The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir by Karin Tidbeck

Author:Karin Tidbeck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Season 2 finale: All We Ever Wanted Was Everything.

The station is closing due to budget reasons; Earth has cut off funding because station management refuses to go along with their alien-unfriendly policies. No other race offers to pick up the bill, since they have started up stations of their own. In a bittersweet montage, the captain walks through the station and reminisces on past events. The episode ends with the captain leaving on a shuttle. An era is over. The alien navigator puts a claw on the captain’s shoulder: a new station is opening, and the captain is welcome to join. But it’ll never be an earthlike place. It’ll never be quite like home.

* * *

Skidbladnir arrived in a plaza at the city’s heart. The air was breathable and warm. Tall spires rose up into the sky. The ground beneath them was cracked open by vegetation. Novik got out first. He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the plaza. He nodded to himself.

“This will do,” he said. “This will do.”

“What happens now?” Saga asked.

“We stand back and wait,” Novik replied. “Skidbladnir knows what to do.” He motioned for Saga to follow him.

They sat down at the edge of the plaza, well away from Skidbladnir. Saga put her bags down; she hadn’t brought much, just her clothes, some food, and her favorite episodes of Andromeda Station. Perhaps she would find a new tape player somewhere.

They waited for a long time. Novik didn’t say much; he sat with his legs crossed in front of him, gazing up at the spires.

* * *

At dusk, Skidbladnir’s walls cracked open. Saga understood why Novik had positioned them so far away from the building; great lumps of concrete and steel fell down and shook the ground as the building shrugged and shuddered. The tendrils that waved from the building’s cracked roof stiffened and trembled. They seemed to lengthen. Walls fell down, steel windows sloughed off, as Skidbladnir slowly extricated herself from her shell. She crawled out from the top, taking great lumps of concrete with her. Saga had expected her to land on the ground with an almighty thud. But she made no noise at all.

Free of her house, Skidbladnir was a terror and wonder to behold. Her body was long and curled; her multitude of eyes gleamed in the starlight. Her tendrils waved in the warm air as if testing it. Some of the tendrils looked shrunken and unusable. Saga also saw that patches of Skidbladnir’s body weren’t as smooth as the rest of her; they were dried and crusted. Here and there, fluid oozed from long scratches in her skin.

Next to Saga, Novik made a muffled noise. He was crying.

“Go, my love,” he whispered. “Find yourself a new home.”

Skidbladnir’s tendrils felt the buildings around the plaza. Finally, they wrapped themselves around the tallest building, a gleaming thing with a spiraled roof, and Skidbladnir pulled herself up the wall. Glass tumbled to the ground as Skidbladnir’s tendrils shot through windows to pull herself up.

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