Caretaker Page 3

  The girl was leaning against the window, her forehead resting against the dark of space outside. Her eyes were closed.

  “Kaia?” he spoke her name softly, but she jumped anyway and whirled to face him.

  “Why are you here?” she barked. The intensity of her voice surprised him. He took an involuntary step backward.

  “I—I thought I’d check on you.” He answered, stumbling. “Can I do anything for you?”

  “I mean, why are you here on the ship? What was your assignment in the contingent? What contribution will you make on Minea?”

  Ethan stumbled over his words again. “I’m a linguist.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she made a scoffing sound, turning back to the window. “There’s nothing you can do for me.” Her voice was scalding.

  Ethan looked at her back, smooth in the stasis suit, aimed squarely at him and so effectively closing the door on further conversation. Her rejection of his concern was a shock. He turned and walked slowly back to the hold.

  * * *

  When, two days later, Ethan checked with the computer and found she was still in the same place, he decided it was time to stop waiting around for her to be his friend and get back to his routine. She was only going to be around for a couple of weeks, anyway. The rest of the trip would likely be even harder to bear if they became friends and he had to lose her, too.

  He called up the ship’s status reports and listened to information on all the major systems. Then he headed to the passenger hold to begin his rounds.

  He turned the situation over in his mind as he checked each passenger, greeting them silently. It was strange to have another person there, awake and aware after all these years, and not be able to talk to her. And at some point they had to begin making plans to get her back into stasis.

  He smiled as he came to passenger 0802. She was a young passenger. Her name was Solange, and her dark hair floated in the stasis fluid, framing her face. She always had the hint of a smile on her features. He started to sing a little, hoping it would bring her a nice dream as she slumbered.

  He sang softly at first and then more vigorously, enjoying the way his voice bounced around in the huge hold as he walked.

  “What are you doing now?” The tone was caustic, accusatory. He spun to see Kaia, appearing as if from nowhere.

  Ethan stumbled on his words. “I’m—I’m singing.”

  “What are you doing in the passenger hold?” She took a step towards him.

  “Just checking the passengers.” Ethan held his clipboard up, pointing to the list of names.

  “Checking for what?”

  Ethan felt defensive, and an edge crept into his voice, “Checking to make sure they’re okay.”

  She scoffed again. “How would you even know that?”

  Ethan started to speak, started to explain that he’d looked at them for over five years and would be able to tell if something was wrong. But the force of her gaze made the explanation die in his throat. He took a deep breath, steadying his nerves. “Kaia,” he began carefully, “I know I’m not the kind of Caretaker that David was—”

  Her eyes narrowed further. “Not even close. It’s like you’ve had no training at all. Five years and you become this? You don’t even act military anymore.”

  “Oh, I’m not.” He answered quickly, seeing that she had assumed he was a military linguist.

  “Not military at all? That’s impossible. There’s a whole contingent that could be awakened who’d have at least some idea of what was going on. Any one of them would make more sense than . . . than you.”

  Ethan let the insult slide. “Like I said, it was a mistake. I just happened to be awake when McNeal died. Because of the risk of breaking stasis so early, the computer calculated that the most reasonable thing to do was to assign me Caretaker rather than awakening anyone else. I tried to convince it that I wasn’t trained. I said the same things you’re saying now. But the computer assured me that the Caretaker’s job is merely ornamental anyway.” He snorted, “The computer has a high opinion of itself.” There was a serious undertone in his voice when he added,“It runs everything around here.”

  “I know,” Kaia said, her voice stronger. “I helped design this ship.”

  Ethan saw a way to shift the conversation away from his obvious inadequacies. “Really?” he asked. “I can’t wait to pick your brain, then. I’ve gone crazy trying to think of ways to coerce the computer to do things.”

  Behind her sneer, there was the ghost of a smile on her face. “Oh, you can’t coerce it. It will calculate the ideal solution to every problem and carry that through.”

  He saw the moment that the reality dawned on her: the recognition that given the circumstances, the computer would have acted exactly as he’d said. Her antagonism seemed to lessen slightly. She stepped back across the aisle, standing in front of Passenger 0831, a man named Waverly who had been a novelist back on Earth. She drew in a deep breath. Her eyelids fluttered closed for a split second. When she looked at him again she seemed to actually see him for the first time.

  “It is an amazing machine. I’m sure that usually that programming is a great advantage,” he said.

  She nodded, keeping her piercing gray eyes on him.

  Ethan tried to think of something light to talk about. “The only thing that isn’t ideal is the food.” He grimaced.

  “What do you mean? There’s a 3000 on board. The food should be spectacular.” Kaia stood up straighter.

  “I don’t know, the food just materializes on the little square materializers,” he realized suddenly how stupid he must sound. He had no idea what the squares were actually called. “Everything just tastes a little off.” He shrugged. “Or, at least, it did at first. After five years eating the ship’s cooking, Earth food would probably taste weird. Surely you’ve noticed it?”

  Kaia’s brow was furrowed. “I haven’t exactly been relishing my meals. I couldn’t even tell you what I ate these last few days.” She looked away briefly and then focused on him again. “There’s probably a nutrient lacking. Let’s look it over.”

  This seemed to give her a purpose, and she turned fluidly away from him, her former shakiness gone. She started down the long walkway between the chambers. Ethan lengthened his own stride to catch up.

  Kaia strode confidently through the corridors. Ethan was amazed at her ability to navigate these endless hallways. It had taken him nearly ten months to explore it all, and two years before he stopped asking for the holographic map that floated in front of him when he walked around.

  He followed her quick steps until they stopped at the central control room.

  “You’ll have to access this one.” Kaia said, tapping the big steel door.

  “Access request two nine six nine,” Ethan said. He heard the whine of the bioscan device above them, and the door slid soundlessly open.

  The room inside was filled with aisles of matte black cabinets encasing the brain of the ship behind rows of blinking lights.. The room was considerably colder than the rest of the ship, and the roar of the fans discouraged conversation.

  Kaia went straight to one of the many blinking panels and flipped down a control keypad. She typed in several sequences of numbers, then laughed.

  “What is it?” Ethan shouted over the racket of the fans.

  “It’s set for David’s British tastes!” She called back. “The food’s fine; there’s just not much seasoning.” She laughed again and turned back to the keypad.

  Ethan was impressed with her adeptness and the decisive way she worked the machinery. Her hands were small and delicate, yet they worked the keypad and the panels expertly. After a few minutes, she led the way out of the control room and back into the corridor, stopping next to one of the small square stations that had fed Ethan for five years.

  “Try something now,” she urged, the hint of excitement in her eyes.

  “What?”

  “Anything. Try anything you like.”

  “Computer,�
� he said slowly, “give me a . . . bowl of chili.”

  Kaia smiled faintly. “I suspected you were from the American West.”

  Ethan took the bowl from the materializer and scooped a big spoonful into his mouth. He’d had the ship’s chili before—it was uninspiring. Now, however, the spice of it hit his tongue and throat like acid. He coughed and sputtered, “Milk! Computer, milk!”

  The computer hesitated. “More information is needed to process your request.”

  “Cow’s milk!” Ethan gasped.

  The materializer responded immediately and he gulped the thick, sweet drink.

  “What did you do to it?” he asked as the flames in his throat died down.

  “You’re just not used to it. Try it for a few days, and we’ll change it back if you still dislike the seasonings.”

  Ethan tossed the cup and the rest of the chili in its bowl into the recycler and scowled at her, wiping his streaming eyes. “You’re smiling. You enjoy seeing a man swallow fire?”

  “Very much,” she said. “I haven’t seen anything that funny in years.”

  There was a moment of genuine warmth between them. And then, like a curtain, he saw her grief descend upon her again. Her brows drew together. “I’m—I’m going to go. I hope the food tastes better to you now.”

  Ethan wiped his face hurriedly as he called to her retreating back. “Kaia, wait.”

  She stopped and looked back at him.

  “I’m sorry that your plans got messed up. I’m sorry that you are going through this, and I’m sorry about David.” She made a little gasping sob at the name.

  He took a step toward her, moved by her raw emotion. “I know it’s not going to change anything, but why don’t you come back to the hold? At least you don’t have to be alone. Come back there with me and we’ll watch a movie. Get our minds off this whole mess.”

  She looked doubtful, but he could tell she was considering it. “I’ve already been back to the hold,” she said, her right hand moving unconsciously to her left forefinger. He noticed, for the first time, that she was wearing a wide silver ring. David’s ring. The one she’d found in the hold on the day she awakened. She spoke hesitantly. “How did you get this?”

  Ethan shifted uncomfortably. “I—slipped it off his finger before—” he stopped and changed his words, “at the end.” He rushed on, trying to explain an action that had barely made sense to him even when he was doing it. “You see, it was the only thing I saw that was really his own. I—I wanted something of his to make it to Minea. I thought maybe there could be a memorial service there, or, or at least something to show that there was once a man who sacrificed his life for the people on this ship. So they could, I guess, remember him.”

  He stopped talking. It seemed so heinous now, taking a dead man’s wedding ring. Maybe he could have explained it better. She must think he was terribly callous.

  But her soft voice broke into his thoughts. “Thank you, Ethan.”

  He looked up to see gratitude in her eyes. He nodded.

  Without saying anything else, Kaia walked toward him, then past him, to the Caretaker’s hold.

  Chapter 4

  He followed her. Even after all these years, the ship seemed to Ethan like a foreign country. He lived here, but he didn’t understand it. A Xardn word described it best:

  It meant stranger, outsider, and also, in some contexts, novice. The ship made him feel like all three.

  He realized now that to Kaia it was like an old friend. He saw it in the way she ran her hands along the hallway as she walked, in the way she stopped periodically to pore over various panels, and the way her brow furrowed when she heard a squeak in the doors to the Caretaker’s hold.

  She seemed to have regained her composure by the time she slipped onto one end of the couch in the hold. Ethan sat on the other. She turned toward him, fixing him with her gaze. “What made you come, Ethan? Why did you want to go to Minea?”

  She had a knack for directness. It was a question that Ethan himself had pondered often over the last five years. Still, all he could say was, “At first it was . . . adventure, I guess.” He looked down. “I just always wanted to see what was out here. And then when the colonization program started, I thought it was my chance. When I applied, I never thought I’d have a chance because I was doubtful they needed a linguist to build a new society.” He laughed a little bitterly. “They didn’t even need my research in our old society. I was going to have to shift my focus to something that didn’t interest me, and going to Minea became a whole lot more alluring. We were actually shocked when the acceptance letter came.”

  Kaia looked at him. “We?”

  Ethan nodded slowly. “My wife and I. Aria. She’s still in stasis.”

  “I didn’t realize—” Kaia started. “I didn’t realize you were married.”

  “Married and about to become a father. You wouldn’t have known: my wedding ring is in the cargo hold in a little box with everything else we brought from Earth.”

  Kaia detected the bitterness in his voice. “You weren’t expecting to end up hurtling through space all by yourself, were you?”

  Ethan shrugged. “Life is full of surprises.” He stood suddenly and walked across the room. “When I first realized that I’d spend my whole life here, I tried to think of it as noble—watching over all of them. The truth is, I’m afraid, that the ship doesn’t need me. It runs everything all by itself. Their nourishment, temperature—even navigating to Minea—is all automatic. Even if I could do something, I wouldn’t know what to do. As I said, I’m a linguist.”

  He was pacing, walking a line he had walked nearly every day for more than five years. He had often wondered if the smooth steel floor here would be worn by the end of the voyage. He had a feeling—a fear—that it would not. That nothing on the ship would be any different for his spending his life here.

  Kaia watched him, seeming to note his agitation. “The ship’s not that complicated. I could teach you about it if you want.” When he glanced at her, her gray eyes were fixed on his. “It might make you feel more . . . useful.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “but I thought you just knew about the computer.”

  “I’m a comprehensive engineer,” she said, a hint of pride in her voice. “I know everything on board these ships. I’ve worked on every system.”

  Ethan was encouraged. “I’d love to learn more about it. But I warn you, I’m not much of a mechanic.”

  “I’m sure you could pick it up. Languages have complex structure and work in specific ways. So do the various systems of the ship. In a lot of ways, language is mathematical and so is engineering. So you could say that both our fields started at the same place. What language is your specialty?”

  Ethan felt calmer back on familiar ground. He stopped pacing as he answered. “Xardn.”

  Kaia narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you making that up? I’ve never heard of it.”

  He saw that she was teasing him. It made him smile. “Maybe you don’t know everything after all,” he retorted. “It’s a dead alien language.”

  “A language of dead aliens or a dead language of aliens?”

  “Both.”

  It struck Ethan how nice it was, talking to someone—a real human being—again. Communicating with her was so different from his conversations with the computer. He realized he liked the hesitation in her speech. The way she stopped to think before she spoke. He leaned on the back of the couch as he told her so.

  Her expression was puzzled. “You mean I sound like I’m unsure. Like I don’t really know what I’m talking about.”

  “Yes.” He saw her expression switch to annoyance and spoke quickly. “Sometimes. I mean that your logic is not always precise, your phrasing is sometimes awkward—”

  She was actually mad now. “Well, I’m no linguist, but I take great pride in being very logical and articulate. It’s possible that five years of stasis has fogged my brain, but I’m generally very—”

  “No, no, K
aia, don’t be mad. I just mean that you’re not a machine. It’s so nice to talk to someone besides the computer. I like the humanness of our conversation.” He paused to see that he’d assuaged her feelings. “I even like that you get mad. I once tried to make the computer mad. I just ended up feeling like an idiot.”

  She was smiling now, no doubt enjoying the thought of him insulting the computer. “I suppose I see what you mean.”

  He went on. “There are a lot of things that I never thought about before I was isolated from all of humanity. We’re a pretty complex species. I never really realized it until I spent five years with the computer.”

  “What else have you discovered about us?” She pulled her knees up to her chest and looked at him intently.

  “Well, We’re unpredictable, of course. Emotional. Irrational. Much funnier than machines.” He shifted from his leaning position and sat back down on the couch. “Because all I know of the computer is a disembodied voice, I’ve thought a lot about body language. I remember days back on Earth when I’d come home from work and Aria would come out onto the porch. I knew before I even got out of the hovercab when she was happy or upset, whether she’d had a good day or a bad one. I have no idea how to read the computer’s analysis or motivations. And the computer doesn’t pick up on stuff like that from me, either. I laid on the couch for three days straight once, despondent, and it never asked how I was or what was wrong. I asked it later, and it said that my vital signs were normal, so no action was required.”

  “That sounds like most men’s idea of the perfect companion. Never hassling them about how they feel. Never expecting to give a rundown of the day.” She smiled.

  “You’d think. It is interesting, though, how the computer’s indifference affected me. I found for a while that having no one concerned about me in the least made me pretty reckless. I tried prying into the wiring to see what was there. I tried to get outside a time or two. Then gradually I became the opposite; I became hyper-concerned about myself. I guess I figured that since no one else was going to look out for me, I better do it.”