Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 199 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke [Clarke, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magazine, science fiction, Science Fiction - Short Stories, Science Fiction And Fantasy, science fiction magazine, short fiction, short stories
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2023-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

2

The Centaur orbits our world undisturbed by the transformations below. Neptune’s mass has not changed, nor has its volume yet contracted to a measurable degree. The former ship pulled in its arms and increased its spin millennia ago, so that the lower levels of its hollowed interior would enjoy Earth-level gravity. And there, save for infrequent dockings when a shuttle from one of the dwindling orbital habitats paid a visit, it has remained undisturbed.

A body has been crafted to house my consciousness, a human one. Zhao assures Me that the Centaurans within will balk at dealing with someone too obviously posthuman. My true self, to the degree that it can be localized in space, remains a tenth of a light-second away, enough to slow My reflexes should someone swing a club at me.

I open my eyes.

We are aboard the Centaur itself, the only manned spacecraft to traverse the solar system. Dozens of my ancestors (however enumerated) were among them. In my full incarnation I might regard this dispassionately, but now I register the fact with something like awe.

We are in a compartment filled with bulky-looking mechanisms, where I am lying on a raised mat. I am fully embodied: rising, I can feel my mass pressing through my soles upon the deck. Such is the gravity of Earth: one could eventually tire simply from standing still.

Like most humans throughout their history, I am garbed. My skin is not so dark as some of the ship’s original passengers’, and I possess no outward signs of gender. Two meters away, Zhao sits up and smiles at me.

“How much would you like to know? Or shall we let it be a surprise?”

“What is there to know? There are five hundred ninety-three people alive on board. None is suffering from poor health, and all of them have access to information.”

“Of course: we are not barbarians.”

I nod at that. Stories about the remaining Centaurans losing touch with reality and believing their environment was the entire universe had been told for centuries, though they were probably never quite true. To allow humans to live in delusion would be as wrong as allowing them to suffer.

I too have access to information, though in this body I can review it no faster than a human could. Enough to know that our attire will strike Centaurans as unremarkable.

Zhao is speaking to the agency that controls the chamber, requesting permission to enter the vessel’s interior. I had not realized that there was an actual human at the other end, who would act upon our request—perhaps even consulting with others—at human speed. A few seconds pass and Zhao speaks again, once more in a Mandarin dialect I have trouble understanding. After a few more seconds hse nods and offers an archaic “Thank you.”

“We are admitted to the Sovereign State of Bàn Rénmǎ,” hse says as a panel in the ceiling slides open and a staircase coils its way down. “I promised we won’t make trouble.”

The staircase in fact reconfigures into a platform

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