B99 if You Ever Ask Me About This Again You re Never Going to Be Able to Eat Without a Straw
Graff has been keeping a big secret from his closest friends, the captain and coiffure of a pirate-hunting starship. He expected to dice before they ever discovered what he really is. But he'south not expressionless, and now he has to explicate.
I am cut nearly in half by the blow. The surviving fibers of my suit hold me together. I am not dead.
And this is a trouble. I expected to die in this job, in my little scout runner, blasted apart, incinerated, torn to pieces with nada to recover. All that would follow would be a pitiful memorial service with a picture and an sometime set of boots on a tabular array. That is how scout pilots normally die. But I am just cutting almost in half. And the doctor on my send, Visigoth, is very good.
My biologics are mostly shut down with shock, though I'1000 dutifully trying to monitor the pain. Information technology's all-enveloping, a fist squeezing my encephalon. My mechanics are in full self-repair style, overheating because there's then much to knit back together. Because of them, I accept survived long enough that I will probably not die. This is going to be awkward.
From my ain internal processor I send out an emergency signal to piggyback on ship comms, then that maybe someone can come and explain.
On autorecovery, my half-exploded runner manages to slam into its berth on the Visigoth and rescue crews are standing past. Once they seal all the locks, I endeavour to assist them skin me out of the cockpit but information technology's not really working. There are many pairs of easily and shouting voices.
"Graff, stop, lie back, you lot'll exist fine, information technology's fine, it's going to be fine—"
I might laugh at this.
The dock coiffure and medics are full of panic and repressed horror at what they must exist looking at. Then I am horizontal, fully supported, no strain at all on my body, which feels wet and wobbly, and the pain is atomic number 82 weight on every nerve. Fingers pry at my eyelids, a light flashes, and I meet him, Doctor Ell, who is besides my lover. He has a stake face and a shock of blond hair and intense eyes, and his whole expression is screwed up and serious. I desire to pat his shoulder and say everything volition be fine but nothing is working. Then I wait at him.
"I'k deplorable," I murmur.
"Graff, no, what are you lot talking near?"
"You lot're near to find out I faked my medical scans." I try to smile.
He stares. "What?"
A medic'south voice interrupts. "Doc! God, look at this—"
Finally, happily, I pass out.
Five other people are in the room when I wake up. Ell and Helm Ransom. A support medic, continuing by. Two guards at a door that has never had guards at it before.
"When will he wake upward?" Ransom asks.
"He'due south awake now," Ell says. He must be watching a monitor.
I'grand listening hard—I can hear heartbeats, if I focus. I think I can open up my eyes. But I tin can't motion annihilation else. There'due south a fog; I battle past it.
"Am I paralyzed or on medical restraints?" My vox scratches.
Some rustling equally the guards flinch, like they didn't believe I was awake. The medic perks upwards.
"Drug-induced paralysis," Ell says.
"So both."
"Yeah."
"Considering of the injuries or because of everything else?"
Nothing for a long intermission, then, "It would exist ameliorate if you lie notwithstanding for now."
"Okay." I sigh. My lungs still work just feel like they've been scrubbed out with pumice.
Bribe curses and begins to pace. He doesn't take a lot of room and his steps autumn hard. His presence always seems to expand to fill whatever space he's in. It'south actually a comfort correct now. Bribe is here, he'll fix everything.
My processor seems to be fine. Ell didn't mess with it when he had a take chances to look inside me. The self-repair has settled down; I'yard still recording. I check the time; it'due south been two days since they pulled me out of the runner. Diagnostics say I'grand . . . mending. Mechanics repaired. Biologics will need more fourth dimension. I took a beating. Just Ell didn't try to dig in or disconnect annihilation important. He could have, if he'd wanted to.
I accept a lot of questions. I imagine they exercise, too. Nosotros try to await one another out. My optics open to a dimly lit ceiling in Medical. I want to see Ell but he's standing back.
Bribe and Ell finally pause at the aforementioned time.
Ell says, "How did you fake the scans—"
The captain says, "Yous sent a indicate—"
I chuckle. I tin can't help it. This would be funny if it weren't me. Ransom curses once again.
"This isn't funny," Ell says.
"No, I know that," I reply. "I'm deplorable." I would express mirth outright except it hurts too much, because if I had idea well-nigh it before the accident, what Ransom would practice if he always found out most me, this is most how I'd have expected information technology to go. My ongoing chuckle comes out similar a cough.
Ransom is losing his temper. "Graff—"
"Let it go. You know how he is," Ell says.
"I thought I did."
I terminate chuckling. "Ask me. Enquire me everything."
Ransom starts. "Are you dangerous?"
"Yes. I hateful no. Non to any of you."
"Graff, you lot're not helping," the doctor says.
"What practise yous desire me to say?" I murmur.
"What are you?" the physician asks.
"Human being."
"No, yous're not—"
"I didn't simulated the DNA records, just the physiological. Look at the Deoxyribonucleic acid." I'one thousand tired. Only I need to get through this. I need to know what they're going to do with me.
Ell has touched every inch of me. He must have thought he knew me.
"When was all this work done? How . . ." Now Ell is pacing. "I've seen cybernetic implants, only this . . . this is extensive. This is role of your nervous system. Work this extensive should kill anyone . . . but yous don't fifty-fifty have any scarring from information technology. It's all perfectly integrated. How?"
They call up I'thou dangerous. They retrieve I'm going to go off similar a flop. "Can yous send the kids out, please?"
The 2 guards, the medic. They're not kids, of course they're not. I know them all; I trained with them. But I outrank them. Some other long, taut silence follows.
"I'thou non going to hurt anyone," I insist. My head is throbbing. "In that location are more than secrets than mine here. I'll tell yous and the captain but no i else."
Ell comes to my shoulder, a syringe in manus. I tin't blanch, I can't resist. He pumps the liquid into a tube already continued to my trunk somewhere that I tin can't run into.
"For the hurting," he says gently. "Your vitals are spiking."
He touches my shoulder, naked under a thin sail. I well-nigh start crying. My claret stops pounding quite as difficult. Fretfulness fray a little less. Ell steps away. I want to reach for him.
"Drugs work on him at least," he says to the captain.
"Do y'all trust him?" Ransom asks. A question that cuts. He'due south always trusted me before.
"I don't know," Ell says.
I think I might start crying. I look. Nosotros all wait, in air thick with anxiety, similar trying to wade through gelatin.
"Marcel, Xun, Brown. You lot're dismissed," Ransom says finally.
"But sir—" He must give them a look, because no one complains further.
They leave reluctantly. Ell murmurs reassurances at them. They all have second, tertiary looks at me. I wonder what the send'southward rumor mill is saying. It will never be the same.
"All right, Graff," Bribe says. "How . . . what . . ." He waves his hand at me, shakes his head.
I've never explained this; I've never needed to. I don't regret having to do so now. Information technology's how I'm going to survive. Assuming they believe me and trust me at the terminate of it.
"It's done in utero," I say. "It's grown. Artificial gestation, of course, but that's—"
"Oh starry fuck," Ell curses.
I've never heard him say 'fuck' in all the years I've known him. This is probably going to go badly for me.
"Is that even legal?" Bribe asks.
"I'm non sure. Information technology's certainly not ethical," he says.
Except it is. It is for us.
"Why didn't y'all say anything?" Ransom asks calmly. I recognize the tone, the resolve, that he now knows what the problem is and is closer to figuring out what to exercise near it. "Why not tell us what . . . virtually this? Why carp hiding it with fake scans?"
"Because we don't tell anyone." This drops even harder than the first confession.
"We," Ransom says.
"I hope you understand what I'1000 trusting you with, telling you lot this. I'm trusting y'all." This is a plea. I am vulnerable. I trust them. Not that I take much option. Or I could close myself off. Burn out my processor, keep all the secrets. Only I don't want to.
"Nosotros," the helm repeats. "You sent a signal. At least, the bespeak originated from your position. Information technology tried to sneak out on ship comms."
"But you blocked it before information technology got out," I say. And start chuckling again. "I idea that might happen but I had to endeavour. I . . . I wanted someone to come and download my processor in case I didn't get in."
"How many of you are at that place?" he asks.
"Not as many equally y'all're agape of," I say.
"Fuck, Graff, what am I supposed to do with y'all?" Helm Ransom asks.
"I don't know, sir. Right now I think I would like to sleep. But I'm a footling wound up." I need to know I'll wake support over again, if I get to sleep. I'm not sure right at present.
"You should be dead," he said. "If you were anyone else in a runner that blew up like that you'd be dead."
"Yeah, I was sort of thinking if I ever blew up in a runner in that location wouldn't be enough left for anyone to learn near whatsoever of this."
"Bad luck there," Ransom says, deadpan.
"Yeah."
"I'm about to impale you myself," Ell says. Then to Ransom: "We should let him sleep."
"Does he really demand to sleep? All those wires . . ."
"Yes, I need to sleep. And eat. And everything else." Sex. I need that, as well. But maybe not right at present. Where did Ell go? They're conferencing in the back of the room. Like they tin't bear to await at me. I try to stay awake, so I can explain some more, but the painkiller is also a sedative and it pulls me under.
The very best thing I e'er ate was ice cream with pieces of night chocolate and brandied cherries mixed into it. Decadent and comforting at once, served at a too-fancy café with real wood piece of furniture and paneled walls. They made everything themselves with dairy from real goats. I remember thinking, this, this is what it's all about.
I got that memory out on a previous download, at to the lowest degree.
I try to send out another message, masking it equally a trojan and slipping information technology in with another signal before the comms operator notices it. But they've got the whole room jammed. I tin can't admission anything, not even the medical computers.
This is bad. I'yard not Graff anymore; I'thou a affair on a table. Explaining hasn't helped.
I can't explain information technology, that'southward the trouble.
The memories are pristine. I've got them all stored abroad, and with them the emotions that goes forth with them. The flush on my skin when Ell asked if he could buy me a drink like he was making a cartel. The flush on his skin when I said yeah, considering he hadn't thought I would. This was right subsequently he'd come on board as ship'southward doctor; we'd been in a station-side tavern that was likewise dark and loud with lots of people dancing. Two days of leave and meliorate make the virtually of information technology, correct? Ransom had been in that location, rolling his eyes at the both of us flirting like it was a competition. And merely a couple hours after, out in a quiet corridor, I put my manus on Ell's cervix, gently pushed him against the wall, and kissed him.
That was a skilful night.
I write the best subsequently-activeness reports because I remember. No one ever questions it. I only have a good memory, right? I tin notwithstanding experience the verbal sensation when the reactor on the runner blew out, my gut departing similar taffy as shrapnel went through it.
Leave that retention and get back to that get-go night with Ell. That's better. Shut my eyes, slow my breathing.
Checking my processor, I know exactly when I've slept and when I haven't. I autumn in and out of sleep all day. The door opens, waking me. There are footsteps. I try to await and still tin can't.
"Doctor?" I ask, rasping. I'1000 getting hydrated through a tube in a vein, but my oral cavity is os dry.
Ell appears side by side to me. I sigh, relieved. I shouldn't be relieved.
"What'due south happening?" I ask. I'd meant to ask for water.
He turns away, and my heart lurches. But he'southward back a moment later with a bottle and straw. "Drink," he orders, and I do. "Ameliorate?"
"Yeah. What's happening?"
"Are you a spy?"
Art copyright 2022 by Eli Minaya
"What? No." I mean, I don't think and then? Would they call up I was, if I told them everything?
"Because Bribe thinks you lot're a spy."
"For who?"
"I don't know. For any you are."
"How bad am I hurt?"
"You should be expressionless. Your spine was severed. At least I idea it was, but then . . . it stock-still itself."
"Yeah, it does that."
"Y'all'll be on your feet in another week, and I've hardly done anything but claw you to a feeding tube." He's offended that he tin can't have credit for saving my life.
"I'd be expressionless without the feeding tube. That stuff needs calories."
Flustered, he sighs. "What are yous?"
"I'k me." That will never be a practiced enough answer. "What is Bribe maxim?"
"He suggested dissection. I think he was joking."
I chuckle.
"It's not funny," Ell says.
"No, I guess not." I look at him because I don't know how much longer I'll get to. My grinning feels a bit ridiculous.
He doesn't smile. He's pursed and worried and hurt.
I tin move enough to breathe. This takes a deep breath to become it all out. "I would like to be able to move, if yous think I might be ready to stop with the nerve block."
"I'll have to ask the captain."
"So it isn't for medical reasons."
"No."
Yeah, this may not become well. "I'm not a spy, I'chiliad not a danger to you or anyone, I would never hurt this ship or anyone on it. Where is Bribe, let me talk to him—"
"He doesn't trust you. Not subsequently this. Yous lied—"
"I didn't!"
"The medical scans? You hacked into the ship'southward computers and hijacked my diagnostics systems! You e'er scanned out as an ideal textbook human and now I know why!"
"Aye, okay, I guess that was sort of similar lying."
"Graff." He says it as a reprimand. He's wondering if everything was a prevarication.
"I was raised past the ones who provided my genetic material. I have parents. Does that help?"
"Information technology might." He gets up, puts the bottle of water on a table.
Information technology's infuriating, not existence able to run into anything, except that I'm too drugged to be really furious nigh anything. "Captain's listening right at present, isn't he? On a monitor? Is he outside the door or what? Or does he have marines gear up to storm in if I practise something screwy?"
"Y'all can't exercise anything, you're immobilized. Unless the drugs really don't work on you and you've been faking it." He raises a brow, as if this is a question.
"Well, fuck." I seriously tin can't move. He knows this. I roll my optics at the ceiling, as if I could get Ransom'southward attention that manner. "Okay. Captain? Remember the fourth dimension you lot had me sit in a runner out on that asteroid for two weeks waiting for those pirates to show upwardly? And remember how you didn't tell me why you lot wanted me to sit on that stone, or for how long, or anything?"
"Graff—"
The door to Medical slides open, slides close. Footsteps. And Ransom says, "And so you wouldn't conceptualize and launch your burn too soon and spoil the trap."
"Correct!" I exclaim, excited, probably too excited, considering Ell appears in my peripheral vision, looking at a monitor and frowning.
Ransom continues, "Information technology'south not that I didn't trust you lot—"
"No, encounter, that's the thing. It was a good program, and it wasn't about y'all trusting me. I trusted you. I'd have saturday on that rock for a year if you told me to."
"Now you're just trying to guilt me into listening to you."
"Yeah. Yes, I am. Also, I desire to keep on following your crazy plans. They're kind of fun. You know what I was thinking, when I was stuck on that rock?"
"How you lot were going to kill me for not telling y'all?"
"No. That I couldn't wait to see what you had planned. I knew information technology'd exist good." And it had been. Lots of explosions. "And I was thinking of how many drinks you were going to owe me when I got back." Those had been my first words when I got back to Visigoth, sweaty and stinking from being cooped upwardly for and so long: "You owe me a drinkable, sir." He'd laughed. I'd known Ransom since flight school, most right after I left home. I tin't imagine what this looks like from his end. I'll never make information technology upwardly to him.
The captain'south voice is taut. "This might accept been easier if a switch flipped and turned him into some killer robot." He's talking to Ell, who grumbles.
I ask, "Why didn't you burn out my processor when you had me open, right later the accident?"
The physician says, "I didn't want to hurt you lot."
"Medico, tin can nosotros have a word?" Bribe says. I tin film him jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, only he never enters my line of sight.
Ell nods, looks at me one more time. "Exercise you lot need anything? Anything critical to your current state of health, I mean."
"Y'all?" I enquire hopefully.
He looks away. The door shuts, and I shut my eyes.
I spend the adjacent ii days trying to think of exactly the right thing to tell Ell and Ransom that will brand everything all right and get everything back to the way it was. Or at least have them not look at me like I'g a villain in a bad drama. And I call up I've got it. I stay awake by sheer force of will. Bold I always become to download again, whoever gets the package is going to know every inch of this ceiling. It's got but the littlest bit of texture, like a partially worn pebble. The grey is rather pleasant once you get used to it.
The door opens. Many footsteps enter. My middle rate increases. The pain is then much less than what it was just that makes it harder to prevarication still. I desire to sit down upward. I want to use my easily when I speak.
Ell appears at the side of the table. I get it all out in one get before he can say annihilation.
"It'due south the stories. The stories, the experiences. Everything. A computer could do it, but then we wouldn't get the . . . the experience. The hormones. The dopamine. The endorphins. The meat and nerves of information technology all, right? That'southward the important scrap. We exit into the galaxy and collect stories, and then we bring them home. It'south who nosotros are, it's what we practise. And love, we become out to find all the love we can and attempt to proceed it . . ." This ship is total of beloved and I'm agape I've broken it. "I've never had to explain information technology before and I know information technology doesn't brand sense—"
Ell studies me for a long time. He seems at-home. Some determination has been made.
"Beloved?" he says, his tone fifty-fifty.
"Yeah. Merely similar that."
He lowers his gaze, raises a syringe full of some ominous liquid.
Well. I tried. I gear up my jaw in what I hope is a flick of fortitude. "This is it, so."
"This is what?" he asks.
"You induce a coma and transport me off to some military R&D facility. Or is this . . . I mean, y'all wouldn't."
He gets this very familiar—delightfully familiar—frustrated look on his face. Like he'due south most to snarl. "I wouldn't what?"
"Only finish me off."
"God, Graff. No." He injects the syringe into the line. "This is probably going to hurt. At least, I recall it'll injure."
"Information technology already hurts."
"I wasn't sure you could injure, after I saw all that metal. Until I looked at your readings."
"Y'all know me, Ell. Y'all practice." I finally catch his gaze. His familiar, shining gaze. He sort of looks like he's near to cry, too.
And so there'south a warm blitz though my veins that hits my heart and all my muscles seem to melt into a dull throb. I groan, but it's kind of a relieved groan because I tin wiggle my fingers and toes at present and that feels pretty adept. My processor'south diagnostics hum away; I'chiliad even so not optimal but stress levels are decreasing.
"Warned y'all," Ell says, leaning in. "Now don't move. You're still not entirely in one piece even so."
"Okay."
I attain out, touch his hand. Just castor it, then let him go because I don't want to scare him. He jumps a piddling. His breath catches. But he stays nearly.
Finally, I tin can plow my caput to look at the rest of the room. Helm Bribe is standing there, arms crossed. And someone new is with him. She appears female, fine boned, with short-cropped red hair and a wry frown. A smirk. A judgment. I've never seen her before, but I know who she is. Tez, her proper noun is Tez. My circuits hum in proximity to hers.
I look at Captain Ransom. "You let the signal get out after all."
"I did."
"Why?"
"To see what would happen. She showed up a day after. Exercise you people merely hang around in deep space waiting for edge-of-decease signals?"
"Yes," Tez says calmly.
"I'k not dying actually, it turns out," I say awkwardly.
"Y'all had a shut call," she says.
"Very."
"Is it a good story?"
"I'g non sure."
She comes to the tabular array, holds out her hand. I take it. The spark of a circuit completing pinches my palm, and hers.
The download takes a few minutes. I get all of her memories likewise. It's like meeting an former friend from home. We're all old friends from dwelling. It'south kind of squeamish. I'k not sure I can explain that part of information technology to Ell and Ransom.
Tez holds my gaze, and in hers is forgiveness and agreement, along with the mildest of reprimands.
Y'all convinced them, I tell her.
No, yous did or I'd never have gotten your signal. They wanted to be convinced. You know yous should meet upwards with someone to download a fiddling more often, don't you?
Yeah, I but get distracted.
But is information technology a good story?
It is. I'm sorry I told them about us.
No, you're not.
The connection breaks. She takes a breath, resettling herself into her peel. Looks effectually. Sees Ell with new understanding. He ducks his gaze, self-witting.
"So. They know," she says, merely to get it out in the open.
Tez tin have me back habitation for this. If I can't keep the underground, so I can't be allowed to travel. Merely . . . I'm valuable. I almost start whining like a kid, telling her how valuable I am, out in the universe, collecting stories.
"I trust them," I say.
"They may not want you to stay." She looks up, around. "He'due south afraid you won't want him to stay."
"It'due south a lot to accept in," Bribe says flatly. "I confess, I'thou not sure what to do next. I was hoping you might tell me."
But she doesn't. She asks, "Graff does a lot of good where he is?"
"He does," Bribe says. I wasn't sure he would.
"Thank you lot, sir," I murmur. But information technology'southward Ell's decision that matters most, and I await at him next.
He says, "I can purge all the files from the accident and recovery. Get back to the faked scans. Go along that secret. With the captain's permission." Ell looks; Ransom shrugs. I want to laugh at the dorsum and forth simply that would probably be bad so I don't.
"You want him to stay?" Tez asks Ell.
"I do. I remember I do."
She looks at me. "Graff?"
"Is it going to be weird? It's going to exist weird, isn't it? Me staying."
"Yep," Ell says. "But I call up y'all should stay anyway."
We both look at Ransom. He'southward like a rock, his chiseled expression unmoving. He says, "Yep, information technology'll exist weird. For a while."
She smiles, her forehead crinkling. "I like them."
"Yeah, me, too," I say.
Tez brushes off her one-piece. "Helm, if you can spare the time, I wondered if someone on your crew might take a look at my ship? Just a routine once-over."
It's not very subtle. He looks at her, then at me, then at Ell. He raises his brow. "All correct. This mode."
He actually flashes a little bit of a wry smile over his shoulder as they leave. Then Ell sits by the tabular array and gives me the virtually exhausted, long-suffering, and sad expect I've ever seen.
I'1000 also wearied, which is frustrating. I've slept enough. "I was never going to tell yous because I couldn't tell you and information technology didn't make a difference anyway and I'1000 lamentable."
After a hesitation, he touches my forehead. He ruffles my short hair, looks me up and down like he's studying me. Studying his handiwork, or maybe he's really looking at me.
"I accept a lot more questions," he says.
"Yeah, I know."
I open my paw. Expect for him to make the motility. And he puts his paw in mine.
Fine art copyright 2022 by Eli Minaya
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"Sinew and Steel and What They Told" copyright © 2022 by Carrie Vaughn
Art copyright © 2022 by Eli Minaya
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