The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (best romance novels of all time TXT) 📗

I spun my head in astonishment and looked at her unsmiling face. Nobody knew, not even for the newest arrivals. I heard the company created a break in crew consciousness to avoid unnecessary risk. I had always imagined the risk was a mentally broken crewmember who might try to hijack the spaceship to get back home.

‘Is that a joke?’ I asked.

‘No, I remember a strange place. It was like I was waking from a dream. There I was in this long, narrow passage. There were these flashing green lights guiding me forward, urging me forward…’

‘And then?’

‘And then I’ll tell you when I get back.’ Magpie winked. Only then did I realize I’d been fooled.

*

I’ve never met anyone who paid off their debts. That’s to say any living person, at least not on Mother Whale. Perhaps there were such fortunate people scattered on mining bases in the belt, but it seemed like some religious parable, a meticulously worded advertisement that could never be proven or disproven.

They said people who paid off their debts could return to Earth, recover their memories, rinse their debt data clean from their DNA chains. More credit points were added to their account than they could spend in several lifetimes.

It sounded more like a fairytale, right?

Only no one knew why they owed their debt or how long it would take to repay. We could only believe in the fairness of the system because we were told that it was absolutely correct mathematically and couldn’t be tampered with.

Magpie was right. We had no other choice.

But I was glad she had listened to me and tied the reinforced safety rope.

Magpie was a light-as-air moth drifting slowly from the lower hatch of the Hermit Crab toward a wandering sheepdog. The mechanical arm was far too clumsy to perform the meticulous work of unloading the memory module.

‘So people are still useful…’ Her rebuttal echoed in my headset.

‘In a few very special cases.’ I didn’t want to give an inch.

‘Tell me your theory again about why people aren’t needed in space?’

She gently hooked herself to the sheepdog. The elasticity of the safety rope yanked her back. Magpie unhooked the safety rope, attached it to one of sheepdog’s mechanical claws. She got into position. She’d have to push her hand down the sheepdog’s throat, turn on the emergency power supply, enter the password, then open the storage panel inside in order to unload the memory module.

I cleared my throat. I stared at the feed from her helmet cam, trying to ignore the boundless dark universe beyond. I said, ‘It’s because of fear.’

‘You mean human fear?’

‘Is there another kind? What do machines fear? Power drops? Erased memories? Only people have fear.’

She got in smoothly, pushing half her body into the opening. The sheepdog lit up. Its panel opened. Everything seemed within reach.

‘So what? Fear shouldn’t let people venture into space? Fear shouldn’t let people live without machines? I think there’s something you haven’t told me? Some childhood trauma perhaps?’ There was something like sympathy in her voice, perhaps teasing me.

‘I can’t think of any childhood traumas to speak of. And even if I did, they’re locked away in sequestered memory—’ There was a disturbing flash on the screen. ‘What’s that on your right hand, Magpie? Those spots lighting up?

‘No clue. All I know is the memory module’s stuck. I could hear in her voice she was giving it her all. Her whole body was trembling.

‘Something’s off. Get out of there immediately.’

‘I’m trying to shake loose the module…’

‘Maybe you’ve triggered some protection program. Get out now…’ I quickly checked the code base of the old sheepdog. Iridescent data pummeled the screen like rain. My eyes tensed, trembled as they tried to scan the keywords.

‘Square Face, there anything you can actually help me with? Apart from making me nervous…’

I didn’t have an answer though I felt infinitely close to the answer.

‘Hey, guess what? I got it.’ She was panting. On screen, her hand was holding a black cube. It was time to get out.

But if the memory module was removed after a hard restart, the landing position of sheepdog would be triggered, which meant…

‘I told you, nothing to fear…’

Six corkscrew anchors shot from the sheepdog, plunging into Magpie’s stomach. They began to drill. Red globules like translucent jellyfish floated out from her stomach, shimmering around her body before boiling off into vacuum.

My whole body froze, mouth agape and speechless. My stomach roiled. My hunch had been right again.

There was no scream, no call for help, just a lone gasp in the headset as though trying to call back the oxygen rapidly vacating her lungs.

The propulsion system that was supposed to be used to buffer landing also activated. The sheepdog dragged Magpie’s corpse into space while her safety rope still hooked to Hermit Crab pulled taught. She was a scrap of rotting meat in a tug of war between two beasts.

‘Cut the safety rope!’ Baldy shouted. ‘We can’t lose another ship.’

‘No, I won’t do it.’

‘Her debts are paid. Let her go. Death’s just the middleman.’ Baldy patted my shoulder, gestured a prayer over his forehead, a horizontal D.

‘Fuck your middleman!’ I squeezed my eyes shut as they spilled warm tears.

Unable to stomach the gruesome tug of war anymore, I did as he said and pressed the button. What was left of her body glimmered as it shrank into the distance, slowly disappeared among the glinting stars.

An idea fell on me then like the shadow of a never before seen celestial body.

Perhaps this was no accident.

5.

Another dream. I was getting frustrated with these endless hallucinations. It was like each one wanted to tell me something but the message was never clear.

If you strapped on those mining boots of ours, you’d understand.

A month out from Earth, no atmosphere, no day or night, no real gravity, no entertainment, no delicious kungpao chicken – fortunately my memory still held on to that favorite dish – no real friendships, no dating.

No reminiscing. Though that might have