Arquella replied, “I think she’s the devil. She looks like the devil.”
Syn and Avia both turned suddenly at that, their eyebrows raised in a similar reaction. Avia said, “We all look the same.”
Arquella rotated in the air. “Who looks like her?”
Syn said, “Avia and I. We look like Neci.”
Bear wobbled in. “Na. You don’t look anything like her. She’s glows red. She glows like the devil herself. You two are bright blue and glorious.”
Arquella added, “Not sure what you two are looking at.”
Avia and Syn had let it go at that, confused by the bots’ reaction.
Hours passed, and Syn was down to the final work. The large TyTech strip—a piece that resembled brain tissue and a thousand tiny nerves embedded in a clear plastic tube—pulsed in her hands. The organ was far larger than any she had seen in any other bot, and she handled it with care, asking Avia to assist as she moved it from Blip’s shattered shell to the newly formed companion composed of Blip’s and Spot’s internals and Spot’s shell. The TyTech brain would be the addition that would make this newly formed companion truly Blip.
When everything finally fit together, Syn sealed the hatch. The reassembled Blip, his shell scuffed and dirty, was whole. On the other table, the old shell, damaged pieces, and unneeded elements from Spot were stacked. In the center was the dried-out TyTech brain of Spot, still in its tube, grayed over, shriveled, and rotting.
Syn ran a finger along Blip’s new outside but nothing happened.
Minutes passed and still nothing happened.
An hour later, Syn still waited.
“Please go,” she finally told the others, two hours after the final assemblage had been completed.
Avia hugged her. Syn didn’t move. Instead, she sat in the embrace, head on the metal table where Blip rested.
Again, Syn said, “Just go. Please.”
They all shuffled out, leaving Syn alone with Blip’s unmoving shell.
When she was sure they were all gone, Syn said, “I did something wrong. I know I did. I could fix all of them. Put them all back together. But somehow, I couldn’t fix you. I don’t know how I couldn’t have done it right, but I didn’t. I somehow missed it. It’s just me Blip. I’m the broken one. I’m the one that messes up everything else. All you’ve done your entire life was help me make the right decision, and I never could. I made us go over there. I went to Zondon. I told Neci my secret. It’s all my fault. Kerwen’s dead. So many bots died. And my tree is gone. And you’re dead. And I can’t fix you.” The words were broken with huge, deep sobs, and Syn no longer cared if she wiped her tears. They flowed from her cheeks, rinsing the blood of her and the Sisters away, dripping onto the metal table next to Blip.
Quietly, beside her, a familiar voice spoke, “I didn’t want you to find them.”
Syn sat, her mouth dropped open. “Blip?”
The voice shifted in tone, as if trying to find the right level, “You’re mine, and I knew what they were doing. Olorun told me. She said they had blocked her out. That’s all. I’m sorry.”
“Blip! You’re alive!” Syn grabbed him and pulled herself to him, holding tightly.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. I should’ve told the truth. If I had, maybe you wouldn’t have raced over there if you knew. I didn’t know how bad it was. I promise. I just…”
“What are you talking about?” Syn asked through a new wave of tears.
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard you. You were blaming yourself. It’s my fault. I just knew what would happen.”
“You were right! I should’ve listened to you.”
“I should’ve told you.”
“I just didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t understand.”
“You weren’t alone.”
“I know. I never was. You were always there. You were always next to me. You never left me.”
“I always will be.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
The two stayed like that, pressed close together, muttering apologies and declarations for quite some time before finally leaving to join the others and to show the newly awakened Blip off.
As they left, Syn said, “How do you like your new body?”
Blip sighed, “It’s okay. Bit dinged up, but I’ll try to get that fixed.”
“We almost lost you.”
“I know. Thank you. You saved me.”
“You saved me. In the Jacob lift. And before—in the room when the Sisters came for you.”
“But you came looking for me. You rescued me.”
Syn wrapped her arm around him once more as they walked. “You’re mine. And I’m yours.”
“Always,” he chirped, “Forever.”
46
BURIAL OF A GODDESS
Iku ti yo pani ki i peni loruko.
“The death that will kill a person does not call the person by name.”
The ripe, rolling smell of decay churned under thick, moist soil filled Syn’s nose.
In the dark cavern of the body farm, she and Avia stood. The two had changed clothes and cleaned themselves, washing away the grime and blood of the last several days. Syn kept her hair free, allowing it to billow in a cloud about her head. Avia had asked for Syn to help braid her hair tightly, and she found a thin, simple dress in one of the settlements and wore that. Syn had returned to her normal attire of a motley collection of shirts and layers and a dozen necklaces about her neck.
At their feet, naked and covered in sparse chunks of mud and dirt, lay the body of their sister Neci. Her dark skin melted into the night of the dirt.
Behind them, their friends gathered. Huck and Blip floated, careful to keep their movements still. Further back, the Barlgharel, Bear, and Arquella stood as silent sentinels in the somber scene.
Eku plodded close and stood between the two girls, nuzzling each in turn.
Syn stared at Neci’s closed eyes. She imagined those eyes opening and Neci’s hands reaching out for her, to pull her back down into the dirt. It was an image she knew would find its way into her dreams.
“I miss her,” Avia said.
Syn nodded. She had seen funerals in the movies. People stood quiet and somber. There was someone who read from Psalms. Syn had passages memorized, but nothing came to mind. There were no words that fit this moment.
Neci was the tyrant of an entire world, and her surviving sisters stood remembering her. What line, what poem, could manage this? There was none.
“We never held a funeral for the others,” Avia said.
Syn’s stomach tightened, and her distaste for Neci grew. They had never held a funeral because they had consumed the others. There were no dead bodies left around, no bodies to bury. They had all been used to keep the others alive. Because Neci had chosen it.
“That tradition ends with her,” Syn said. She leaned down and picked up a clod of dirt. It felt cold and unruly in her fingers. Chunks fell off as she brought up her hand. With a slow motion, she crumbled it across Neci’s body.
With a whisper, she said, “Good-bye.”
Syn and Avia left the body farm and the corpse of Neci behind them. In the years to come, her body would dissolve and reintroduce potassium, nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, and a host of other chemicals and minerals into the crops managed by the farm bots. Those crops would be consumed by the animals roving the Disc above.
At the Jacob lift back up top, Huck, Bear, Arquella, Blip, and the Barlgharel waited for the two girls and Eku to return. Syn, Avia, and the tiger joined their new family to return to the base.
As the doors shut, Syn asked, “Could we stop and pick some apples?”