Shame took hold. How could it have been so careless?
“I know five other occasions when you were noticed,” Wune continued. “There have probably been more incidents. I try to hear everything, but that’s never possible. Is it?” Then she described each sighting, identifying the place and time when these moments of incompetence occurred.
“I wasn’t aware that I was seen,” it stated.
Ignorance made its failures feel even worse.
“You were barely seen,” Wune corrected.“ A ghost, a phantom. Not real enough to be taken seriously.”
“You mentioned a spaceport,” it said.
“I did.”
“Where is this port?”
Wune pointed with authority, offering a precise distance.
“I don’t remember being there,” Alone admitted.
“Maybe we made a mistake,” she allowed.
“But I did visit a different port.” With care, it sifted through its memories. “I might have troubles with my memory,” it confessed.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I know so little about myself,” confessed the walker.
“That is sad,” Wune said. “I’m sorry for you.”
“Why?”
“Life is the past,” she stated. “The present moment is too narrow to slice and will be lost with the next instant.And the future is nothing but empty conjecture. Where you have been is what matters. What you have done is what counts for and against you on the tallies.”
The walker concentrated on those unexpected words.
“I have a telescope with me,” Wune said. “I used it when I first saw you. But I’m trying to be polite. If you don’t mind, may I study you now?”
“If you wish,” it said uneasily.
The Remora warned, “This might take some time, friend.” Then with both gloved hands, she held a long tube to her face.
Alone waited.
An hour later, Wune asked, “Are you a machine?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I am.”
“Or do you carry an organic component inside that body?”
“Each answer is possible, I think.”
Wune lowered the telescope. “I’m a little of both,” she allowed. “I like to believe that I’m more organic than mechanical, but the two facets happily live inside me.”
Alone said nothing.
The Remora laughed softly, admitting, “This is fun.”
Was it?
To her new friend, she explained, “Thousands of years ago, humans learned how to never grow old. No disease, and no easy way to kill us.” The hands were encased in hyperfiber gloves. One of those fingers tapped hard against her diamond faceplate. “My mind? It’s a bioceramic machine. Which makes it tough and quick to heal and full of redundancies. My memories are safe inside the artificial neurons. Whenever I want, I can remember yesterday. Or I can pull my head back five centuries and one yesterday. My life is an enormous, deeply personal epic that I am free to enjoy whenever I wish.”
“I am different than you,” Alone conceded.
Wune asked, “Do you sleep?”
“Never.”
“Yet you never feel mentally tired?” The purple face nodded, and she said, “Right now, I’m envious.”
Envy was a new word.
“I’m trying to tell you something,” she said. “This old Remora lady has been awake for a very long time, and she needs to sleep for a little while. Is that all right? Do whatever you want while my eyes are closed. If you need, walk away from me. Vanish completely.” Then she smiled, adding, “Or you might take a step or two in my direction. If you feel the urge, that is.”
Then Wune shut her misplaced eyes.
During the next hour, Alone crept ahead a little more than three meters.
As soon as she woke, Wune noticed. “Good. Very good.”
“Are you rested now?”
“Hardly. But I’ll push through the misery.” Her laugh had a different tone. “What’s your earliest, oldest memory? Tell me.”
“Walking.”
“Walking where?”
“Crossing the Ship’s hull.”
“Who brought you to the Ship?”
“I have always been here.”
She considered those words. “Or you could have been built here,” she suggested. “Assembled from a kit, perhaps. You don’t remember a crowd of engineers sticking their hands inside you?”
“I remember no one.” Then again, with confidence, Alone claimed, “I have never been anywhere but on the Great Ship.”
“If that was true,” Wune began. Then she fell silent.
Alone asked, “What if that is so?”
“I can’t even guess at all of the ramifications,” she admitted. Then after a few minutes of silence, she said, “Ask something of me. Please.”
“Why are you here, Wune?”
“Because I’m a Remora,” she offered. “Remoras are humans who got pushed up on the hull to do important, dangerous work. There are reasons for this. Good causes, and bad justifications. Everything that you see here…well, the hull is not intended to be a prison. The captains claim that it isn’t. But now and again, it feels like an awful prison.”
Then she hesitated, thinking carefully before saying, “I don’t think that was your question. Was it?”
“Like me, you are alone,” it pointed out. “Most of the humans, Remoras and engineers and the captains…these humans usually gather in large groups, and they act pleased to be that way…”
With a serious tone, she said, “I’m rather different, it seems.”
Alone waited.
“The hull is constantly washed with radiation, particularly out here on the leading face.” She gestured at the galaxy. “My flesh is immortal. I can endure almost any abuse. But these wild nuclei crash through my cells, wreaking terrible damage. My repair mechanisms are always awake, always busy. I have armies of tiny workers marching inside me, trying to lift my flesh back to robust health. But when I’m alone, and when I focus on my body’s functions, I can influence my regenerating flesh. In some ways, with just willpower, I can direct my own evolution.”
That seemed to explain the odd, not quite human face.
“I’m out here teaching myself these tricks,” Wune admitted. “The hull is no prison. To me, it is a church. A temple. A rare opportunity for the tiniest soul to unleash potentials that her old epic life never revealed to her.”
“I understand each of your words,” said Alone.
“But?”
“I cannot decipher what you mean.”
“Of course you can’t.” Wune laughed. “Listen. My entire creed boils down to this: If I can write with my flesh, then I can write upon my soul.”
“Your ‘soul’?”
“My mind. My essence. Whatever it is that the universe sees when it looks hard at peculiar little Wune.”
“Your soul,” the walker said once again.
Wune spoke for a long while, trying to explain her young faith. Then her voice turned raw and sloppy, and after drinking broth produced by her recyke system, she slept again. The legs of her lifesuit were locked in place. Nearly five hours passed with her standing upright, unaware of her surroundings. When she woke again, barely twenty meters of vacuum and hard radiation separated them.
She didn’t act surprised. With a quieter, more intimate voice, she asked, “What fuels you? Is there some kind of reactor inside you? Or do you steal your power from us somehow?”
“I don’t remember stealing.”
“Ah, the thief’s standard reply.” She chuckled. “Let’s assume you’re a machine. You have to be alien-built. I’ve never seen or even heard rumors about any device like you. Not from the human shops, I haven’t.” After a long stare, she asked, “Are you male?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going to call you male. Does that offend you?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you are.” She wanted to come closer. One boot lifted, seemingly of its own volition, and then she forced herself to set it back down on the hull.