The Catalyst

-Chapter 42-


I headed back toward the bridge, but didn’t make it half-way before I heard someone behind me. I turned sharply, and blinked in surprise. It was Sandra.
“Where’d you come from?” I asked.
“What’s this?” she asked. She held up something in front of my faceplate.
I took it from her and examined it. “Ning’s ID card? Where did you get that?”
She stared at me, and looked sick. Her mouth was open, her eyes stared into the distance. “Who’s Ning?” she asked.
“A med tech. I left her in charge of your coffin—ah your medical pod.”
“You were right the first time,” she said. “It was a coffin.”
“What are you talking about? Where is Ning?”
Sandra looked at me strangely. She came closer and hugged me. I thought she might cry. I lifted my arms, but didn’t quite dare to hug her back at first. I didn’t want to mess this up somehow.
“What’s wrong?” I asked in a soft voice.
“Just tell me how you left me. Tell me why I’m alive again.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. Things had been so wild for so long I’d never had time to tell her about the biotic soup I’d bathed her in to rejuvenate her. I gently put my arms around her, but was careful not to get too friendly. I organized my thoughts, knowing I had to tell her how things went in the most positive way possible.
“You were in that box for a long time,” I said. “It really upset me. I visited you all the time, tried to come up with solutions. The nanites had kept you alive, but you were too far gone from vacuum exposure to recover. You were in an indefinite coma.”
“Did you think about unplugging me?” she asked, lifting her head. Before I could answer, she buried her face against my breastplate. “Don’t tell me about that. Just tell me how you did it.”
“Well, I didn’t think there was a way. But I didn’t give up. Over time I learned about this new microbial species aboard Jolly Rodger, in the Macro labs.”
“Species?”
“Remember the black goo you had all over you when you awakened?” I asked.
“Vaguely.”
“That was them—or their byproducts. They were in a big tank like a bag…anyway, they all died aboard Jolly Rodger. Just before the ship blew up, I had you in a tank of these tiny creatures, and got them to rebuild your damaged cells. They could do things that nanites couldn’t do, because they were organic themselves. You owe them your life.”
“You got them to do it?” she asked. “You mean you talked to them? They are intelligent?”
“Yes, with a mass-intellect similar to the nanites.”
“How did you communicate with beings like that?”
“Through Marvin. He could talk to them.”
Sandra pulled away from me and took Ning’s ID card. She stood a few steps away rubbing her own shoulder with the card.
“Tell me, Kyle,” she said. “How did the microbes do it?”
“They needed a source of protein for raw materials. Then they broke that down and regrew it as the target form. You see my right foot? It used to be a pork chop, believe it or not.”
She dipped her head down and shivered slightly. I stepped closer, wondering if I’d blown it somehow.
“You asked me where Ning went,” she said, “well, I think you are looking at her.”
“What?” I said. Then I got it, and almost laughed. “No, no. I don’t think so. Ning is missing, but so are a lot of people. She was killed in the battle.”
“No,” Sandra said. “I found her. More than just that ID card. She was in coffin. I went back to it and dug around in the slime. There are bones in that sludge. And hair, zippers. The ID card was there too. The microbes ate her to rebuild me. And I don’t even remember her.”
I stared at her, feeling some of her horror. I was one thing to be partly made of a pork chop. After all, everyone is built from the materials they consume. But another person…. Usually, I had something to say in every situation. Not this time.
Sandra caught me looking at her that way, and she let a few tears run down her cheek. “I’m a monster,” she said. “A cannibal. You should have just let me die then spaced the remains. That’s the best way. Couldn’t you have left me in peace? You shouldn’t have done it, Kyle. My life wasn’t worth someone else’s.”
“Done what?” I asked.
She stepped closer. “I should have known it was you. I’ve owed you for a long time, Kyle. You came back for me the first time I was dead in that cold ocean. You fished me out and brought me back to life. I’m a ghost twice over now, but this time the price was too high. You shouldn’t have done it.”
“Done what?”
She stepped closer and hissed her words up at me. “You shouldn’t have killed Ning and shoved her into that box.”
My mouth hung open. “I told you, I wasn’t there. I left Marvin in charge.”
Sandra stared at me, eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Really?”
“Yeah. I told him to fix you. I think I said something like: do whatever it takes. Maybe I should have been more specific.”
She closed her eyes and sagged against me. I put my arms around her and soothed her gently.
Sandra ripped loose from me suddenly, and her face had utterly changed. Instead of horror and sorrow, it was filled with rage. “We have to kill Marvin,” she said. “We have to turn him off. He’s a monster—and he’s made me into one, too!”
I looked at her seriously. The way she had moved, the power in her limbs…I could feel it. She was stronger than nanotized men. It was like soothing a wild gorilla that could rip a man’s face off.
“Marvin is cooperating right now,” I said. “He’s like all these machines—very literal-minded. But if he really killed Ning to empower you…that’s just not acceptable. I think you’re right. I’m going to have to disable him.”
Sandra came close, looking at me intently. “No,” she said, whispering. “Not disable, destroy.”
“I understand your passion,” I said. “But he’s too valuable. He can talk to these alien species. Remember when we transferred him from the Centaurs? He came across as an incomplete download. Maybe there were elements of his reasoning that are twisted up because of that.”
She stared at me in disgust. “What are you doing? Copping an insanity plea for a robot?”
“I’m telling you he knows too much to destroy. If we can get the knowledge he has—just the ability to speak the Centaur language, for example, would be invaluable to Earth.”
“I’m talking about a human life, Kyle.”
“I’m talking about billions of human lives,” I said.
We stared at each other hotly for a long time. Finally, she kissed me again, so hard it hurt my lips. It felt good, just the same.
“All right,” she said. “You do what you think you have to. But if he does anything weird, I’m pulling his plug myself.”
Anything weird? I thought. Not Marvin! His thinking was so far out of the box that he didn’t even know where the box was. I didn’t say any of these things, however. They wouldn’t have helped Sandra’s mood.
“Okay,” I said. “Check up on him. Don’t let him kill anyone else. Especially not you.”
Sandra snorted as if she didn’t think Marvin had a chance against her. I wasn’t so sure. He kept surprising me. But then again, so did she.
“All right, Colonel,” she said.
We kissed again and parted ways. My lips were burning, but I figured I might have gotten back in the loop with her somehow. I realized as I headed to the bridge that she hadn’t even mentioned Major Sarin. She’d been distracted by Marvin and Ning. Her hard kisses were punishing, and made me wonder what actual sex with her was going to be like—should I be so lucky as to find out.