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Estimated oxygen time: 23:43:35
I’d forgotten that the camera had been on this entire time. I didn’t have Anaxagoras’s First’s permission to take video of her, and I had, without noticing, stolen something precious and private. When I return, I should consider cutting that part from the video.
The new First pulled the old one’s exposed body out through the gash in the suit, handling it with a roughness that surprised me, especially when it came to the catheters. The body was naked now, but her skin had by then turned hard and wrinkled, her face lost all semblance of a person in need of modesty. He grabbed the body by the ankle and started moving, her suit bundled under his armpit. I didn’t say anything, but he must have sensed something in my stare, because he turned around. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “She wouldn’t mind. Come on, we’ll walk you out.” He gestured for me to walk ahead of them.
I didn’t answer. Still shocked at what I’d seen, I simply went ahead, into the tunnel leading outwards. They picked up their devices and followed me.
For a moment I considered just leaving the whole thing, going back inside, to the interior of Ceres, with what I’d found out up so far. But I hadn’t found Arik yet, and couldn’t just give that up. I needed to pull myself together, to ask them what she meant about Arik, and who might know where he was, but I barely managed to move myself forward without falling over. I glanced back at the two of them.
First carried the body in one hand, and the device in another, and second carried one device in each hand. They spoke quietly as they kicked; either the suits had only one radio channel, or they wanted me to hear. Either way, I kept recording. “You okay?” First asked, his voice soft. How could he be okay? How could anyone?
Second looked back at me, suspiciously.
“Don’t worry about him. What’s bothering you?” First pressed further.
“Thinking about the future,” Second answered somberly.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
“And what if I can’t? Back on the inside, I would have never thought—”
“That’s enough. There’s a reason we don’t talk about the inside, or the past. You’ll understand that in time, but until then, you have to trust that there’s a reason we’ve followed these rules for so long.”
“When you’re alone…” He looked back at me, and shook his head. “It was easier to believe with First around, you know? I mean, the other…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“But she’s gone, and when you’re gone there won’t be anyone left to convince me.”
“Sure there will. There will be new people, who’ll be counting on you to believe, so they could too.”
“Is it the same, though?” Despite his age, he sounded like a child, asking about the secrets of life.
“No,” First let the device in his hand, still floating, and clapped Second comradely on the shoulder before catching it again. “It’s better.”
Second sighed with relief. “Thanks.” I couldn’t see his expression, but I could hear it.
“One more thing, though. Did you tell the Visitor to look for First?”
“I did, I’m sorry. You’re not gonna tell Diocletian, are you?” Fear in his voice, a plea. What the hell was going on here?
“Of course not, but don’t let it happen again. To anyone else, we’re all Anaxagoras. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Now cheer up, there’s a lot of work to do before the day’s done,” First said. “Let’s stop here, Visitor. There’s something we need to show you.” I turned to him, just as he kicked himself to a halt and let his burdens drop beside him. Second did the same, a little way ahead. He looked at me, worried again.
I pumped my jets, noticing that we were stopping just by one of the bundles. The ones that I’d been told were bombs, hardly fifteen minutes ago. First pulled a large control panel from his backpack and pressed a button right in the middle of it.
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My radio receiver roared with static. By the time I instinctively brought my hands to the sides of my helmet, it was deathly quiet again. Even more quiet than before—and it took me a precious second to understand that what had been missing was the sound of my life support system pumping oxygen. My visor was transparent, the display gone.
First tackled me, and after a short moment of confusion Second followed. They couldn’t pin me down without any weight, but one of them managed to hug me from behind in a way that initially prevented me from reaching the torch. The other pressed both of us into the wall. I managed to reach the torch, with an almost straight arm, but when I flicked my wrist at a difficult angle and pressed the button as hard as I could, to shoot at the one holding me, it didn’t fire.
Magnetics, I thought, not explosives. The one that wasn’t wrestling me tried to wring the torch out of my grip, but I held fast. I flicked the jet’s control, but it didn’t work, either. Why does every little thing have to have computer chips in it? I thought as I kicked the floor, driving all three of us into the wall. The impact loosened their holds by a fraction but in an instant they reinforced them, tighter than before.
I took a breath of damp air that somehow made me feel more breathless, and realized that air quality was dropping fast. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on.
First wrapped an arm around my neck, forcing my head forward, and put his helmet to mine, glass against glass, his face filling most of my field of vision. The knife he held in his free hand, hovering just above my neck, was the same one he’d used on the former First.
“We’re not trying to kill you,” he said. His voice, transmitted through the contact between the visors, was distorted, thin and distant. “But if you keep wiggling, we might have an accident.”
This wasn’t the first time someone had threatened to kill me, but it was the first time it had felt so close, so real. I let go of the torch and felt Second taking it away, then opening the Velcro of my pockets. He took out the remote control of the skipper, found the clasps of the jet system, and flicked them loose, one by one.
They moved back, leaving some space between us. First picked up the control board from the floor and pressed the same large button. The instant he did, my life support, my visor, even the lights in the hall returned to normal. The sound of the oxygen pumping and the sudden freshness of the air were greater reliefs than I can describe.
I brought myself to a shaky stand and checked the numbers on my visor: oxygen reserves, battery power, inside and outside temperatures. My suit was functioning, which was good, but they had just taken my way of getting home, and my way of defending myself. I hadn’t even the time to fully realize that yet. First held the torch in one hand, pointing it roughly in my direction. Second held my jets with one hand, and inspected the remote control of my skipper he had in the other.
“What’s that?” First said, gesturing towards the remote. I realized they’d never seen one.
“That’s the key to my ride,” I said, surprised at how calm I sounded.
He looked at Second for a moment, who looked back with a twinkle of greed in his eyes. “A lot of work we could get done with something like that. Sell it to Ctesibius for everything they have, or even take off by ourselves.”
“Haul a lot of trash,” Second suggested, his white eyebrows curling, and they both laughed.
First made the tiniest gesture with his fingers, and Second tossed the remote at him. He grabbed it in one hand, a savage smile on his face. “But why stop there?”
I could tell we were all thinking the same thing—even if their space suits wouldn’t allow them to replace the oxygen, my skipper was a hermetic chamber. If they closed it with all three of us inside, killed me, and cut all our suits open, they’d get to extend their lifespan by twelve hours, each.
“Too bad one of us will have to spend all of those hours alone,” Second added, already seeing how when both of them left alone in the skipper with my corpse, one of them will have to kill the other to get a few more hours.
“Obviously,” First agreed, and they both laughed again.
My heart was beating so loudly I wondered if they heard on comm. First looked at the remote for a moment, a long one by this place’s standards. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “But you, on the other hand, could use it to return home. Go to sleep tonight, wake up tomorrow, make plans for next week. Seems like immortality, from where I’m standing. The future spread ahead of you so far that you can’t even imagine it, so far that you know that you’ll change into a new and different person. Something truly miraculous.” He looked at Second, tilting his head slightly towards me, and Second nodded, approving. First sighed, then flicked his wrist, sending the remote floating my way.
I grabbed it, closing both hands around like a little box. First nodded, mostly to himself, grief in his eyes.
I opened my hands to see if it was actually there. “Thank—”
“Fuck off, warmblood,” First snapped, his eyes still set on my hands. “Anaxagoras aren’t killers.”
I wanted to say something more, but First raised a single, empty hand, and the gesture did more to silence me than a raised knife. He looked exhausted as he put the torch into Second’s pack, and picked up the long device in one hand and the body, suit, and jet pack in the other. Second picked up a device in each hand. “Day’s not getting any longer,” First said finally.
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Anaxagoras are glad to have let the visitor see something of their lives, truly but ultimately, he is no more than an amusing wonder, like a strangely shaped asteroid. You can’t hold on to it—No matter how strange and beautiful, you have to let it go. He has tested their resolve with the temptations he offered, but they stood firm, choosing to remain a line.
That is what Anaxagoras is—choosing the difficult over the easy. That is the essence of their spirit. Silent and proud, they return to their duties.