How to Get to Apocalypse and Other Disasters by Erica L. Satifka

Author:Erica L. Satifka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General, Science Fiction, Short Stories (Single Author)
Google: y9uLzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Fairwood Press
Published: 2021-11-09T05:00:00+00:00

The constants, perhaps due to a little bleed-through from the feline subroutines imprinted in their synthetic bodies, didn’t tend to focus on things for very long. They scattered, some returning to their usual perches and lofts about the ship. Eberling, too, trundled toward his familiar hiding place on the ledge, facing away from space. Always away.

The ledge faced the tankroom, so he was the first to see the parade of monsters, led by a grotesque with telescoping arms ending in metal bits.

Loathsome, he thought. He sauntered up to the lead monster, her face inexplicably covered in watery blood.

“What are you doing, dear?” he said, as sweetly as he could manage.

He expected the creature to squeal over him, or to forget what she was going to say and wander off. Instead, the wrencher stared at him with a tenacity he hadn’t seen on any human face in six hundred years.

“Ship is sick. She won’t help us.” She held up her left hand, from which half of the modified fingers were missing. “Even Nakama won’t help us. He wanted us to go back to sleep.” The monster narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think you’ll help us.”

“But, pet,” Eberling said, forcing the sobriquet through his voice box like it was a curse, “you know not to disobey.”

The monster near the mangled wrencher was even uglier. She extruded a line of slime where she went, dragging her lower body by two small arms near her hips. Eberling shuddered. “Nakama attacked her. He’s a bad kitty.” Several of the others nodded their malformed heads.

If Eberling had eyebrows anymore, they would have raised at that. Nakama loved the monsters, as much as one could. “I’m sure he had a reason.”

“No, he didn’t!”

“And where is he now?”

The monsters looked around guiltily. Finally, one in the middle of the pack said, “He’s in a tank!”

“All right,” Eberling said. “Let’s go get him out. Maybe he can convince you not to be such disobedient girls.”

“No,” the long-armed monster said. “We don’t need him for this. I want to know why we can’t help Ship. I want to know why you don’t want to let us help Ship. I think you’re lying to us. And they’re going to help me, even if you won’t.” She waved her ruined hand at the collected monsters.

Eberling considered. Had the conditioning been broken? Were the humans beginning to remember?

This monster-girl had no concept of what Endpoint was, no notion of her history. She couldn’t even know that she and Eberling were, technically, part of the same species. Not unless Eberling told her. Information was power, and where there was power, there were uprisings. Dead humans. Even more importantly, dead constants.

But they were all dying anyway.

Eberling grunted and quietly conferred with a clowder of constants that had gathered nearby to watch. “Come into this room,” he said, gesturing. “Just you two. Everyone else, please be quiet. We’re going to help Ship.”

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