at her. The two had fought before. They had disagreed. But he had never yelled back at her. In her mind, he was exactly what he was named: a companion bot. He was there to help her. To advise her. Deep inside, she had always assumed that meant that he was also there to ultimately obey her.
Syn stayed there, her mouth hung open. He hovered, glowering as well.
A voice, smaller than an insect’s wing, whispered, “Help me.” The words were thin, like ice. Nearly silent above the background hum of the gate room.
Two words.
12
THE VOICE
“Smoke and dust, the stuff of simple myth trying to be legend…”
Syn kicked out and swam toward the gate. She slammed both hands against the metal, gripping into the thin edges of the massive iris blades. “What was that?” she shouted, but she didn’t wait for an answer. She yelled again, “Hello? Who was that? Hello?” She shouted over and over and heard nothing.
Blip was speaking, but she was not listening.
Syn had heard someone. She had heard another voice. A human voice. She continued to shout, trying to get the voice to respond.
Blip yelled, interrupting her mania. “Stop! I can’t hear!”
He was right. Syn was yelling so loud, they wouldn’t be able to hear if the other person was responding.
Syn shut her mouth, but she could not stop her mind. So many possibilities raced through her head. It had sounded like a girl. Like she was hurt. But Syn couldn’t be sure. Her mind ran. How could there be someone else on board? Maybe a ship hit us? Another Earth ship? When Olorun launched, it was supposed to be the fastest ship ever. It’s possible they made faster ships. But ships that could catch up to us?
The thoughts stacked on themselves. Perhaps it wasn’t a human. Perhaps it was just a bot that had gone haywire or was injured and malfunctioned. But how had a bot gotten out there? Maybe it was one assigned to the ramjet, but we’d never heard of any bot being placed out there. She and Blip made sure the bots were well taken care of. They were all checked up on regularly. She could tell you most of their names and what they were doing—she had named all of them herself. There weren’t many that even came up to the needle, let alone managed to get through on the other side of the gate. But perhaps one of them had the access codes to open the gate. She and Blip never considered that one of the bots might be assigned duties on the other side.
“Are there any bots missing?” Syn said.
Blip looked at her, his expression empty. “What?”
“Are there any bots missing? Could that have been a bot?”
“On the other side of the gate? Seriously?”
“Stop disbelieving me. We’re not getting anywhere with that. Just answer the question.”
Blip sighed. He gave a slight nod of his head. He turned to analyze, but she caught him roll his eyes. A few seconds later he said, “No. They’re all accounted for. 272 independent bots. Not counting any of the plant growers or field maintenance. Over 1089 deactivated without any change.” After he had spouted off the facts that he was reading, he narrowed his eyes, “Just the same as always.”
Syn whispered to him, her eyes still on the iris of the gate, her fingers lightly touching the metal, “Who said that?”
“Maybe it was a recording.” Blip moved back and floated. “Maybe it was an announcement.” He came up to Syn. “Maybe we didn’t hear it. Maybe it was a mass hallucination.”
“You’re a robot. That’s not possible. Besides, you know what we heard.”
Blip waited and then gave a brief nod.
“So can we just wait and see if they talk again?”
Again, Blip gave a subtle nod. He understood that this was important to her. There might be someone else on board the behemoth known as Olorun.
So they waited. And listened. They floated inches away from the iris of the gate like tiny dots before some ancient edifice. Nothing broke the stillness of that empty cavern. Nothing moved, and no new lights shone. It was only the two of them in the quiet dark.
Minutes passed, and they still heard nothing. Syn was frozen in anticipation and fearful to break to moment—fearful that the instant she chose to leave, to call it quits, the voice would sound, and she would miss it. Minutes turned into hours, and they still didn’t move. Nor did they hear anything. It was a tranquil quiet. Far away, the Jacobs’ ratcheting whirrs could be heard as the lifts went up and down transporting an array of bots performing their business between the various levels of arch-wall structures. But nothing moved in the gate room. And nothing spoke.
Blip’s voice broke the spell. “Syn, wake up.”
Syn’s mind drifted. Wake up. Why would he say that? I am awake. My… Her eyes were closed, and when she opened them she was drifting about the room, in a slow tumble away from the gate. She had fallen asleep. Syn shook her grogginess away although it didn’t help much. Syn gently swam toward the gate, toward the bubble. “How long has it been?”
“That we’ve been waiting?” Blip asked, “A few hours. I don’t think we’re going to hear anything.”
Syn ignored him and pressed her face close to the bubble and said aloud, “Are you there? I want to help.”
As expected, they heard nothing. Syn put her hand on Blip’s head. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Where?” Blip asked.
Syn paused as she aimed herself at one of the tunnels. She replied, “The bridge.”
Blip nodded, and they darted up (or down depending on perspective) toward the hatch to the bridge along the wall of the gate room.
13
A BRIDGE OF LIARS
“How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws. And welcomes little fishes in, with gently smiling jaws.”
Syn placed her hand on the hatch and stopped. No, she didn’t want to be up here anymore. At that moment, something stole over her. It wasn’t a chill, although she felt very cold inside. She felt alone. And at the same time, she felt very not alone. Something had invaded her world, something she had not met. And she knew nothing about it.
At that moment, Syn wanted to be back in her tree. She wanted to be in her bed—to shut out the vastness of the gate room, of the Disc, of Olorun. She wanted to make her world as small as possible, to go behind the walls and lock the doors.