Ravana's Shadow (15) (Patreon)

Kit couldn't call the aspiring crew of the Ravana mission together again, not right away. Everyone had their own important tasks to accomplish, especially at the very beginning of the project. Taking her head of Engineering out of her department to train with an EVA suit felt like a total waste of resources. The same was true of Abel, who she never saw in the Institute except while hurrying from one important task to another.

The exact details of the design were lost on Kit, of course. She fought for her place on the Aether as an astronaut, not a designer. She was already well at home trusting those with more experience to do all the important stuff.

Compared to the Aether's development and production, their new ship would have to be produced on permanent fast-forward. Without the ability to return to stasis, the survival of a single human life would decide their success or failure.

They all knew it, too. Like when Emma and Sadie came to Communications just before Kit's scheduled call with Ravana. 

"There's another angle we have to consider," Sadie said, as soon as they were through the door. "We were all so caught up in the excitement, I think it slipped past us."

Emma's huge ears folded behind her. "And—I think a few of us were just too eager to build a rocket. Not naming any foxes by name here, but..."

Kit glanced back at her tablet, adjusting the bow in her hair. Garrick's call hadn't come yet, though it was never long overdue. Any second, Sam would sit up from his seat and start waving, then...

"What's that?"

The cat and rabbit shared a nervous look. Now they were actually in front of her, their confidence was already faltering. Kit nudged Emma with her tail. "Whatever it is, I want to know."

"Repairing a cryocasket shouldn't be hard," Emma blurted. "Even without a fabricator. There's bound to be spare parts he can use. Even if it took our whole team of engineers walking him through the process over weeks..."

"It would still be smarter than the way we're doing this," Sadie finished. "We could do this research over decades. We could test and build and iterate. Maddie wants to be up there already, but we don't have to be."

She winced, her tail curling around one leg. "Don't tell her I said that."

"We're immortal," Emma continued. "But you're so new, you might not have that perspective. It's easy to get excited instead of thoughtful. The asteroid will still save us in twenty years."

Kit waited for them to finish. She settled her own tail into her lap, running one hand through the long red fur. It wasn't as soothing as when someone else did it with a brush, but it still helped calm her. Ask me to upend everything now, why don't you.

"In the time I came from, cryogenics caused serious damage to a body the longer it was under. You were supposed to spend at least..." Her ears folded, and Kit strained at distant memories. They might belong to a much bigger version of herself, but they were still hers!

It was all still there, she just needed to reach the right way. Some memories were more important to her big self than others, after all. Those directly connected to her mission were among the most intact. "A year!" She grinned, releasing her tail. Why shouldn't she feel a little pride that she could still remember?

"That was it. You have to be awake at least a year for your body to heal. There's a special diet and exercise routine, too. Treatments for your skin and hair and eyes. If you go right back under, no one can wake you up. Are you saying the tech is so much better now that you don’t have to worry?"

The cat retreated a few steps, looking at Emma.

Emma bounced over to the desk, resting one hand on Kit's shoulder. She whispered into her ears, as though afraid her words might frighten the others present. "We are better at it, but that mostly happens when we use different bodies. We build them without radioisotopes, with cells that don't freeze. Baseliners don't have those adaptations, usually. They have a metabolic cost, so we usually only use them when there's a good reason."

Sam sat up in his seat, white ears suddenly coming alert. "Director! It's Ravana! I think they want to—not just an automated one this time. You ready to answer it?"

"In a sec!" she called, looking directly up at Emma. "That sounds like he'd just die. If Garrick dies, he can't give us salvage rights. We take all this risk for nothing."

She nodded. "Technically, yeah. He'd be impossible to revive the conventional way. But we don't have those limits." She released Kit's shoulder, poking her in the chest. "Remember? It doesn't matter if his body is dead, so long as he doesn't defrost, I can wake him up again."

"You just have to convince him," Sadie said. "Tell him how much better his odds are if he—"

The screen in front of them lit up, and suddenly Garrick was there.

His appearance had changed again, even after just a week. There were fewer bandages on his skin, and a thin crop of brown hair had appeared atop his head. His skin no longer seemed sickly and sagging with the damage of cryogenics. "My odds are better if I what?"

How long had he been watching? With the time delay, they must've been transmitting from Kit's station before his own face appeared. He must've had it on voice only this whole time! 

Behind the computer, Sam was standing at his desk, waving both arms to get her attention. Too late.

Kit flushed, both ears folding back. Sadie retreated around the corner, tail vanishing from sight.

Emma remained frozen beside Kit, her ears springing to full height and her eyes wide. Her hands shook, but no words made it out of her mouth. Her attention was now locked on the screen, staring at the strange creature pictured there.

They had all seen his images by now. But none had looked at him "live" except Kit.

"Well?" He moved the camera closer, their view blurring at the edges. He propped it up on a nearby desk, just a few feet away. "Anything that keeps me alive. You have some new kids for me to meet, so introduce them."

Kit nodded. She spared a single glare for Sam over the screen—they would need to have a long conversation about how he interpreted her orders. But not now, not with Garrick watching in real time. "This is Emma, head of the Institute's Medical department. She had some information she wanted me to pass along."

They had a few seconds of peace. Emma spun around once, rocking towards the doorway, then settling beside Kit again. "Sadie!" she whispered. "You can't leave me!"

"I'm right here!" she hissed back, peering around the doorframe. One cat eye appeared, well beyond the camera's field of view. "You're doing great!"

Then Garrick reacted. He was always moving, shifting in his seat, chest rising and falling with his breath. This conversation was in real time, even if both ends had significant delay. "She's here, why don't you have her tell me?"

Emma whimpered, holding Kit's tail in front of herself. She whispered something that wasn't quite any specific word, looking desperately at Kit for help.

"You can go." Kit waved her off. "I can tell him."

"But he said—"

Kit's eyes narrowed, and she gestured again. "Go, now. You have important work to do."

That was all she needed—Emma took off, bounding away in a quick motion. Soon she was out the door, shoving past Sadie into the hall beyond. 

Despite Kit's instructions, the two didn't go far. Kit heard their steps end just past the wall. She could imagine both crouching together, listening attentively to whatever Garrick said next.

"I asked to hear it from her, kid," Garrick said. "I thought you were better at following instructions."

Kit sat up in her chair, folding both arms in front of her. "I do not follow your instructions, Garrick. We discuss, we negotiate, then agreements are made, or they aren't."

She held her tablet in front of her, hands squeezing a little too tight against its sharp sides. "Would you like to hear the new information, or not?"

This would be so much easier if they were just sending messages back and forth. No matter how many times Kit reminded herself, some part of her still saw this oversized, lanky human as an authority figure. He was so much older—practically a million years old! How could he not know more than her?

But he doesn't. My colonists are short, that's all. We aren't children. 

"What is it?"

"Something we noticed about the rescue mission," she continued, falling back into an impersonal, direct way of speaking. Sometimes that worked with Garrick, minimizing his exposure to the unique quirks of Mara templates. That worked even better on days he just sent text messages. Today was not such a day. "We need to keep you alive, for your sake and ours."

"Obviously," he replied. Once she settled into the rhythm of a long-distance conversation, Kit could easily let her mind drift between delays. The real difficulty was resisting the temptation to plan her next message before she'd even received Garrick's. Otherwise, she might end up preparing a perfect argument to something no one had said. "I want to live. And let me tell you, Ravana is not making that easy. Our Forerunner is basically nonfunctional at this point, except for long-distance comms. I'm a decent prospector, but not a survivalist. Wasn't supposed to do this alone."

"We'll make those resources available to you," she replied, without even thinking. "Our Forerunner can probably help with that. I don't know if I have any colonists with the knowledge... do I?"

Forerunner did not speak for Garrick to hear. Instead, his voice came through the little clip on one of Kit's ears, too quiet for all but the nearest colonists to overhear. Even Sadie would have a hard time getting her words from around the corner. Maddie could probably do it, if she were right next to her. Those ears were huge.

"Exactly one who is not currently in Remedial: Chase Pine Marten. This is partly why Jay suggested his inclusion in in the first place."

Garrick shifted in his seat, pushing the camera away again. Back on a nearby shelf, where he didn't have to hold it constantly in one arm. "We'll see. I have a hard time trusting people who..." He shook his head once. "The way you look and sound. It's hard to take advice on how to fix my only water purifier from someone who talks like you. And to be honest, the animal thing isn't helping either."

We knew this would happen. But if she insisted on text only communication, Garrick would've cut them off a long time ago. "Well, you're in luck. This could solve all that. My doctor thinks we could get your cryocasket fixed. Even without a fabricator on your end, or a Forerunner. I have some incredible engineers, with the patience of immortals. They could walk you through every step."

Garrick leaned back in his chair; arms folded across his chest. He closed both eyes, voice suddenly distant. As he moved, his body occasionally drifted up from the chair, only to jerk against a strap over his chest. But if it hurt, he barely showed any sign. 

"That was my first idea too, kid. Don't you think I'd rather close my eyes and wake up after rescue's here? Take a hot shower, crack open a can of Pioneer Ale and share stories around the campfire. There's just... well, one big problem."

He unzipped his jumpsuit down to the waist, pulling it apart. The view underneath was—unpleasant. Several bandages soaked in dark blood wrapped around his chest, while the skin beside it was swollen to an angry red. Kit recognized a few medicated curatives protruding from his skin, little bandages covered in tiny needles on their underside. Modern medicine, the only reason Garrick wasn't doomed to die of infection.

"See this? If I go into the ice, I'm dead. Even if I had an empty cryocasket that still worked, even if I could scrape together the power for another freeze cycle, it wouldn't matter. And if I'm dead, you don't get Ravana to tear apart and use for your colony. We both lose, see the problem?"

She nodded. "That's what my doctor wanted to talk about. Emma says she can revive you, even if you couldn't survive the defrost cycle normally. We can walk you through how to fix the casket—then you go under. You wake up in a fresh body like nothing ever happened. It worked for me."

Kit rocked back and forth in her chair while she waited for his response or tried. The automatically adjusting hardware made it quite difficult to play in the chair. No matter what she did, she always kept at Garrick's eye-level.

He zipped the jumpsuit back up. "And look how well it worked for you, kid. You're small, you've got a tail, and you've got holes in your brain. Not to get all existential with you—but I'm not sure I'd even be me at that point.”

Kit leaned forward in her seat, which adjusted as far as it would go before she could finally stand on the footrest, moving as close to the camera as she could. "You're asking us to run a space program, build a rocket, and get it to you in less than a year. Do you have any idea how hard that is? If our mission fails—my colonists die, and we don't have the resources to send another."

Garrick met her eyes or seemed to. "If you aren't capable of completing this mission, your colony can't competently care for my survivors. The difficulty is the point, Governor Kit. If you can get here in time, then maybe my friends have a chance. If not—then I guess they'll never know, will they? They'll sleep forever, until the last trickle of power runs dry."

The screen went black, with a single line of text informing her “transmission ended.”

Kit whimpered, settling heavily into her seat. 

Nothing changed, it's okay. We can still do this. Kit glanced at the door, at where Emma and Sadie still waited. "Sorry," she said, ears folding backward. "He won't do it. The Ravana mission will have to continue as scheduled."