Ravana's Shadow (10) (Patreon)

For the first time since waking up in the Institute of Perpetual Luminescence, Kit found herself to be the most highly skilled expert on a subject. 

Its near-immortal population had each mastered and forgotten numberless disciplines. Each could accomplish incredible things she couldn't herself even describe, much less replicate. 

But if any had once been skilled explorers and astronauts, those skills were now long since forgotten. She alone had the bravery and knowledge for the task, even if her mastery of modern techniques left something to be desired.

But skills could be taught, courage not so much. From that point forward, much of Kit's time would be dominated by the long list of techniques for her to learn, tools to master, and processes to practice.

She didn't learn in a vacuum. Forerunner provided a large training arena, one that had once been a storage area for wrapped blocks of white plastic. Now those were mostly gone, replaced with a course of various obstacles for her to overcome.

At least two of Forerunner's humanoid drones were always present, watching her near the doorways. Kit imagined clipboards in their gripping fingers, marking down every time she dropped her tools or welded something improperly or tripped on a hazard.

Kit never grew tired as she worked, at least not the same way as she'd ever known during her life before. The strange flesh of her biotemplate worked according to different principles. She could still get sore or build muscle with practice.

She grunted as she hit the ground, this time from a fall of several meters. Forerunner had a particularly difficult jump for her today, one meant to simulate returning to the ship after a support cable failed.

"Am I really going to be jumping around like a squirrel out there?" she muttered into the helmet. Hot breath fogged on the composite bubble, briefly obscuring the view. It vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, wiped away by the suit's internal insulation system. "Aren't drones better for this?"

"Significantly, yes," Forerunner said. "Remember, there will be delay between my commands and the drones obeying those instructions. I cannot send my core with you—this means important tasks may require human intervention."

A drone reached her, lifting her into a sitting position on the ground. It had no head, yet still dropped down to one knee, aiming its sensors in her direction. One hand brushed the dust from her, while the other held her still. After a few seconds it seemed satisfied, and it let go.

"Unless you wish to learn to control my drones instead. Very few of Mara's colonists have found success with this endeavor, except where training was already present. Most find it more difficult than operating wildly nonhuman bodies. There is nothing to conflict with your existing instincts and programming. But if you would like to try, I could assist."

Kit shook her head sharply. "Not right now. Maybe... later. Seems like it could be useful. Could I use my own body and a drone at the same time? I know Maddie has her control nest..."

"Most humans cannot," Forerunner said. "At least, not without significant intellectual modifications. You did not evolve to use distinct bodies or view the universe through multiple perspectives. I do not believe you have the time to master such a skill even if you wished to develop it."

She sighed, looking back over her shoulder. She twitched her neck to one side, activating the general radio. These days she kept it off, except when she had specific messages to relay back to whoever her on-duty attendant was at the time.

Rich today, in a particularly sour mood after giving up six centimeters and moving down to 80% quarters. "Rich, I've got an engineering question."

"Do you ever not have one?"

She wobbled, then stood. "Whoever made my suit wasn't a squirrel. This tail-sleeve keeps tripping me up. How hard would it be to make something that articulates? I can't adjust it like this."

Rich's annoyance came back a little tempered now. "Depends on how much you want to move it."

"Same as when I'm inside," she answered. "I don't keep it up all the time, this suit really hurts after a few hours. If I could lower it and move it around, that would help."

"Sounds like you're frustrated you can't hold your favorite plush while you're out there."

Kit squeezed one gloved hand into a fist. He wasn't wrong exactly—Kit did hold or hide behind her tail when she was afraid. Without it, she was exposed! "How hard would it be? How much extra material?"

"More than it's worth," he said. "It's not prehensile, it can't hold tools or do work. How about you just focus on moving faster and getting back sooner from each mission?"

The only other colonist she'd seen wear one of the full EVA suits, Wren, didn't even have a tail-sleeve, the back of her suit was just a little larger to accommodate the tail. But she wasn't the only one who would need it. Maddie and the other foxes had some big tails, almost deliberately oversized.

"Forerunner, I want an update to my suit for a tail. If we could get a design compatible with all colonists with large tails, that would be great. I don't want to be the only squirrel forever. Everyone on the Neophyte will need their own suit... might as well make them comfortable."

She was still broadcasting, because Rich's groan came back before the persona could reply. "Would Wren give it to you if she was still Director? Sounds a little like you're taking advantage."

"The Director will be risking her life on a daily basis," Forerunner said. "She and the others on the Ravana mission will need every advantage to ensure their success. If she is persistently uncomfortable, that might lead her to making a mistake at a crucial moment. Remember Rich—you might not be joining the mission, but your life is still at risk. Without the Ravana material, you will die with the rest of the colony, in time."

He grunted something under his breath across the radio, then went silent. He stayed that way while Kit did another loop through the course, this time making the jump instead of floundering onto the icy floor. She scampered through gaps, up rocky walls, and down into icy crevices, all while carrying her tools.

It all felt remarkably natural to her, much easier than any EVA suit on the Aether ever made it. Her gloves and boots were both thin enough to let her move her feet and hands to grip whatever she touched. She might not have the same sharp claws that real squirrels did, but she felt some of the same joy while climbing that Jay described nestled into a tight space, or Emma did while running through the grass.

"Lucky you," Rich said, about an hour later. "While you were out there failing to tighten that latch, I found an old design here in the database. Seems like Maddie looked at the problem before, but never got authorization to build one."

Kit heaved her equipment into the waiting storage crate, then turned her back to the arena. "Would it work for a squirrel?"

"Not out of the box. But I could adjust the articulations and resize based on your biotemplate. You'll be out a suit while it fabricates, assuming Forerunner agrees with you. It might think this is a waste of time and resources."

"For the Director, it is not," Forerunner said. "I will assign several junior engineers to the task. Rich, you can review their final design for fabrication. If the prototype passes my safety inspections, we should be able to retrofit the director's armor before her next training day."

"Awesome!" Kit turned towards the waiting drone, patting its shoulders with one hand. Like all Forerunner's external work drones, they were the size of adult humans. In her armor, her eyes reached slightly over where their bellies would be. 

But the drones didn't have heads anyway. For whatever reason, Forerunner had made the deliberate choice to keep them as inhuman as possible, while still able to work normally in the colony's interior spaces.

"Thanks! I'll be a lot happier with that. I hate feeling like my tail is stuck in a garbage bag, completely unprotected. You're the best."

She nudged her tail with one hand. Kit could tug it to either side, but not far enough to hold in front of her. 

Forerunner's drone patted her helmet with one metal gripper, soft enough that she barely felt the click. "I too fear the Governor of Ravana would refuse our assistance if I begged to accept drones alone. If I must put you and your brothers and sisters into danger, it will be with the best possible chance of success."

Kit resisted the instinct to hug the drone. It wasn't Forerunner really, just one of numberless machines he used to accomplish important tasks around Mara. Too bad the Pioneering Society didn't want their persona to have a real body.

"To that end, there is a message waiting from Ravana. I advised Garrick he would have to wait until you completed an important training mission. You could, however, take his call from the transport." 

As he spoke, a set of headlights switched on from further in the hall, and a pair of doors opened. Kit took off towards it—not running exactly, but the Mara equivalent. One careful step in front of another, and she was up the ramp.

"Let's see it."

The doors closed behind her, and air began to hiss into the transport. As it did, a large display flared to life on one wall. Kit sat in the chair opposite, watching as the transmission played.

Most of the sores on his skin were healed now, though a few had remained open and showed faint red and green around the edges. Dark scraggles had grown into a proper beard about half an inch long. His eyes remained sunken and bloodshot.

His surroundings were different—he'd moved to a larger room, with shelves and shelves of silvery boxes behind him. A few were open on the floor, and a rough pile of packaging scattered off to one side. His food supply?

"Mara colony, this is Garrick. Wanted an update from you on my rescue. Did what I could to stretch supplies. Not eating a lot, we'll see what I can do to get one of those old algae-vats going again. But we're down to the last trickles of reserve in the reactor. Forerunner hasn't been mining or refining uranium all this time. Can't exactly go crazy on the grow lamps. Don't suppose you could send a care package? I could wake up one of the experts, but then we'd both starve. It really is all me."

"There is no chance of that," Forerunner said. "We are disassembling the spinlaunch system for materials. Based on the manifests he provided, I believe he could be sustained by repairing a single bio-digester. It would require a few quite unpleasant steps, but the result is a near certainty of his survival."

"What about repairing those cryogenics caskets? He wouldn't need any food if he was asleep."

"I did submit this possibility. However, it is worth remembering that baseline humans require extensive preparation before preservation. The Ravana infirmary was critically damaged along with many other parts of the station. The result is what you observe—substantial damage to soft tissues and various minor infections. If he froze again, the result would be a body near death upon his revival. He would be entirely at our mercy when we arrive."

Kit gritted her teeth, glaring up at the frozen projection. "You said Forerunner colonies can't attack each other, it's just not possible. Did you tell him that? Of course he can trust us!"

"Without a functional persona, he cannot verify our claims. All he can guarantee is that my messages are signed by a Forerunner cryptographic key. Ravana's Forerunner cannot complete handshake procedures. If you were a malicious actor, you could accomplish the same task using the broken remains of any Forerunner probe. The galaxy must have... uncountable billions of them."

She straightened in the seat. "Can I respond to the message while still wearing a suit?"

"Without difficulty. He will take any message from another human being far better than anything I send him. I believe the equipment may make you seem more mature and trustworthy to him."

She settled both hands into her lap, then began her reply. "This is Mara colony. Sorry Garrick, but we don't send out very many missions. We need everything we've got to make sure this rescue works. Our science is past yours; I think we have some ideas worked out to keep you alive until we get there."

She turned to the side, though of course no one was on the transport with her. "Forerunner, can you send the repair designs over? And..." She lowered her voice. The persona would know what to cut out of the transmission—at least the time delay would help them.

"What would he have to do that he doesn't like? With this idea you had."

"A biodigester requires materials," it answered. "Organic waste from his own body of course, but that will not be enough. To maximize the growth of useful fungi, he should also use the corpses of any dead colonists. This is common practice aboard most spaceborne colonies—but typically as part of funeral customs. Few individuals will ever process corpses themselves."

Kit winced, ears flattening and face turning slightly green. Throw your dead friends into a tank of goo for the fungus to eat. It's not technically cannibalism! "He's not gonna go for that. Just be euphemistic. Say that all his waste and anything else organic he can find should go in. Don't imply we mean corpses."

"If he does not, he may not survive the year. I am not clear how far from baseline Garrick is, but I read no implant signatures on his transmission. Simple bio-augmentations like his typically increase baseline metabolic rate substantially. Food scarcity has not been a meaningful challenge for human civilization in a very long time."

"Talk to Emma about this. Maybe she can come up with more he could do. Without a fabricator, obviously."

Kit faced the image again, then returned to a normal speaking voice. Hopefully Forerunner would make the cut look not terrible. "Otherwise, we're doing what I said we would. All the resources we have are dedicated to getting to you. I will continue to provide updates on our progress as we build. For now, we're still finalizing our mission design."

The transport began to rumble down the ring. Kit waited until the last of the steam stopped rising from her suit, and the ventilation carried away any remaining toxic gas. Finally, she twisted off the helmet, settling it down on the bench beside her.

"Can I go now?" Rich asked, voice echoing over the radio. "You're not going back out, right?"

"You can go," Kit answered. Not technically the protocol—even with Forerunner's assistance, there was always supposed to be at least one team-member following her progress inside the Institute. "But only after you find Jay. We've got a trip scheduled anyway; he's probably waiting for me. He can track me in."

"Got it. Rich out."

Kit had the suit peeled down to her waist by the time Forerunner lit up the display again. "We have his reply. Playing live."

Garrick reappeared, leaning back in the same metal chair he'd been using before. "Not happy about this whole thing, Colonial Governor. I'm trying to be direct with you—but I'm frankly not even sure you know what we're talking about here. God only knows what led you to build a colony like that. Even if it does keep you alive well enough, that doesn't mean you're qualified for a mission like this. Maybe I would trust you to plant a tree in the habitat playground, but not rescue me and my crew. You're putting both of us in danger."

Kit's tail snapped all the way up behind her, ears facing directly at the screen. She took a single deep breath, then started transmitting. "That's your bias talking, Garrick. I look small because my planet is a ball of nitrogen, and resources are scarce. Our compact templates have nothing to do with our ability to complete this mission."

She barely even noticed the next few minutes. Kit stared forward at the screen; inner suit soaked through with the sweat of her difficult mission. Jay wouldn't like the smell—he'd make her take a bath before their plans tonight.

Garrick's reply came again. This time it showed images taken from Kit's first day of transmissions—images of Mara's public areas, recorded by Forerunner's drone. One showed the calisthenics course, with colonists eagerly climbing over it. Another was the competitive ball arena the next dome over, where kids were playing a modern game involving lots of jumping, kicking, and grabbing. A third showed several colonists building a huge fort from foam blocks, testing the limits of Mara's gravity as it ascended higher and higher.

"I am not convinced it's just your appearance," Garrick said, his image appearing small in one corner next to the blurry photos. "It's weird enough you all look like that. But I can't imagine a team of ancient engineers and astronauts would put a playground in the center of their colony. I don't see a single adult in any of the videos you sent, or any younger children for that matter. If this works, my colleagues and I are not signing up to be your babysitters. But I'm not sure it could. Are you making the ship out of wooden blocks?"

Kit stood up, stomping over to the screen. The camera might not even be there, but she had to pick somewhere. She wasn't crying, was she? Those weren't tears on her face, just more sweat now that she was out of her suit. 

"I know you'd rather have someone else. We'd rather not have to send out a costly rescue mission after someone who looks at us with contempt. But where I come from, people who lived out past Earth had a responsibility to each other. We don't always have the right tools, and the ones in trouble aren't always your friends. But it's us against the void, Garrick. You've got a broken station and people who need help. I've got the smartest team in the system and barely enough resources to get to you."

She stopped in front of the screen—Kit could walk no closer and get no more emotional. If she did, she might start crying, and there was no telling where she'd stop.

"You could call someone else, but there's nobody. We've had our ears out for longer than I can even imagine in this little cognitive center tucked away in my chest. No one else is coming. You take a chance on us, and I'll bring every human on that station safely home. And if I can't—how exactly are you worse off? I probably blew into a billion pieces on our launch pad or crashed down to Mara in a shower of sparks. I'll tell Forerunner to send the video feed after I die, and you can piss on my grave.

"But when I knock on that hull—it's not just my colonists who will be rescuing you, it's our Forerunner. I don't know about yours, but ours has kept us safe for the last ten thousand years without a hitch. Between the two of us, I'd say you're in good hands."

She relaxed, bracing one hand flat against the wall. It took her a few seconds before her hearts stopped racing, and she could lower it again. "Am I a bad Director, Forerunner? Do you think I'm letting my emotions get out of control?"

The persona didn't answer at first. Outside the car, they settled into one of the vehicle airlocks, and air rushed past them from the other side. They'd be in short sleeves soon enough. 

"I find it exceptionally difficult to predict the complex reactions of my own colonists, let alone an outsider with an unknown template. I have devoted considerable energy to comprehending the way your brothers and sisters think. This specialization leaves me somewhat—unprepared with baseline humans. But I know this, Kit: there is a reason the ancient founders of the Pioneering Society composed the directives they did.

"Machines are governed by precept. The horizon of my action is predictable. But humans—your lack of strict adherence to any governing logic is exactly what has made your species so successful. Your instincts represent a powerful heuristic that I cannot ever hope to replicate."

She nodded, sliding slowly down to the floor. Her whole body buzzed, as though energized by unseen static electricity. If she had eaten more today, she might throw up. Or—maybe her old human self would've. She'd never heard of Forerunner's colonists puking before.

"Ravana sent their response. Would you like to hear it? We could ignore the message completely, if you wish."

"Play it," she whispered, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Hiding won't make it go away."

Maybe she should cancel her trip down to Remedial today. "I get your meaning, Mara. Stuck with each other. Believe me, I've poked around the neighborhood. We wouldn't still be in touch if there were other options. Maybe, and I emphasize, maybe I can accept that some of you still have adult capacity. Without any other options, this path will have to do. But when you get here—we'll have to have some serious conversations about how we integrate my people with yours. Good thing you'll have a huge batch of mass to accommodate us, eh? Ravana out."

Kit closed her eyes, slumping sideways against the transport. She was still there ten minutes later when the door opened, and Jay rushed in to rescue her.