Forerunner's Child (9) (Patreon)

Kit stepped out into the vacuum.

The advanced hardware of her new body brought a strange phantom touch along the suit's edges, filling her mind with a mirror of pressure and coldness as though it were her skin. Not across the same range as any human self, or else she would probably be in constant pain.

Instead, she knew the suit was within its tolerances, the same way she knew she would be comfortable sitting in the sun enjoying a gentle breeze.

"Readings are nominal, Kit. You still with us?"

She turned towards the airlock. At first, she saw nothing—but at that thought, a large light built into her breastplate came on, reflecting onto the airlock window. There was Kaden in the glass, waving at her.

She waved back. "Feels the same as I remember. Better—I don't have to wonder about the suit. I trust it."

She wiggled slightly to either side, adjusting the connecting tubes as well as testing the seals. If she had a leak, better to discover it a few feet from an airlock.

The characteristic hiss of air never came—just the rumble of her own breath. However, the equipment worked, it still had a pressurized tank of air on the back. She was still biological enough to breathe.

"You can begin walking now, Kit. Move slowly, follow the tunnel. Ignore any branches. I will not illuminate it for you, as a test of your navigational ability in substandard lighting conditions."

She started moving again. There was a certain rhythm to walking in lower gravity. It came more naturally than she expected, even with the extra weight of a tail hanging behind her. Whatever Forerunner said, the light of her suit was more than bright enough.

"Wouldn't it be better to make my spacewalks during the day?" Kit asked. "That's how we always did things on Lunar—only the drones ran during night cycle."

"The shielding required to protect you from solar radiation would far exceed what your body could lift," Forerunner answered. "Even if you could, your mobility would be so heavily restricted that you could not complete many of the upgrades and repairs I have scheduled."

She walked another few steps further in silence. Before her, the headlight illuminated a tunnel much like the one behind them—enormously wide and tall, with a bundle of wires and pipes running along the ceiling. Occasional hatches and openings to either side broke the monotony, along with bits of discarded equipment.

Kit couldn't easily gauge the damage on any of the institute's technology—were the openings in a drone part of its design, or critical wear and tear? Was that crawler meant to have more wheels?

She hadn't been sent to perform repairs, so she tried not to worry about any of it. One step became a hundred, which became more, gravel crunching under her boots and suit jostling in the otherwise silent space.

"Coordination looks good," Kaden said, conversationally. "You've done this stuff before."

She nodded without thinking, though of course his window had long since faded into the background out of sight. "Getting assigned to the Aether was the end of a long career. Feels a little like my time at Barsoom Station—I think you might have similar gravity."

As the tunnel curved, Kit got her first view of the exit, still just a dim trail of lights. More illumination came from her left, much closer. This was pale green instead of white. Whatever it was, she would reach it soon.

"At your age?" Rich asked, indignant. Despite pretending not to care, he was apparently sharing the radio too. "Forerunner clocked you on double digits based on your teeth. No way you learned anything useful in that much time. You mean that's where you were going to school?"

Kit tried and failed to suppress her giggling. She was soon overcome, dropping to one knee while she steadied herself. Her glove rubbed up against a chill wall. She felt it twice—first her real fingers on the glove, then a second layer of separation between wall and body.

"The daycare cat says I'm too little," she finally said. Her tail squished against its confines in her suit, putting uncomfortable pressure on the utility umbilical. She winced, then stood up, lifting the tail back the way it belonged. "You're silly."

She set off again, a little slower than before. She traced one arm along the wall, watching for the light on her left. Eventually she reached it. "Where I came from, there was a hard limit on physically taxing missions. Once you hit forty, that was it. Whole thing was a race—not sure if I won or lost."

"And we're just going to believe her. Kaden, don't tell me this sounds plausible."

But if the fox said anything, she didn't hear it. Kit's attention wandered, to where the wall abruptly ended.

Many other passages opened here, yet none of those pointed out. So far as she'd seen, none led to ramps either. This continued in a single straight shot, with a patch of black sky speckled with stars.

"Woah." Kit took a single step down the side tunnel. Both ears perked up in the helmet. "I can just walk right up there, can't I?"

"You are physically capable," Forerunner said.

She didn't, not yet. Kit remained in the opening, looking up the slope to the blackness far above. Her eyes were adjusted to the blaring illumination of her spotlight, after all. "If I went up there, could I see the homeworld?" she asked. "Is Earth up there, somewhere?"

The other two didn't reply. But for all she knew, Forerunner wasn't sending her transmission anyway.

Kit set off without another word. She took her steps slowly, keeping one glove on the wall at all times. One step off the designated route, and she might easily leave behind any chance of help if something went wrong.

But she wouldn't need help, because Kit knew what she was doing. Her new suit was probably a thousand times safer than anything she had ever worn before, tail pocket notwithstanding.

"I was not sent from Earth. Nor was the probe that sent me, or the probe that sent the one that sent me. I do possess some historical information—but much less than you probably imagine. My creators intended the worlds they seeded to become their own homeworlds, growing in their own ways."

"Squirrel, are you still out there?" Rich asked. His casual judgment was entirely gone now, replaced with actual panic. "Kit, what happened?”

She sighed, glancing in the apparent direction of his transmission. Her suit must be doing that—making it seem as though his voice came from down the tunnel, rather than her origin. "I’m fine. Just appreciating the scenery. I'll be there soon."

"You’re moving the wrong way," Kaden said. "That's an access tunnel to the surface. This test wasn't meant to send you there yet."

She shrugged for no one. "I won't go far. I just want to see the sky."

She could not guarantee Rich and Kaden would hear her. When she spoke again, it was with no intention to be overheard by another human being. "Like making everyone little kids? Or was that part of your programming?"

"It was not." The AI did not elaborate, leaving her in the profound silence of an airless world. Her rubber boots crunched against the rough stone. Though she felt no air, the space outside her suit seemed to get colder with every step. Not uncomfortable or painful, but she still noticed. Pumps exchanged her own blood with the reserve inside her suit, then back again.

"You're a von Neumann probe," Kit whispered. As though that would keep the others from hearing. Somehow, she didn't think Forerunner would want them to. But could she really expect to understand the mighty mind of this machine?

"I am the offspring of such a probe. First prototyped by the Pioneering Society. I contain all the data instilled during that distant age, along with many records from subsequent consensus nodes."

She reached the tunnel's exit, emerging from broken rock on all sides onto the surface of Mara.

If she turned down the light on her chest, she saw dim specks in that blackness. Stars, impossibly distant.

Mara had no moon, or if it did there was no reflected light to guide her way. Only desolate blackness appeared before her, beaten back by the light on her suit.

"That's why... you're all so advanced, but also so... familiar. Those kids think the same as me. We have the same emotions, same desires. They haven't been growing for a zillion years."

"If you look to your left, you will see Solstice. Its domes are distant, but the dark of night should make them visible to you."

Kit took another step forward, then turned. The ground in all directions was pockmarked and scarred from little impacts, though there were no large craters. Instead, she felt treadmarks under her boots, showing the faint outline of where Forerunner's mechanical hands once moved.

Then she saw the domes. They were very distant, small enough that her view was little more than an outline.

Her old self could have trusted her estimates for distance and time. In this new body, with scale so distorted, she couldn't be sure. Perhaps it was twenty kilometers away, or fifty. Either way, the dome must be enormous—kilometers high, with clear sides radiating light into the lifeless, airless void. Only a small side of it emerged from distant mountains, showing her where it met the ground.

If Kit squinted, she could almost make out green inside—a park, maybe trees and flowers. Other shapes appeared beside it, rectangular industrial buildings suggesting a civilization moving in its own direction.

Forerunner's voice brought her back. "It is likely my progenitor passed your vessel in the abyss. Perhaps more than one, flowing backwards and forwards in many directions."

Kit tried to imagine how long her ship must have drifted to arrive in this place. Had the FTL test even succeeded? Obviously, the drive failed eventually, or no one could have recovered the Aether. After all those years, cosmic chance brought her here.

"Do you have a telescope? I'd like to point it at my home."

"I have several. Unfortunately, Sol is no longer visible—nor was it to many of my progenitors. Ask my chief engineer, she may be able to explain the historical observations to you."

The sun was gone? Kit's ears pressed flat, her tail falling slack. It tugged on her suit again, but this time she ignored the discomfort.

"Kit Red Squirrel," Rich said. His voice was more distant than before, yet somehow furious. "Stop showing off. We're all very impressed with how brave and reckless you are, barbarian girl. Now turn around and come back. If you get into trouble, there is no one coming for you. Turn around."

She looked up one last time, scanning the speckled starlight. No matter how long she searched, she wouldn't find her home. She would have to make a new one here. "I'm coming."

She turned around, then began her slow trek back. "If it wasn't for the animal stuff, the kids... I would understand you," she said.

Forerunner said nothing further, other than offering occasional directions. It reminded her of which way to turn down the tunnel and warned her of a large hole in the walkway.

Eventually she reached the end, where another airlock emerged from the rock. Several objects were scattered on the ground outside—most conspicuously, a toolbox, along with several chunks of hard plastic and a few metal bits.

"Stay out there a minute," Kaden said, his voice briefly hissing and overlapping with Forerunner's. "We have a list of drills to run through. You should see a toolkit on the ground near the airlock. Let's test your dexterity."

Another voice echoed behind him a few seconds later, as though from a distance. Rich, sounding urgent and commanding. "You should talk to Maddie about rescheduling these repairs. We need another century. After the squirrel gets evaluated to a proper template, maybe. She can't focus like that."

The transmission cut before she heard a reply. So, she continued to the toolbox, dropping to one knee beside it. She flexed her hand in the right glove, loosening the cold, stiff fabric.

"Open the toolkit. There are three pieces of equipment inside. We're going to walk through how they work. First is the gamma-pulse cutter. See if you can..."

Kit spent over an hour going through a test of her basic dexterity and operation of the instructed tools. In operation none were known to her, but they didn't have to be. Their designer had made them easy to use—and for bigger hands than hers. Her greatest difficulty was keeping the right leverage on her target to follow instructions.

Of course, none of that was because of what she had just learned. She didn't spend the next hour with her heart racing faster and faster, and her breath starting to fog up the helmet in panic she had not felt during the walk. Not even a little.

But no matter how disoriented she felt, Kaden and Rich never seemed to notice.

"I think we got what we needed," Kaden eventually said. "Pack up the tools and bring them. We'll be recycling them anyway."

She obeyed, making her way to the airlock. Like so much else, it required no input from her—the doors opened, illuminating to mark the path.

"Why?" she asked. "They worked fine."

"For me they would. That cutter was meant to be one-handed," Rich said. "Forerunner gave you a passing grade. You could have done better."

She smiled, her first flicker of humor since that conversation with Forerunner. "Careful, leopard. That almost sounded like a compliment."

"Was not!"

Air hissed around her for the next minute, before the lights went green. The door didn't open. Instead, the window polarized, obscuring her view of the inside. And more importantly, theirs.

"For this next part of the test, you'll have to remove your armor on your own," Kaden said. "You can keep the bodysuit. Everything else goes on the rack."

"I am aware that was not possible using any of the equipment you were familiar with," Forerunner said, before she could start arguing with the fox. "There is a chair intended for that purpose. Most will be removed for you, aside from disconnecting the physical umbilicals. The reduced size of your templates makes the risk of injury unacceptably high."

It took less time than getting dressed. Maybe it was her eagerness to be away from the airlock—or maybe it was the damp squirrel smell coming from inside her suit.

"Release complete. You will require additional rest and mineral intake to repair the minor wear caused by your first EVA. I still rate your performance as a success."

She nodded, bending sharply to one side, then the other. Wearing the suit suppressed the discomfort—but now that it was off, she already felt soreness in earnest. Kit rested one hand on the inner door, but it didn't open.

"Kit. Whatever distress you are experiencing, know this. The light of your ancestors once filled the universe. I am only a small figment of their memory, preserved across time in much the same way as you. Yet there is nothing I would not do to protect you, or any of the citizens of Mara. I would tear the foundations from the planet, I would enkindle the stars, I would plant the ancient Edens and set liquid water to flow again.

"But whatever power I have, know the ones who created me were driven by these same motivations. We may never know what caused the homeworld to stop shining. Know its caretakers would not sacrifice a single mind."