《Last Day Town》


 PART ONE - Prologue - Traditions

    I am but flesh and blood,


    And a spirit that is not good, and


    Perhaps, a vague simulacrum of whomever.


    In vain I say: I.


    For it is not I whom my two walkers carry,


    But one that has been awarded by neglect,


    To be my likeness¡¯ image.


    <ul>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Excerpt from Untitled, by Avraham Halfi.  </li>


    </ul>


    #


    Pythia remember when things were different. They remember the wild times before they started counting the days; before anyone had a name. Pythia remember how they delivered themselves and those around them from savagery and violence into civilized order. For a while, the residents of Last Day Town still carried with them the memories of the chaos, and those memories kept them on the straight and narrow path. But memories are not cold stone tablets that can be left unattended¡ªthey require work to keep alive, need to be rehearsed and refreshed and talked about, or they weaken, fade and disappear. If those memories are lost, the others will allow themselves to make daring moves for power, forget what¡¯s at stake, take for granted the absence of absolute chaos this society has reached. But Pythia remember, and so, Pythia worry.


    Diocletian arrive at Pythia¡¯s confession chamber, as accurate as the clock. They are here to collect a body, and to make one. These are their duties¡ªthey welcome the newcomers, and see them out of Last Day Town when their time comes to leave. The two other lines, Ctesibius and Anaxagoras, against Pythia¡¯s advice, opted for a more private ritual, and left Diocletian with the less dignified work of disposing of the bodies the lines made themselves. Pythia, understanding the importance of keeping traditions, still accept Diocletian¡¯s services. They thank them ceremonially, once before the ritual and once after.


    ¡°Stay for confession, Diocletian?¡±


    ¡°Long day ahead,¡± they joke, their black eyes cold and hard. Diocletian leave, carrying the body in their arms.


    Their refusal compounds Pythia¡¯s worries¡ªnot because change is inherently bad, but because the old ways have proven their worth in the natural court. The new forms, however well rationalized and agreed upon, have not yet stood the judgment of time.


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Next, Anaxagoras arrive at Pythia, riding on a rocket, to exercise their right to confession.


    Anaxagoras¡¯s life is full of quiet travel and manual labor, alone in the starlit night. It is not easy, but Pythia know there is a dignity in it that Anaxagoras would not trade for any of the luxuries the other lines get.


    They take a couple of moments to weep quietly at the feet of the statue before they enter the confession chamber, where they are allowed to speak of their old life, words and thoughts that don¡¯t belong in Last Day Town. The others don¡¯t know this, but Pythia doesn¡¯t commit any of it to memory. By the same time tomorrow, all that is confessed to Pythia is forgotten, wiped clean. With an uneasy feeling in their stomach, Pythia wonder if, not knowing that, Diocletian refuse to confess for fear of something being remembered. But if so, what, and why?


    #


    When Anaxagoras leave, Pythia see in their eyes that they do so with a lighter heart. They are ready to face the world, to let go of what they were, before, and spend their day in peace.


    While they wait for Ctesibius to arrive, Pythia rehearse their memories, singing, even confess to themselves. It would have been terrifying, to be alone in the cold starlight. Thankfully, Pythia are never alone.


    Ctesibius are heard before they are seen. They speak to themselves, thinking aloud of some problem they¡¯d left unsolved back in their cliff. To them, there is always some tool or machine left unbuilt, every waking hour of the day¡ªwhich in Last Day Town, means every single hour. The rocket they manufactured for themselves is stronger than the ones they gave Anaxagoras, faster, and they bring it to a clumsy stop, visibly unpracticed in its use.


    They greet Pythia reluctantly, repeat the same dry jokes, as if they¡¯d rather not let go of their distractions even for a couple of minutes. And yet, they deemed confession a tradition worth keeping.


    Pythia hold the door open for them to enter, and just before they do Ctesibius stop to look behind them, into the great crater beneath, dread clear in their movements.


    Pythia don¡¯t remember them ever doing that before, and coupling that new and strange behavior with Diocletian¡¯s, Pythia suspect there is a connection there, hidden from their eyes. Pythia are afraid.


    #


    Ctesibius leave the confession chamber, but they don''t seem much relieved. Even as they spoke, they seemed preoccupied, unable to leave Last Day Town in their thoughts.


    ¡°It¡¯s almost time for recitation, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Pythia check their estimated oxygen time left, and agree that it is.


    They go on their way to the airlock. Ctesibius by rocket, hurrying to pass by their cliff and get one more thing done, and Pythia by foot, never in a hurry.


    Around the airlock they all gather, Diocletian, Anaxagoras, Ctesibius, and Pythia to recite a poem, a ceremony held once every ten hours, when the sky changes color from gray to gold.


    Pythia notice how Ctesibius, all three of them, tactfully avoid Diocletian¡¯s seeking eyes. Anaxagoras devote their whole being to the ceremony, their eyes on the golden sky, their heart in the words, paying no mind to the forces pushing and pulling going on around them.


    Pythia remember, and so, Pythia feel that''s something very bad is about to happen.


    #


    And as they stand there, reciting, a visitor is coming to Last Day Town.

 Anaxagoras I

    People without a future love


    People without a past,


    On a very narrow band they meet.


    The closer they draw to their death,


    The bolder, braver, they become.


    Distances packed in houses and gardens in front


    Of the passing window. When you travel you,


    Despite yourself, hear the conversations of others.


    You wish to know nothing but clocks


    That help forget the time. Despite yourself you hear,


    And despite yourself you live. A great rage


    That was within you becomes the lulling buzz of a journey.


    God is leaving this land, right now of all times,


    That I dwell in it.


    You can change nothing.


    Yehuda Amichai¡ªPeople Without a Future Love


    <h2>Chapter One - Anaxagoras</h2>


    There are times in a man¡¯s life that his own actions seem, in hindsight, foreign to him. Times when the deeds done seem so thoughtless, so reckless, that he can no longer understand what kind of idiot would plan them without seeing their obvious faults.


    As soon as I saw the light moving in the darkness, through the skipper¡¯s thick pane, I regretted ever setting out to look for Last Day Town. How could I have boarded a train, riding through the rocky tunnels of Ceres¡¯ interior with a stupid smile on my face, no less; put on a spacesuit, exited the airlock and got in a small skipper, rented in advance; piloted it out of the hangar and almost four hundred kilometers over the surface; savored the view of the asteroid-filled sky and the impossibly large craters on Ceres¡¯ surface in front of my eyes; enjoyed the nostalgia that came with the skipper¡¯s controls in my hands; all without realizing what a horrible idea it had been?


    It had seemed so heroic, on the inside, getting the message that the journalist writing under the pseudonym ¡°Bar-Kochva¡±, real name Arik Rosen, had not only been arrested and flash-tried, but was about to be ¡°exiled to Earth¡±, a euphemism, according to his own source, meaning he was about to be thrown out into space to die from asphyxiation. According to that same source, people are thrown out about a dozen times a day, so often that if you find the correct airlock, there would always be someone there, or a couple of people, just sitting around and waiting for their last few hours of oxygen to run out and their last day to end. Hence the name.


    I didn¡¯t have any hope of saving Bar-Kochva. If he had been thrown out and his records updated accordingly, the airlock¡¯s computer would treat him as it would any other trespasser, by blowing him in a cloud of chunks faster than escape velocity. Sneaking oxygen outside wouldn¡¯t do more than buy him a day, and worse, it would seem extremely suspicious to anyone looking. And you could bet someone was looking. Shadow-man, we called them, whatever person or office whose job it was to look for dissidents, journalists, anyone who spoke against the government and make sure they were found guilty of some crime just severe enough to get them ¡°exiled to Earth¡±.


    What I did hope for, though, was to expose the physical reality of Last Day Town. If the government was executing people in the shadow of Ceres, people needed to know. I wondered if it was some sort of subconscious shame that made them locate their execution site in the ever-dark craters by Ceres¡¯ north pole, of all places. Probably not.


    I must have been in a frenzy: booking a rental skipper, paying extra for a suit with a visor camera, planning the approach on the map. I¡¯d been exhilarated at the idea of making an impact. I¡¯d actually get out there, I had thought to myself, take a risk, do something right, for once in my life, something worth remembering. Change something, all that idealistic stuff. Hardly stopping to think about the risks.


    Ok, but what were the risks? Worst case, there wasn¡¯t even anyone there, and Bar-Kochva had made everything up. Best case, I¡¯d get the name of Bar-Kochva¡¯s informant¡ªthe person who¡¯d let us know that this was going on, and, according to Bar-Kochva¡¯s own words, was about to let us in on a lot more. All I had to do was not leave any evidence that I¡¯d been there, and I was home free. All that¡¯s left is finding him in time.


    And yet, coward that I was, I was terrified at the very real option that I had miscalculated. That I will prove once again what an idiot I am, ruin everything again, and I wouldn¡¯t even have my youth to make it seem charmingly tragic.


    Only when I saw a light moving in the darkness, when I knew for sure that there was someone there, did I realize that a part of me had hoped there wouldn¡¯t be. That I¡¯d return to home, to my cozy, burrowed space in Ceres¡¯ interior, knowing that I¡¯d tried, but found nothing in that crater but ice-dust and wounded rock. I couldn¡¯t understand how this plan had ever seemed reasonable to me. But nonetheless, I was there, and even though my hands were shaking and my guts were knotting like restless snakes, I couldn¡¯t go back on my word.


    The skipper I was in was the kind of vehicle rented to bored, rich clerks who¡¯d lived on the inside all their lives. Not large enough to have an airlock, or even to stretch your arms in, so you¡¯d have to board with a suit on if you wanted to get out to space at some point, which I did. Just the kind of vessel I¡¯d imagined taking Tsur and Ayelet to see outer space in, but had never found the time to do. We don¡¯t have time to think about that, now.


    With all its faults, the thick, transparent panes designed for sightseeing made it easy to orient myself. I was in the area called The Ice Trap, the part of Ceres¡¯ exterior that was polar enough and sunken enough never to see any direct sunlight, making it effective at, well, trapping ice. Humanity¡¯s first attempts to colonize the planetoid had taken place right here, before I¡¯d been born, in the safety of this darkness, where the only illumination came from whichever asteroid happened to pass above, reflecting the light from the distant, hidden sun. For eons water molecules solidified here, one at a time, accumulating massive reserves, but it only took humanity a couple of decades to scrub it clean.


    To the left of my skipper was a crater wide and deep enough that just glancing at it gave me vertigo, like some giant¡¯s palm that I was a skin mite crawling on the edge of its smallest fingernail. It confronted me with how long I hadn¡¯t been outside, in space; how long I¡¯d confined myself to corridors and rooms dug into the rock. When had I last seen more than a hundred meters into the distance?


    The big crater was about two kilometers wide, and a hundred meters deep at its heart. Somewhere out there, in the heart of that darkness, should be a small service airlock, of the kind that could fit one person at a time, throwing out twelve people a day. Assuming Bar-Kochva¡¯s source was to be believed, of course.


    To my right was an expanse of dark-gray, mostly flat rock. I turned down the cabin lights and my eyes slowly adjusted, beginning to separate the different shades of dark gray. The surface was covered with craters within craters, colossal evidence of violence that had taken place thousands to millions of years ago, dwarfing the man-made excavations in comparison. The natural, circular forms clashed with the hard lines of the artificial ones; cylindrical bores large enough to fit my skipper into; Sheer walls that had formed when chunks of asteroid had been deemed worthy of chopping off and taking away.


    In front of me, not far from the edge of the crater, was a white light. It was small and distant, moving around in half circles, illuminating the dust-covered, pocked face of the rock. I knew from the way it moved that the light was head-mounted. That someone was looking for something on the rocky ground¡ªcalmly, purposefully. There¡¯s so much personality in the way a searchlight moves in the darkness.


    I slowed down and directed the skipper towards it. Everything sharpened: the dry sounds of my life support pumping oxygen; the layers of suit separating thumb from forefinger. Everything became suddenly very real.


    Some instinct guided me to approach this person on foot¡ªperhaps in order to seem less threatening, more human. I piloted the vessel to a halt, patiently neutralizing its momentum with the weak counter-jet, and punched a button to exit. The skipper¡¯s computer quickly confirmed with the suit¡¯s computer that I had at least twenty-four hours of oxygen in my suit. That wasn¡¯t just a mandatory safety measure, but a constitutional law: The computer that ran Ceres¡¯ airlocks wouldn¡¯t open them unless a suit had enough oxygen for twenty-four hours, calculated using the wearer¡¯s body mass and metabolism, and any authorized vessel¡¯s computer would follow the same rule. If that seems extreme to you, you probably haven¡¯t done a lot of work in hard vacuum.


    The door opened and I dropped towards the surface, pressing a button at the side of my helmet to turn on the mounted camera mid-descent. I fished out a small remote control from one of my suit pockets, and with the press of a button commanded the skipper to lock itself. I doubted there was anyone else here, and that anyone would have the tools to harm it, even if they were. I put it back in. My boots made a loud crunch as they touched the surface, solid rock covered with dust and powdered ice, and small cloud rose around me, colder than liquid nitrogen. You could almost feel it through the suit. My visor let me know the camera was on and recording, as well as its prediction of how long I have left to breathe.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 24:22:17


    A long time had passed since I worked as an ice hauler. The last time I stood on Ceres I was a young man, but the memories slowly surfaced. Stand on the surface of Ceres and drop a stone in front of your face, and it¡¯ll take a full six seconds for the weak pull of gravity to make it hit the rock. Wave an arm too vigorously, and you¡¯ll find your boots have lost contact with the ground. Standing was something you needed to remember how to do.


    On shaky legs, I started moving. Each step sent me in a long and glacial arc; But I was no longer the ¡°surface-monkey¡± I once had been, and almost every kick sent me rolling backwards like it¡¯s my first day all over again.


    Fortunately, I had the foresight to rent a light, strap-on jet system along with the suit, the kind that uses cold, compressed gas for low-velocity movement. I¡¯d been expecting to use it only as a last resort, but with every jump I found myself relying on it more and more, correcting rotation and drift. This wasn¡¯t the time to refresh old skills.


    When I was close enough to understand what I was looking at, I brought myself to a stop, my jets raising another small cloud of cold dust as they shot forward. A man in a space suit, a small backpack slung over his shoulder, the same lifeless gray color of his suit; an array of lights wired around his helmet, each panel relatively soft on its own, but together strong enough to illuminate his surroundings. He hauled what looked like a bundle of industrial junk; metal and plastic, pieces of machinery and home appliances all held by some sort of rope. It was bigger than him, and even in microgravity things that heavy weren¡¯t easy to move around. Yet he brought it over his head, loaded it onto a primitive looking mechanism: a large metal pole lodged in a crude hole in the rock. At the top of it, metal bars connected to create a sort of basket, and the bundle went into it. Using a complicated arrangement of ropes and levers, he pulled at the pole until it bent slightly. The ground around him was littered with steel fragments, sharp as shattered glass. In the extreme cold of the ever-dark craters, even steel turned brittle.


    He let go, and the bundle of trash went floating through space. It moved slowly, but in the almost-zero G it might as well have been flying. I could make out its destination: a sheer, upright wall, two or three hundred meters away. It was hard for me to asses those kind of distances after being inside for so long. At the bottom of the cliff, I thought I could make out similar looking bundles, piled up larger than an interplanetary spacecraft.


    The pole oscillated like a tuning fork, but silently. His movements certain and efficient, he loaded a second bundle and launched it; moments later, the first arrived at the cliff, tumbling down slowly in the microgravity.


    I didn¡¯t know what to make of this. I¡¯d expected to see dead bodies. I¡¯d expected to see people scared out of their minds over their coming death. I hadn¡¯t expected to see someone working.


    If my sources were to be trusted, this man was wasting the last of his oxygen on this. If they weren¡¯t, well, then what was going on here was even weirder. Might as well just ask the guy, I thought as I stood there, not coming up with anything useful to say. Live interviews weren¡¯t usually this challenging.


    A group of asteroids rose over the horizon, illuminating the dark rock with a light that seemed warm and bright compared to starlight alone. Say what you will about the hardships of living on a dry, merciless dwarf planet; People who spend their lives on Earth never get a chance to witness a sky so beautiful.


    The man had a shadow now, or more accurately, a couple of shadows, moving and shifting around him as the asteroids sailed across the sky. The white light of the illuminators over his head was faint in comparison, and I could finally see him clearly. His suited hands were covered by another layer of material, creating thick gloves that extended up to his elbows. He was an old man, with a bald crown and a white beard. His face was partially hidden behind the violet numerals of his visor, counting down. His expression was perfectly stern. It was only when I saw his face that I truly understood where I was.


    The asteroids banished the darkness I had hidden in and he saw me. I expected his posture to change, to be welcoming or confrontational, but instead, he just turned his back to me and returned to work on the levers.


    ¡°Peace?¡± I said, then realized I hadn¡¯t turned on my radio. I flicked a button and the receiver started scanning through different channels, switching from ice hauler banter to commercial advertising to isolationists auctioning for food or oxygen from their tiny Recluse Asteroids, until it finally settled on silence. ¡°Hey, can you hear me? I¡¯m not sure this is working.¡±


    ¡°I can hear you alright.¡± He sounded older than I expected, tired and disinterested.


    I tried to sound calmer than I was. ¡°Who are you? Why are you here?¡±


    He turned his head, his brows furrowed in suspicion. ¡°Is this a test? My name is Anaxagoras. I was told to come out here and deliver metal, so now I¡¯m here, delivering metal.¡±


    The name sounded vaguely familiar, something from history class. The way he¡¯d used it, it didn¡¯t sound like his own name. ¡°No, I mean why are you outside. Were you executed?¡±


    His eyes went up and down, scrutinizing my suit¡ªa higher quality model than the throwaway he¡¯d been given, marking me beyond doubt as a stranger, even before he glanced at the skipper behind me. ¡°Who are you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a journalist. My name is Yossi. I¡¯m looking for a man named Arik Rosen. Have you met him here?¡±


    He chuckled to himself as he turned his back to me, and tended to his work. ¡°And there I thought I¡¯ve seen it all. Sorry, I don¡¯t know any Ariks.¡± He pulled on the levers, bending the metal bar again.


    I hadn¡¯t interviewed anyone in over a decade, and when I had, it was in a much easier environment than this. But I remembered how, usually, telling someone you¡¯re a journalist is enough to get them to open up, spilling whatever they know about the situation and probably their entire life story along the way. Not this guy, though. I continued. ¡°Ok, but¡­¡± How should I put it? Are they actually throwing people out of airlocks with oxygen in their suits to slowly choke to death? ¡°Is Last Day Town real?¡±


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    ¡°What do you think?¡± He said, and just as he did the metal broke halfway, shooting a spray of fragments, luckily away from us. He turned to me with half of the broken bar in his hand, the newly formed sharpness glistening in that bluish hue unique to hyper-cooled steel. I drew my own weapon from my belt¡ªa welding torch I¡¯d prepared exactly for such a situation; even at a distance, it could scorch a suit open. I raised it, holding my arm straight at chest level, finger on the little safety trigger. I didn¡¯t know if he could see the details of the torch, but the gesture was evidently effective¡ªhe stopped in place, glaring at me. For a moment we stood there, two apes holding on to their sticks, until he threw the metal rod aside and picked up a new, unbroken one. Then he turned his back to me and placed the new rod in the place of the old one.


    ¡°What an amazing waste of time,¡± he said quietly.


    ¡°Can you, please, tell me what¡¯s going on here?¡±


    He replaced the steel ¡®basket¡¯ on top of the rod before answering. Even with two layers of suit that must have been painfully cold.


    ¡°You know, I never expected to see anyone from the inside. So, you¡¯re a journalist. Are you going to write a piece about this place? Let the people of Ceres know what is actually happening in the dark craters?¡± The bitterness in his words was unmistakable. Why would anyone stay here? Why not run¡­ I looked around, and saw that there was nothing but darkness all around, nowhere to go. At least he had something to occupy himself with, here.


    ¡°I¡­ Yes. People deserve to know what¡¯s going on here, and it could stir some real trouble. Could you tell me anything? Who told you to deliver metal? What for?¡±


    ¡°First.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    He grunted. ¡°First told me to deliver metal. Listen, I wish you the best,¡± His tone was so flat that I wasn¡¯t sure if he was being sarcastic. ¡°But you¡¯re going to get me in trouble. You should meet First, first.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand. Is that a person named F-¡°


    He pointed, the movement sudden and sharp, at the cliff at which he had hurled the garbage. ¡°Do you see that rock face over there? She should be rummaging through the merchandise or shelving it in the cave.¡±


    I looked over at the cliff and back at him, making sure this was all caught on camera. ¡°Why should I meet her? Is she going to tell me what¡¯s going on?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯ll certainly tell you more than I will. Might even know where you can find your guy. But she doesn¡¯t have long, so you better take your weekend-cruiser and hurry.¡±


    The asteroids that had lit the sky were far now, leaving darkness behind them, making the white light coming off the head-mounted array significant again, in comparison. Something felt deeply wrong about leaving this dying man alone.


    ¡°And what are you gonna do?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to finish up here, if someone is going to stop distracting me, and then I¡¯ll follow. I¡¯ll see you there.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not a short distance, on foot.¡±


    ¡°I got old reliable to carry me,¡± he said, gesturing with his hand to a metal object that leaned against the rock, about as long as a man is tall and thick as a thigh, with a converging tail. ¡°Now go on; I ain¡¯t got all day for you,¡± he said, and laughed.


    I took the remote out and beckoned the skipper, the tiny screen confirming connection had been established. The skipper flew obediently, and I jetted myself into its safety. Even piloted on its slowest setting, it was still faster than I would have managed with the jet, and I felt safer behind the thick panes. Anaxagoras wanted me to talk to a first. That implied that there was some sort of order here, at least in one sense of the word, and that was already a surprise.


    I stopped the skipper near the cliff, and jumped out as soon as the door agreed to open. There was a boring hole dug into the wall of rock, wide enough to walk into¡ªa remnant from when we¡¯d taken our first bites into ceres. Near it were piles of bundles: industrial trash bound, just like the bundles I had seen Anaxagoras delivering. Where had all this come from? I was aware of the existence of a dump about twenty kilometers away, but how long would it take someone to get there, without a vehicle? How many hours would it take to pile all of this up? Certainly more than twenty-four hours.


    There was no one there, which meant that this ¡®first¡¯ had to be in the cave. A stretch of flat, smooth rock led up to the cave¡¯s entrance. When my boots landed on that surface, they didn¡¯t make the same dusty, crunching sound they had before. Even the silence felt cleaner. The rock had been carved into a flat plaza, probably as preparation for the boring long ago, but that didn¡¯t explain the lack of dust.


    On each side of it was a row of columns that led toward the entrance. Though they weren¡¯t columns, exactly¡ªjust rocks stacked one on top of the other, from large to small. Each stack was made of seven rocks, and was a little taller than I was. They would have fallen in the weakest wind¡ªbut there wasn¡¯t any wind here.


    This was deliberate work. The rocks lay at specific angles, the lines complementing each other in subtle ways. When I walked alongside them, I saw that the rocks had been ground to create flat planes at the top and bottom, so they could sit stably on top of one another. The lack of dust was also a telling sign¡ªsomeone had swept the rock clean.


    Something moved at the corner of my eye, and I turned just as the bundle Anaxagoras had launched earlier hit the wall, only a dozen meters to the side of the cave opening. It stayed intact upon impact. The mass of metal started to slowly tumble down, far enough away that I didn¡¯t feel in any danger, and landed upon the rest.


    I reached the last of the columns and hesitated in front of the perfectly round cave-mouth.


    It was dark outside, and darker still inside¡ªthough there was a tiny light, far off down the perfectly straight corridor. Why would anyone choose to stay in there? There was no sunlight to hide from on this side of ceres. If people were spending their last hours here, wouldn¡¯t they prefer to spend that time under the stars?


    It would be easier to just wait outside, and see if she comes out to get something from the bundles. But Anaxagoras said she didn¡¯t have long, and Arik probably didn¡¯t have long left either, with all of the time it took me to get here. I¡¯ve waited all of my life for things to come to me, and look where that got me. Fuck it.


    I punched the commands into the remote, directing the skipper to wait for me a hundred meters above the entrance¡ªtoo high for anyone to notice, but not so high that it¡¯d lose my signal¡ªand stepped inside. The suit should have been perfectly thermoregulated, but it was somehow hot enough that sweat accumulated at the small of my back. I turned on my helmet light to see what was in front of me, but the place was still dark in an essential way that the light couldn¡¯t penetrate. Dark and full of strangers, people that had nothing to lose. Breathe, I reminded myself, clutching the torch at my belt.


    I took one step, then another. Lights lit up around me, not so much illuminating the corridor as signifying where the walls were. Little screens, like the kind you¡¯d have on a helmet¡¯s visor, showing solid white.


    The light at the end of the tunnel was obstructed by a moving form¡ªsomeone floating towards me, kicking quickly from one wall to another. As he drew closer, holding one hand in front of him to block the light coming from my helmet, I saw that he was a young man, with brown hair and a clean-shaven face. He wore the same small backpack and makeshift gloves that Anaxagoras did. I turned off the light.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± he said, on the same radio channel, his voice just as hostile as Anaxagoras¡¯. Before I could answer, he added a ¡°What the fuck?¡± as he looked at my suit.


    ¡°I met Anaxagoras outside,¡± I said quickly, ¡°and he told me to come here to meet the first. Who are you?¡±


    He brought himself to a stop, kicking against one wall and then another, and then sighed deeply, rolling his eyes as if to say, ¡®do you see what I have to deal with?¡¯. ¡°I¡¯ll take you to see Anaxagoras.¡±


    ¡°Should we go back?¡±


    ¡°Why the hell would we go back?¡± He kicked at the wall, twisted back around, and went deeper into the cave, bouncing fluidly from impact to impact. I followed, jetting myself straight ahead.


    ¡°Could you tell me what¡¯s going on here?¡± I asked, sounding blunt even to my own ears.


    He didn¡¯t turn around. ¡°Why should I tell you? What will you give for the breath it would take explaining it to you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­ I¡¯m just trying to understand. I¡¯m a journalist.¡±


    ¡°Why should I tell you anything, if you won¡¯t reciprocate?¡± There was a hint of disappointment there, as if he expected more of me.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. What could I tell you, in return?¡±


    ¡°You could tell me that you have new suits stashed somewhere nearby, and somewhere to change into them. These bags won¡¯t allow for oxygen replenishment.¡± He pinched the material of his suit by his thigh, still without looking back at me. It seemed so thin compared to my own reinforced, double-layered space suit. Their ¡®bags¡¯ hadn¡¯t been designed to protect anybody. ¡°You could tell me you have a spaceship waiting to pick us all up and drop us off on Mars,¡± he said, his tone bitter.


    I said nothing. My skipper wouldn¡¯t reach Mars, and whatever oxygen I had on me, well, I needed it. He clicked his tongue, point proven.


    We kept moving, and the light at the end of the tunnel grew. Finally, he ventured a look back at me, only for an instant, before looking forward again. ¡°One thing I will tell you for free,¡± he said. ¡°See those bundles on the walls?¡±


    I did, now that he¡¯d mentioned them. Bundles of suit material, about as tall and thick as a person. Is that what they do with their dead?


    ¡°Explosives,¡± he said. ¡°Anyone wants something from us, they better offer something in return.¡±


    I looked around me, at the corridor studded with the bundles. How many like that had I already passed, not understanding the danger? I was trapped inside, then. Best option would probably be to play along, avoid escalating. My fingers left the controls of the jet to make sure the torch was still in place.


    He kept moving, not missing a single step. He had managed to realize the trick of it¡ªto move your legs quickly, not forcefully. I could probably have done it as well as he did if I¡¯d had some to time practice, but for the time being I kept to my jet.


    The end of the cave was a large, spherical chamber. My chaperone went straight inside, while I slowed down by the entrance. A suited figure sat at the middle of it, surrounded by shelves filled to the brim, likely with the ¡°merchandise¡± the first Anaxagoras I¡¯d met had mentioned. Metal girders of various quality, heaps upon heaps of electronics, pipes and tubes, even trinkets and toys. Some things, like boxes and wrappers, seemed like literal trash. It could have been the home of a hoarder, if it hadn¡¯t all been so orderly. How could we throw so much useful material into space, after all the effort we¡¯d gone through to create it? My suit¡¯s radiation detector answered the question¡ªThe collection was radioactive, probably from proximity to the reactor at Ceres¡¯ core. On this side of the dwarf planet, we threw our hottest, most toxic waste, material and human alike.


    I entered the room. The suited figure was a small, middle-aged woman, her movements delicate. Through the glass of her visor, above the violet numbers counting down, I saw a face that seemed tailor-made for soft expressions, like the one she wore now. Her hair was short and silver, and her eyes spoke of wisdom and suffering, even when she smiled. She was playing with a toy car, her hands wrapped in second-layer gloves just like the other two, flicking the wheels to see how well they turned. She looked at us for a moment, raising an eyebrow when she saw me, and hopped up to add the new addition to the shelves. She placed it carefully.


    ¡°A visitor from the inside,¡± the young man announced.


    ¡°Why are you here?¡± she asked, turning to look at me as she moved around the room. Her tone was only a fraction kinder than his. She leaped, moving glacially slow in space towards a hammock, made from old suits stretched on a metal frame.


    ¡°I¡¯m looking for someone,¡± I said. ¡°And I want to let people know what¡¯s going on in here. I¡¯m a journalist,¡± I added, hoping that might prompt her to share.


    ¡°Funny,¡± she said, glancing at the other man. ¡°Dangerous.¡±


    ¡°I have a welding torch on me, in case anyone tries anything.¡±


    ¡°Take it easy, coldblood,¡± she chuckled. Slowly, she fell into its depths of the hammock, pulling off her makeshift gloves as she did. Under just one layer of glove, her hands seemed even more fragile.


    ¡°I¡¯m not a danger to anyone,¡± I said. ¡°Can you explain to me what¡¯s going on? Are you the first? The guy I met outside, Anaxagoras, told me to meet someone here, and this guy told me he¡¯s taking me to Anaxagoras, so who¡¯s fi¡ª¡±


    She raised a hand, shushing me. ¡°I am Anaxagoras. Only other Anaxagoras call me by my order. I hate to be rude, but I have about eleven minutes before I¡¯m off. I¡¯ll answer one question, if you make it quick.¡± She turned to the man. ¡°Second¡ªcome. It¡¯s time.¡±


    He floated towards her and landed, kneeling, by her side, then took off the extra glove to hold her outreached hand in his own.


    Another man in a spacesuit came through the cave entrance, kicking off from wall to wall in haste. I recognized the white beard and the old, grunting voice, though he didn¡¯t have the lighting array on this helmet anymore. ¡°Third!¡± she called to him, with genuine joy.


    He moved quickly, despite his age, and the metallic device in his hand¡ªthe thing he¡¯d called ¡®old reliable¡¯. He stopped his momentum with a kick, and placed it carefully by the entrance, beside two nearly identical devices. Leaping into space, he removed his extra gloves and landed by her side, reaching for her free hand. She ignored it, reaching instead for the back of his neck, pulling him close. For a moment, their helmets touched.


    ¡°How long, First?¡± he said, holding on to her forearm.


    ¡°Ten minutes. You did fine.¡±


    He sighed. ¡°Oh good. I was worried I¡¯d miss you.¡±


    ¡°That would have been fine, too. Work comes first.¡±


    ¡°I know, I know, but I¡¯m still glad.¡±


    She pulled him closer again, and squeezed her eyes shut for a second before opening them and turning to me. ¡°Your question?¡±


    If what she said was true, and she only had ten minutes, how the hell is she in any state of mind except panic? There will be time to find that out later. I needed to find him first. ¡°Do you know someone named Arik Rosen?¡±


    None of them showed any sign of recognition. ¡°Not out here I don¡¯t, and I can¡¯t tell you about the ones I know inside. Sorry. Now, if you don¡¯t mind, I¡¯d like to relax.¡±


    She¡¯s insane, I realized. They¡¯re all insane. Though, admittedly, not an unreasonable reaction. ¡°How can you be so calm? What the fuck is going on?¡± I asked, despite myself.


    Second turned to me with a look that was not only angry, not only outright hostile, but threatening. I took a step back, my hand moving closer to the torch holster.


    ¡°I did my best to prepare these two,¡± First said, smiling gently. ¡°The line lives on. The line will fight on, long after my body bag¡¯s been stripped for parts. As long as Last Day Town is here, Line Anaxagoras lives. In the face of zero odds, the line lives. That is our rebellion, our unending act of defiance. Did they tell you that Line Anaxagoras was the first?¡±


    ¡°They didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Without the material we collect, the rest of the town couldn¡¯t operate. It¡¯s important to remember that the work we do here is meaningful.¡± She turned to the one she called ¡®Third¡¯, and it was clear she wasn¡¯t talking to me anymore. ¡°Do you remember when you first came here? You were still shaken by your birth, and the welcoming committee; Second and I just returned from Pythia, and I was just getting used to the idea of being the new First. You didn¡¯t believe Second when he told you that you were going out to deliver metal. Do you remember?¡±


    He nodded solemnly. Of course he remembered¡ªall of that had to have happened only a few hours ago.


    ¡°And Second: Do you remember how it was for you, when I first picked you up from the welcoming committee? I was just done being Third myself, and I was afraid you might be panicked, that I wouldn¡¯t be able to calm you down. But you were calmer than I was. It was a pleasure to spend these hours with the two of you.¡± She laughed¡ªand then her expression hardened. Tears welled in her eyes; the gravity was too weak to pull them down her face. She blinked a couple of times, making drops of water break free and hit her visor. ¡°I hope that when you¡¯re here with your Second and Third, you¡¯ll be as proud as I am.¡±


    I stood frozen. I had been invited to share this moment with them, and the only way I could honor that dying wish was watching, and listening. Under the white lights on the cave¡¯s ceiling, the two suited men knelt beside their mentor. The light reflected off her visor, but her face still showed behind it: oily skin; water droplets floating by her eyes. Her expression was one of courageous, hopeful calm. A fa?ade, but somehow an honest one.


    The numbers on her visor changed from violet to a blinking red. ¡°Here we go,¡± she whispered, tense, her eyes open wide. ¡°It¡¯s time.¡± She looked at me as she retrieved a knife from her satchel, just a piece of broken steel and a handle made of melted plastic. She turned to look at Second and offered it to him, handle first, the blade pointing at her. His hand shook as it reached, as if his fingers were afraid to close around the weapon. ¡°Can you do it?¡± she asked.


    He nodded and took the weapon.


    ¡°Say it.¡±


    ¡°I can do it.¡± Second let her other hand go and stood up, towering above her sprawled body. Third pulled away, only slightly, and she pulled him back firmly by his neck, making sure he watched. Second shot a daunting glance at Third, who steeled himself. ¡°Are you ready?¡± Second said, his voice strained. Very slowly, he put the knife to her throat, where the helmet ended and the suit began. His other hand held hers.


    Her breathing became faster and faster, her teeth clenched. She said something, but it was too weak to pick up on radio.


    ¡°I can¡¯t do it. Not unless you say it clearly,¡± he said.


    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid,¡± she whispered. ¡°I¡¯m not afraid.¡± Again and again, five or six or seven times, each utterance rising in intensity. ¡°Do it!¡± she finally yelled, and broke into a fit of sobbing. He cried out and slashed her suit open from helmet to crotch.


    Her mouth opened to scream, but no scream came. Hungry space, impossibly fast, sucked the life out of her, leaching the moisture from her eyes, inflating her skin like a balloon, drawing sprays of blood from her nose and mouth, until her face was hidden behind the streaked visor. She convulsed once. The only movement after that was the slow shrinking and drying of her swelled skin as water evaporated into nothingness and crystallized above her as grains of ice-dust floating, then sinking, in space.


    The silence in the cave was suffocating, broken only by the crackling breaths of those who remained. I felt empty, as if something had been taken away from me¡ªno, as if something had been reminded. I¡¯ve never seen someone die, but somehow, it was exactly like I imagined.


    Second straightened. ¡°I am now Anaxagoras¡¯s First,¡± he said, his voice tight, blade still in hand, blinking hard and shaking his head to get the water out of his eyes.


    Third pulled his neck free and stood up, unmoving but for the trembling of his white moustache. ¡°I am now Anaxagoras¡¯s Second,¡± he said after a moment. His voice shook.

 Anaxagoras II

    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 23:43:35


    I¡¯d forgotten that the camera had been on this entire time. I didn¡¯t have Anaxagoras¡¯s First¡¯s permission to take video of her, and I had, without noticing, stolen something precious and private. When I return, I should consider cutting that part from the video.


    The new First pulled the old one¡¯s exposed body out through the gash in the suit, handling it with a roughness that surprised me, especially when it came to the catheters. The body was naked now, but her skin had by then turned hard and wrinkled, her face lost all semblance of a person in need of modesty. He grabbed the body by the ankle and started moving, her suit bundled under his armpit. I didn¡¯t say anything, but he must have sensed something in my stare, because he turned around. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± he said. ¡°She wouldn¡¯t mind. Come on, we¡¯ll walk you out.¡± He gestured for me to walk ahead of them.


    I didn¡¯t answer. Still shocked at what I¡¯d seen, I simply went ahead, into the tunnel leading outwards. They picked up their devices and followed me.


    For a moment I considered just leaving the whole thing, going back inside, to the interior of Ceres, with what I¡¯d found out up so far. But I hadn¡¯t found Arik yet, and couldn¡¯t just give that up. I needed to pull myself together, to ask them what she meant about Arik, and who might know where he was, but I barely managed to move myself forward without falling over. I glanced back at the two of them.


    First carried the body in one hand, and the device in another, and second carried one device in each hand. They spoke quietly as they kicked; either the suits had only one radio channel, or they wanted me to hear. Either way, I kept recording. ¡°You okay?¡± First asked, his voice soft. How could he be okay? How could anyone?


    Second looked back at me, suspiciously.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about him. What¡¯s bothering you?¡± First pressed further.


    ¡°Thinking about the future,¡± Second answered somberly.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll do fine.¡±


    ¡°And what if I can¡¯t? Back on the inside, I would have never thought¡ª¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s enough. There¡¯s a reason we don¡¯t talk about the inside, or the past. You¡¯ll understand that in time, but until then, you have to trust that there¡¯s a reason we¡¯ve followed these rules for so long.¡±


    ¡°When you¡¯re alone¡­¡± He looked back at me, and shook his head. ¡°It was easier to believe with First around, you know? I mean, the other¡­¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I know.¡±


    ¡°But she¡¯s gone, and when you¡¯re gone there won¡¯t be anyone left to convince me.¡±


    ¡°Sure there will. There will be new people, who¡¯ll be counting on you to believe, so they could too.¡±


    ¡°Is it the same, though?¡± Despite his age, he sounded like a child, asking about the secrets of life.


    ¡°No,¡± First let the device in his hand, still floating, and clapped Second comradely on the shoulder before catching it again. ¡°It¡¯s better.¡±


    Second sighed with relief. ¡°Thanks.¡± I couldn¡¯t see his expression, but I could hear it.


    ¡°One more thing, though. Did you tell the Visitor to look for First?¡±


    ¡°I did, I¡¯m sorry. You¡¯re not gonna tell Diocletian, are you?¡± Fear in his voice, a plea. What the hell was going on here?


    ¡°Of course not, but don¡¯t let it happen again. To anyone else, we¡¯re all Anaxagoras. Got it?¡±


    ¡°Got it.¡±


    ¡°Now cheer up, there¡¯s a lot of work to do before the day¡¯s done,¡± First said. ¡°Let¡¯s stop here, Visitor. There¡¯s something we need to show you.¡± I turned to him, just as he kicked himself to a halt and let his burdens drop beside him. Second did the same, a little way ahead. He looked at me, worried again.


    I pumped my jets, noticing that we were stopping just by one of the bundles. The ones that I¡¯d been told were bombs, hardly fifteen minutes ago. First pulled a large control panel from his backpack and pressed a button right in the middle of it.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    My radio receiver roared with static. By the time I instinctively brought my hands to the sides of my helmet, it was deathly quiet again. Even more quiet than before¡ªand it took me a precious second to understand that what had been missing was the sound of my life support system pumping oxygen. My visor was transparent, the display gone.


    First tackled me, and after a short moment of confusion Second followed. They couldn¡¯t pin me down without any weight, but one of them managed to hug me from behind in a way that initially prevented me from reaching the torch. The other pressed both of us into the wall. I managed to reach the torch, with an almost straight arm, but when I flicked my wrist at a difficult angle and pressed the button as hard as I could, to shoot at the one holding me, it didn¡¯t fire.


    Magnetics, I thought, not explosives. The one that wasn¡¯t wrestling me tried to wring the torch out of my grip, but I held fast. I flicked the jet¡¯s control, but it didn¡¯t work, either. Why does every little thing have to have computer chips in it? I thought as I kicked the floor, driving all three of us into the wall. The impact loosened their holds by a fraction but in an instant they reinforced them, tighter than before.


    I took a breath of damp air that somehow made me feel more breathless, and realized that air quality was dropping fast. I didn¡¯t know how much longer I could hold on.


    First wrapped an arm around my neck, forcing my head forward, and put his helmet to mine, glass against glass, his face filling most of my field of vision. The knife he held in his free hand, hovering just above my neck, was the same one he¡¯d used on the former First.


    ¡°We¡¯re not trying to kill you,¡± he said. His voice, transmitted through the contact between the visors, was distorted, thin and distant. ¡°But if you keep wiggling, we might have an accident.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t the first time someone had threatened to kill me, but it was the first time it had felt so close, so real. I let go of the torch and felt Second taking it away, then opening the Velcro of my pockets. He took out the remote control of the skipper, found the clasps of the jet system, and flicked them loose, one by one.


    They moved back, leaving some space between us. First picked up the control board from the floor and pressed the same large button. The instant he did, my life support, my visor, even the lights in the hall returned to normal. The sound of the oxygen pumping and the sudden freshness of the air were greater reliefs than I can describe.


    I brought myself to a shaky stand and checked the numbers on my visor: oxygen reserves, battery power, inside and outside temperatures. My suit was functioning, which was good, but they had just taken my way of getting home, and my way of defending myself. I hadn¡¯t even the time to fully realize that yet. First held the torch in one hand, pointing it roughly in my direction. Second held my jets with one hand, and inspected the remote control of my skipper he had in the other.


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± First said, gesturing towards the remote. I realized they¡¯d never seen one.


    ¡°That¡¯s the key to my ride,¡± I said, surprised at how calm I sounded.


    He looked at Second for a moment, who looked back with a twinkle of greed in his eyes. ¡°A lot of work we could get done with something like that. Sell it to Ctesibius for everything they have, or even take off by ourselves.¡±


    ¡°Haul a lot of trash,¡± Second suggested, his white eyebrows curling, and they both laughed.


    First made the tiniest gesture with his fingers, and Second tossed the remote at him. He grabbed it in one hand, a savage smile on his face. ¡°But why stop there?¡±


    I could tell we were all thinking the same thing¡ªeven if their space suits wouldn¡¯t allow them to replace the oxygen, my skipper was a hermetic chamber. If they closed it with all three of us inside, killed me, and cut all our suits open, they¡¯d get to extend their lifespan by twelve hours, each.


    ¡°Too bad one of us will have to spend all of those hours alone,¡± Second added, already seeing how when both of them left alone in the skipper with my corpse, one of them will have to kill the other to get a few more hours.


    ¡°Obviously,¡± First agreed, and they both laughed again.


    My heart was beating so loudly I wondered if they heard on comm. First looked at the remote for a moment, a long one by this place¡¯s standards. He wasn¡¯t smiling anymore. ¡°But you, on the other hand, could use it to return home. Go to sleep tonight, wake up tomorrow, make plans for next week. Seems like immortality, from where I¡¯m standing. The future spread ahead of you so far that you can¡¯t even imagine it, so far that you know that you¡¯ll change into a new and different person. Something truly miraculous.¡± He looked at Second, tilting his head slightly towards me, and Second nodded, approving. First sighed, then flicked his wrist, sending the remote floating my way.


    I grabbed it, closing both hands around like a little box. First nodded, mostly to himself, grief in his eyes.


    I opened my hands to see if it was actually there. ¡°Thank¡ª¡±


    ¡°Fuck off, warmblood,¡± First snapped, his eyes still set on my hands. ¡°Anaxagoras aren¡¯t killers.¡±


    I wanted to say something more, but First raised a single, empty hand, and the gesture did more to silence me than a raised knife. He looked exhausted as he put the torch into Second¡¯s pack, and picked up the long device in one hand and the body, suit, and jet pack in the other. Second picked up a device in each hand. ¡°Day¡¯s not getting any longer,¡± First said finally.


    #


    Anaxagoras are glad to have let the visitor see something of their lives, truly but ultimately, he is no more than an amusing wonder, like a strangely shaped asteroid. You can¡¯t hold on to it¡ªNo matter how strange and beautiful, you have to let it go. He has tested their resolve with the temptations he offered, but they stood firm, choosing to remain a line.


    That is what Anaxagoras is¡ªchoosing the difficult over the easy. That is the essence of their spirit. Silent and proud, they return to their duties.

 Diocletian I

    Estimated oxygen time: 23:32:44


    I made my way towards the exit, from darkness to starlit rock. They went ahead, First dragging the body behind him, talking to each other in hushed voices I didn¡¯t bother following, ignoring me for the rest of the stretch. Without the torch and jets, they could safely leave me behind.


    The remote was still in my hand, and I pressed the button that was supposed to summon it. Instead of the reassuring green ¡°vessel returning¡± I got a worrying orange: ¡°Connection not found¡±. The walls of the caves must have been interfering with the signal just for the sheer mass of them. Hopefully, it would work as soon as I got outside.


    I raised my eyes and saw a silhouette, dark against the starry sky, standing right outside.


    ¡°How goes it, Diocletian?¡± First called out to her as he stepped outside, his tone formal.


    Closer now and with no one in the way, I could see more clearly. Her face, round, with big, green eyes, was illuminated by the light of her visor, counting back the time. She was looking up, her expression one of deep contemplation. A long steel blade was strapped to her side, the handle made of the same stuff as the suits. It looked sharp. She lowered her eyes from the stars and looked at First. ¡°Any better and I¡¯ll go mad,¡± she said, giving the impression of a joke worn smooth. She turned to Second and me as we exited the cave and looked me over, her eyebrow raised. ¡°Who the fuck is that?¡±


    ¡°My name is Yossi,¡± I mumbled, as I pressed the remote again while trying to hide it from her.


    ¡°He¡¯s not getting anyone out of here, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re thinking,¡± First said as he tossed the corpse at Diocletian.


    She stopped the body¡¯s momentum more than outright caught it, and let it fall to her side. ¡°What¡¯s he here for, then?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a journalist, doing a piece on Last Day Town,¡± Second said.


    ¡°Really? I wish I¡¯d read about this place before I got thrown out here, that would have helped so much.¡± There was something vicious in the way she laughed. She looked at me. ¡°But seriously, how are you going to get back?¡±


    I looked at the remote. The little screen still flashed those same concerning, orange words. If something had happened to my skipper, the only way out was through Last Day Town¡¯s airlock¡ªthe same one they threw people out of. Which would mean giving Shadow-Man definite proof that I¡¯d been here. We were eight-hundred kilometers away from the airlock where I boarded the skipper¡ªhardly walking distance, particularly not with the amount of oxygen I carried.


    ¡°Do you guys hear how loud he¡¯s breathing?¡± she said with a leer. ¡°What¡¯s wrong, warmblood?¡±


    I opened my mouth to speak, but what was there to say? That I might be in the exact same situation as her? I brought the remote up, trying very hard not to let them see how hard my hands were shaking, and pressed it again. Connection not found. I couldn¡¯t think clearly.


    The sky exploded, then. There wasn¡¯t a single point of light, but everything became bright, blinding. I looked away, covering my eyes with one arm, but the helmet kept my arm too far from my face for that to be actually helpful, and the light was searingly bright, even through my eyelids. The light died down an instant later, and I looked around, my vision obstructed by colorful blotches.


    First was standing in the entrance of the cave where he¡¯d taken cover from the explosion. He whistled appreciatively, and Second turned to him. ¡°Was that¡­?¡±


    ¡°Hell if I know,¡± First answered.


    Diocletian hadn¡¯t moved, as if the explosion barely bothered her, and going by her stance it seemed she was still looking straight at me. ¡°Was that your way out?¡± She laughed a hearty, mocking laugh. ¡°Time for plan B, I guess.¡±


    I didn¡¯t answer. I couldn¡¯t talk, I couldn¡¯t move. My mind struggled to find an explanation to what¡¯d just happened that didn''t mean I was stranded there.


    ¡°Wait, you do have a plan B, right?¡± she asked, laughing even harder now. ¡°You come¡­¡± she gestured at Anaxagoras, at the dark crater below us. ¡°Here, knowing something might happen, and your back up plan is to stay here and die?¡± My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark again, and I could see something wet and haunted in her eyes even as she laughed. She calmed down, and turned to Anaxagoras¡¯s First. ¡°I need to get to the airlock. The welcoming committee should already be in progress.¡±


    ¡°Should we join you? We have some stuff to fix up,¡± First answered, his tone practical. ¡°But we can be there in twenty or so.¡± Beside him, Second fumbled with his bag. None of them looked at me. Didn¡¯t he just say that they weren¡¯t killers? Shouldn¡¯t they care?


    ¡°Make it twenty-five, just to be sure Diocletian has some time to work him over.¡±


    My skipper, I thought, still stunned, and pressed the remote control, again and again. Connection not found, connection not found, connection not found¡­ Who the hell would¡¯ve done this? It wasn¡¯t Anaxagoras, who just forfeited it even though they could have it for themselves, and this Diocletian seemed too disinterested to be a part of anything. What the hell was going on?


    I looked at First, who was busy mounting ¡®old reliable¡¯. He pressed a button, and with a puff of dust left the surface, accelerating very, very slowly. It was a rocket, I registered numbly. They had rockets. ¡°Wait! Wait! The rockets, give me one of your rockets! Your¡­ uh, old reliable!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± First said, not looking very sorry at all. ¡°These belong to Anaxagoras.¡±


    ¡°What? Are you serious with me right now? You have what, ten hours to live, and you give a shit about this rocket?¡± I went closer to him reaching to grab the tail of the rocket before he went out of reach. ¡°I¡¯m going to die here!¡±


    Second pulled out the torch very quickly, as if he¡¯d prepared, and pointed right at me, his arm straight. First spoke firmly, as if he was the one holding it. ¡°Step back.¡±


    I tried stopping, but slipped on some dust and fell slowly on my back, my boots in space. ¡°Come on. Please. You still have blood in those veins, don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°I have a duty to attend to. Don¡¯t make me space you.¡±


    I looked at Second, who looked back and shrugged as he took flight on his own rocket, slowly gaining speed. For a moment I lay there, watching them gaining speed and going higher and higher, further beyond my reach. ¡°Are you sure she¡¯s Diocletian?¡± Second asked First. ¡°I thought they should have a mark.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s probably the Third,¡± he answered. ¡°She hasn¡¯t earned hers yet.¡± Their conversation faded into background noise as they picked up distance. Why had they even stayed here? They had these rockets all along. Even if the airlock won¡¯t take them in, they could have flown to a busy dock, beg some ship to take them in. Not that it had much of a chance of working, but it would have been better than staying here. Wouldn¡¯t it?


    Diocletian turned her gaze to me, her hand resting on the handle of the blade, and I fought the urge to crawl away from her, choosing instead the more dignified option of rising to my feet. She might not kill me for the skipper, but she could just kill me for the heck of it. Her tone was only slightly warmer than before. ¡°You need to see the welcoming committee. It¡¯s Diocletian¡¯s role to take care of everyone new that comes to Last Day Town, no matter how they get here.¡±


    It should have been reassuring to learn that they had a protocol in place for visitors, but I doubted I could get any help. If these people had a way to get back to the interior, they would have used it already. ¡°Does that mean you¡¯re the welcoming committee?¡±


    She shook her head at my failure to catch her meaning. ¡°No. I¡¯ll take you to them.¡±


    Anaxagoras were by then tiny dots flying over the crater, and beside myself and Diocletian, who was picking up the body of old Anaxagoras from the ground, there was no soul around.


    ¡°Is it far?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Just by the airlock.¡± She grinned.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 23:26:44


    We were standing at the edge of the large crater. Somewhere in the center of it should be another, smaller, crater, and, at its center, the airlock. That much was public knowledge. How I was going to make my way there, though, was less obvious.


    Unlike Anaxagoras, Diocletian had no vehicle on which to cross the distance or make the drop, and now that they¡¯d taken my jets I didn¡¯t have one either. I looked down, trying to get a grasp of the descent I was supposed to manage with nothing but my two feet.


    Letting Anaxagoras¡¯s body drag behind her, Diocletian stepped confidently off the edge like a bird jumping off a branch, unwary of falling, gliding against the almost sheer wall of the crater. Realizing I had no choice, I followed.


    The drop was painfully slow; the rugged rock surface inched closer as whole seconds passed before the first impact. It sent me on another flight, just beside the rock, dropping towards the second impact and so on. I had a lot of time to place my foot at the right angle, but also a lot of time to twist in space to dangerously difficult angles. One missed step and I¡¯d start rolling down¡ªA hundred-meter drop on the surface of Ceres was about as dangerous as a seven-meter drop in a single standard G, like I was used to having on the inside¡ªenough to break a bone if I landed on flat rock, and worse if I hit a jagged one.


    Unlike me, she didn¡¯t bother stopping her own momentum each time her boot touched the rock, but instead propelled herself onwards, dangerously fast, as the inclination gradually decreased.


    By the time I reached the point where I felt less like I was falling down and more like I was running down a hill, she¡¯d already reached the bottom. She moved in a series of high, barely controlled leaps, holding the corpse as a counterweight in one hand, and securing her blade with the other. I did my best to catch up to her. Without the jet, every leap was a wild attempt to reach the next landing without twisting in space and falling over. She was slowly opening the gap between us; not running away, just not waiting. As I chased this woman on the deadly landscape, trying to find a way to survive, a part of me somberly admitted that it was the most alive I had felt in years.


    ¡°Listen,¡± each boot strike against the ground forced me to stop talking, punctuating my sentences. ¡°Can you explain to me what¡¯s the hierarchy here? Do you have any sort of vehicle at your disposal? Without my skipper, I won¡¯t be able to get home¡ª¡±


    ¡°Do I look like I care?¡± She didn¡¯t turn her visor to look at me. I wasn¡¯t sure how to answer, and she continued. ¡°Do you know how much time I have left? You come here, practically immortal,¡± she stopped to strike with both legs against a relatively smooth patch of rock, ¡°throw it away for some entertainment, and you expect me to run to your rescue?¡± There was no self-pity in her voice, just a dry frustration that she had to explain this to me.


    ¡°I¡¯m not doing this for fun,¡± I said. ¡°This is a crime against humanity. The only reason you are in this situation is because no one reported it before, and that¡¯s what I¡¯m here to do. We¡¯re on the same side.¡± I wondered what I would sound like on the recording, if it was ever retrieved.


    From behind her, you couldn¡¯t see any difference as she spoke. ¡°But it won¡¯t help me, will it? I¡¯ll still die here, one way or another.¡±


    ¡°It might,¡± I said, but I couldn¡¯t think of a way that it would.


    Her helmet turned to me. She was mid leap, floating in space. ¡°Really?¡± she snarled. ¡°You expect me to find some comfort while I¡¯m dying here, that other people won¡¯t suffer the same fate? I expected that much from them, but from you?¡±


    Her anger was so bright, so sincere I was taken aback. A heavy silence hung as we leaped over the rocky ground, interrupted only by our grunts and the sounds of boots striking.


    The bottom of the crater wasn¡¯t entirely flat¡ªthere was a gentle slope leading down to the airlock at the center, and the closer we got to it the more pocked the rock became, and the bolder we had to be with each step. Perhaps it used to be rich in ice, back when there was still anything worth mining, but now mounds of dust waited for us to slip on them, and rock edges to tear my suit on them, like sharp, reaching fingers. I looked ahead at Diocletian as she made her way fearlessly forward, and wondered what it was like to so earnestly acknowledge how little time you had left that you had nothing to fear anymore.


    From within the crater, the view of the sky was limited. I could see the light flooding the crater itself before the asteroid appeared over the wall, illuminating both of us from above.


    ¡°Do you regret it yet?¡± She said suddenly. She turned around again, and in the light I saw a look of indecision on her face, a flicker of honesty. ¡°Coming here, that is.¡±


    She had already turned her gaze forward by the time I answered. ¡°Honestly? I can¡¯t say. I guess I¡¯ll only know when I¡¯m on my way out of here.¡±


    Her helmet turned from side to side, as if she was shaking her head. ¡°If.¡± She chuckled, and her chuckle quickly grew into fully formed laughter.


    I wanted to say something, if only to stop that obnoxious sound, but decided against it. Her reactions were unpredictable, understandably, and I didn¡¯t want to accidently provoke her when it was just me and her out here, and that big knife. We went on in silence.


    Finally, I heard a faint, intermittent whine over the comm. It grew in volume as we moved forward, and I realized it was a man, sobbing and screaming. We reached a valley: a smaller crater within the big one, roughly fifty meters across. The sound sharpened into clarity as soon as we got to the edge, looking into the crater.


    Only then could I see it¡ªthe airlock itself. Every person I¡¯d met here so far had to be thrown out through that ordinary looking, regulation pressurizing/depressurizing doorway: Two interlocking doors, set into the ground like the mouth of some great subterranean worm. Only this creature wasn¡¯t eating people¡ªit was spitting them out. Maybe ¡®anus¡¯ was more accurate than mouth.


    Diocletian stopped and let the corpse drop. I hurried to stop as well, sliding on a puddle of dust and using one hand to grab a bulging rock.


    The airlock was marked by four illuminators that emitted powerful strobes of light¡ª only a fraction of a second each. These had been designed to guide small spacecrafts down here¡ªanother leftover from the days before this airlock had been closed to public use.


    Near it a tall, heavy-set suited figure was kneeling with their back to us. A man stood above the figure, short but relatively broad-shouldered. A horizontal streak of black or dark red marked the chest part of his gray suit, and a blade, very similar to Diocletian¡¯s, rested in his grip. When the light flashed again it revealed his stubbled face, his eyes dark and hard as they looked down. If he noticed us, he gave no indication.


    We watched the scene from a distance. Before I could think of how to phrase the question, she turned to me and put her finger against her visor, just in front of her lips, mouthing a silent ¡°shh¡±. I looked at the blade by her side, and chose to remain silent. We waited together for the sobbing to subside, and I wondered how strange this footage would look like when I got back inside. If.


    ¡°It can¡¯t be,¡± said the kneeling figure. The voice was distinctly a man¡¯s, and hoarse, like he¡¯d just finished a bout of screaming. ¡°They said a shuttle would take me to Earth...¡± He seemed completely unaware of the man standing above him.


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Do you see any shuttles?¡± the standing man asked, his voice too indifferent to be considered cruel.


    The kneeling man raised his head. ¡°Maybe they¡¯re late?¡±


    ¡°If so, they¡¯re also late for me, as well as everyone else who¡¯s ever been thrown out here.¡±


    ¡°Who the hell are you? Are you here to save me?¡±


    ¡°Call me Diocletian. And not exactly, no.¡±


    The kneeling man¡¯s helmet shook violently. He was significantly larger than the other man, sporting a healthy girth that was visible even with the suit on, but his body language spoke of perfect defeat. ¡°We could still get inside, right? Maybe if we tried hacking the airlock¡­¡±


    ¡°Try it and you will get a single warning, after which it will incinerate you so fast you won¡¯t even know you died. I won¡¯t stop you.¡±


    ¡°So they just¡­ threw me out, to choke here?¡±


    ¡°Yes, they did.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t think. I can¡¯t breathe. The timer¡¯s already below twenty-four hours. Were you thrown out too? How much time to do you have?¡±


    ¡°Yes, and that second question¡¯s very personal. You shouldn¡¯t ask people that.¡±


    ¡°How can you be so calm about this? Aren¡¯t you also dying?¡±


    ¡°I am¡ªand yet I spend a lot of my limited time on things I don¡¯t like doing, like this, so I can afford to do the things I do like. I assume you¡¯re familiar with the concept.¡± Another flicker of the strobing light illuminated the man¡¯s unreadable expression, the metal in his hand shining blindingly.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry; I can¡¯t wrap my head around this. It doesn¡¯t feel real. It can¡¯t be. I''ll just talk to them. They must have accidently put me in the wrong airlock.¡±


    Beside me, Diocletian snorted. ¡°Try it,¡± she said, rolling her eyes. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen anyone die that way before.¡±


    The standing man must have noticed us before, because his gaze snapped to us in an instant. Even from a distance, his glare was daunting, judging.


    The other one looked around wildly for a moment, before his eyes found us, as the comm didn¡¯t give him any sense of direction. His face was fat and sweaty, his brown eyes wide. ¡°Who the fuck are they?¡± he yelped, his plan to return forgotten.


    ¡°You should refer to her as Diocletian, as you will me. She¡¯s supposed to be learning to do what I do here. You¡¯ll understand later. The other one¡­¡± His eyes scanned me, unsure.


    ¡°He¡¯s a visitor,¡± my chaperone reported, ¡°coming from the inside to see what we¡¯re up to. I think his ride exploded. Can you wrap it up? I wanna figure out what we¡¯re going to do with this guy.¡± She tilted her head to indicate she was talking about me. By her feet, Anaxagoras¡¯s freeze-dried body lay still.


    His eyebrows lifted, but if he was surprised, there was no other indication for it. ¡°It will take as long as it takes. Have you already forgotten that you too were terrified and lonely when you first got here?¡±


    ¡°I was never this pathetic,¡± she said, a cruel smile crawling up the side of her mouth. I turned away as soon as our eyes met.


    ¡°That¡¯s more than enough,¡± he said. ¡°Visitor, I¡¯ll be with you shortly. I hope you¡¯re not as pressed for time as we are.¡± I was, even more so, but chose to remain silent.


    While they had spoken, the kneeling man found the strength to move himself. Stumbling in the microgravity, he went on his hands and his knees back to the airlock, calling out. ¡°Is anyone there? Is anyone listening to this? There has been a mistake. I wasn¡¯t supposed to be out here¡­¡±


    There was no response, up until the point where he reached the metal door of the airlock with his gloved hand. Both Diocletian turned their helmets away just before the airlock was filled with blinding, white light. A voice boomed in my helmet.


    ¡°Welcome to airlock 83#. You are not recognized as a resident of Ceres, and you are not authorized to enter this airlock. Turn away now, or Ceres will be forced to defend itself.¡±


    ¡°No! listen, please, there was a mistake¡­¡±


    ¡°Defense measures will be deployed in ten, nine¡­¡±


    He tried moving back, but was too clumsy, slipping on the dust. Crouching low and using the pocked rock as grips, Diocletian, the male one, came closer, grabbed the other man by the heel and pulled him back, away from the airlock.


    The light died down; the voice silenced. My vision was once again stained by the aftermath of the blinded light. The large man was silent for a long moment, looking at his hands and the stars intermittently, before he turned his head to Diocletian, who had by then stood up above him again. ¡°What do you do, exactly?¡± he asked. He brought himself back to his knees, as if unable to stand up on his legs. A flicker of white light strobed, no brighter or fainter than before, as if the airlock had forgotten about the incident entirely.


    The senior Diocletian turned to him. ¡°I screen. We have a little community here, and I need to figure out if you¡¯re fit to be a part of it. If you¡¯ll spend your last day doing something useful, or if you¡¯re going to go on a violent rampage or slip into catatonic paralysis. If you pass the screening, you get to spend your last hours doing something you like in the company of people who are of the same mindset as you.¡± He said this dryly, without emotion or judgement.


    ¡°And¡­ if I don¡¯t?¡± The man¡¯s voice almost broke.


    ¡°Then we get to cut your suit open,¡± she said and winked at me, as if I¡¯d share in the joke.


    ¡°Third!¡± the other Diocletian barked. ¡°Not one more word out of you, you understand?¡±


    She folded her hands over her chest and grimaced. ¡°Ok.¡±


    ¡°Are you going to kill me?¡± In Diocletian¡¯s defense, the grown man¡¯s whining truly was painful to hear.


    ¡°That depends. You have your remaining hours in your hand. What do you want to do with them?¡±


    ¡°Does it really work?¡± He waved a hand, gesturing at the man above him, the snickering woman, and me. ¡°All of this.¡±


    ¡°If you mean the screening process, then yes, most of the time, though some people snap later. If you mean Last Day Town, then also yes. It¡¯s been twenty-two days since the Four founded Last Day Town, and it did not fall apart. Now answer the question.¡±


    He looked around with pleading eyes, at her, at me, and after realizing no help would come from us, turned his face to the stars. ¡°What was the question again?¡±


    ¡°What do you want to do with your remaining hours?¡±


    ¡°I¡­ Can you just tell me what to say?¡±


    ¡°I cannot.¡±


    ¡°Listen, I just¡­¡± He cast us a worried glance. ¡°I don¡¯t want anyone to crack my skull open, ok? Just tell me what I should say, and I¡¯ll say it. I want to cooperate. I want to be a part of the community and have a job¡ªall of that stuff. You know?¡±


    ¡°Noted,¡± he commented, in a way that wasn¡¯t necessarily approving. ¡°What are you good at?¡±


    ¡°Back inside, I used to¡ª¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk about the past. What skills do you possess, now?¡±


    ¡°I can code.¡± He paused, interrupted by a harsh laugh from Diocletian¡¯s third. ¡°I¡¯m in better shape than I look, physically. I¡¯m good at cycling.¡±


    She laughed again. ¡°Not a lot of stationary bikes around here,¡± she said, quietly enough for just me to hear.


    ¡°Do you like endurance exercise?¡± the senior continued, ignoring her.


    ¡°Yeah, I used to¡ªI mean¨C¡± the man paused in response to the smallest tilt of Diocletian¡¯s head. ¡°I can go for hours. I fou- I find it relaxing.¡±


    ¡°Good. Third,¡± he turned our way, ¡°did Anaxagoras switch yet?¡±


    She lifted the corpse of First Anaxagoras from where it had lain, out of sight in a shallow crater¡ªjust in time for it to be lit by the airlocks¡¯ strobing light. For the first time, anger flared in the senior Diocletian¡¯s face. The newcomer¡¯s expression twisted to a new degree of terror, as if he¡¯d forgotten his situation, and the cadaver had reminded him. Hell, it reminded me, too.


    The senior Diocletian shook his head. ¡°You are now a part of Line Anaxagoras; They will teach you about the role they play here, and when the time comes, you will teach others. As a part of Anaxagoras, as a part of Last Day Town, you are now subject to its laws, so listen carefully.¡±


    The kneeling man¡¯s hand jerked, as if he considered saying something, but remained silent.


    ¡°Refer to yourself or anyone else in any name but the line¡¯s name, and Diocletian will kill you. You may also refer to other Anaxagoras by their order.¡±


    ¡°What does that mean? What¡¯s order?¡±


    ¡°Ask them when they get here. Speak of your former life anywhere but inside Pythia¡¯s Chamber, and Diocletian will kill you. That includes any talk of going back inside, as well.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s this chamber? Why can I talk about it there?¡±


    Diocletian ignored him. ¡°Conduct any form of secret communication, outside of Pythia¡¯s chamber, and Diocletian will kill you.¡±


    ¡°Kill or steal oxygen from another Resident of Last Day town, or even talk about it¡ªthat is Vampire Law, which killing is too good a punishment for a breach of.¡±


    ¡°Then what is good enough punishment for it?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to know. Do you understand these laws?¡±


    ¡°I think so.¡±


    With the patience of a safety officer escorting a bunch of rookies to their first spacewalk, Diocletian made the new Anaxagoras repeat each of the laws several time. The whole thing took less than a minute. ¡°Now get up from your knees before your legs freeze off,¡± he said finally, and turned again to the woman beside me. ¡°Third, bring me the body. Make sure he gets to his line, and for the love of God, try not to talk so much. I¡¯ll take the visitor to see First. Come back to the fault as soon as you can.¡±


    ¡°You got it, Second,¡± she said and made a great leap into the crater, holding the stiff corpse like a log. I expected her to toss the body over, but to my surprise she was very careful to place it in Diocletian¡¯s Second arms, like one would pass a baby. Free of the corpse, she turned to the other man, who had risen to his feet by then, his posture so hunched he was almost as short as her. ¡°Let¡¯s get going. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯re coming to pick you up, and walking¡¯s gonna take a while to get used to.¡±


    He nodded silently and they set off towards Anaxagoras¡¯ cave, only to stop when two figures descended in front of them, riding rockets. Both used the same maneuver to stop¡ªletting a long loop of rope dangle under them, until it caught on to sharp rock heads; The loops tightened and sent them on quick quarter-turns that ended with them absorbing the energy with their legs. ¡°Oy,¡± Anaxagoras¡¯s Second muttered under his breath, rising slowly. ¡°That would have hurt tomorrow.¡± Anaxagoras¡¯s First looked at him and shook his head. Aside from the rocket he used to get here, he held another one in his other hand, and still he managed to land smoothly.


    Both took a long moment to look at the newcomer. ¡°Sorry we¡¯re late,¡± Second said, smiling somberly under his white beard. ¡°I¡¯m Anaxagoras¡¯ Second, and this is First, which means you¡¯re Anaxagoras¡¯ Third.¡± He reached out to the newcomer who hesitantly offered his hand to shake. But Second didn¡¯t shake it¡ªhe just held it in his for a moment. First looked approvingly, and for a moment they were all silent. The newcomer said nothing, but something in his expression changed.


    Second let go of the hand, and First came forward and held it for a moment, then handed him one of the rockets. ¡°This is old reliable,¡± he said, his voice so tender I almost didn¡¯t recognize it. ¡°Jump as high as you can before you start it, then press that big button and point the tail where you don¡¯t want to be. It¡¯s not strong, but it will get you where you need to go.¡±


    The newcomer nodded as he took the rocket in his arms, then turned to the woman beside them. ¡°Is she coming with us?¡±


    She nodded. ¡°It¡¯s in the job description,¡± she told Anaxagoras. ¡°Making sure everyone behaves on their first walk. Come on, baby: let¡¯s get you to see your new friends.¡±


    Anaxagoras¡¯ Third rose to his full height. Even through his suit I could see him filling his chest with canned oxygen. His face hardened as he spoke. ¡°You know what? Fuck you.¡± He pointed at the woman. ¡°We¡¯re all going to die here, and it won¡¯t kill you any sooner to stop being a whore¡¯s-daughter for a couple of minutes, would it?¡±


    ¡°Whatever, warmblood,¡± she scoffed, but her expression was strangely approving. Anaxagoras looked at each other and said nothing more, as if some understanding had grown between them in that moment.


    First turned to Diocletian¡¯s Third. ¡°I¡¯ll give you a ride,¡± he said as he tied the long loop to a handle on his rocket, then handed the other side to her. She nodded, and at his command both jumped into space. Second jumped up with a grunt, starting the rocket as soon as his boots left the ground, looking back to see if their newest member followed. Anaxagoras¡¯s Third threw his massive body into space and clumsily sat himself on the rocket, pressing the single button to propel himself after the others. Soon they were all more than a dozen meters above the rock, dark against the asteroid-lit sky, accelerating gradually in the weak thrust until they gained enough speed it was clear they weren¡¯t coming back down.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± Diocletian¡¯s Second said, seizing my attention. The body was in his arms, cradled relatively gently considering it had to be as hard as rock by now. Has he been waiting for me to watch what had just happened, or was he watching his underling for his own reasons? I couldn¡¯t know.


    If Anaxagoras went north, the direction he set towards was west. I followed, hurrying to get closer to him. I wasn¡¯t under the illusion that these people were my friends, but it¡¯s hard to describe how strong the pull is towards anyone who isn¡¯t overtly threatening, when you¡¯re in a lonely place.


    ¡°I apologize for my underling¡¯s behavior,¡± he said as I got closer, leaping by his side. ¡°I imagine she wasn¡¯t any more courteous to you than she was to Anaxagoras.¡±


    ¡°Not really, no,¡± I said, taken off guard by his courtesy. ¡°Thanks.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s her way of dealing with stress. I hope you can find it in you to forgive her.¡±


    ¡°No problem,¡± I said. ¡°Were you like that, at the start?¡±


    His eyes were cold when he looked at me. ¡°No.¡±


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 23:06:15


    We ran west. I was starting to remember how running was supposed to look like, but I still wasn¡¯t anywhere near Diocletian¡¯s Second level. While Diocletian¡¯s Third movement were wild and fearless, his were precise, his boots tapping the rock more than kicking it, balanced even while carrying the corpse. I couldn¡¯t believe that someone could move like that with less than a day of surface-time under their belt, but I had more important questions to ask.


    ¡°Ok, listen, do you know of a way I could get back? I came here in a skipper, but I think someone¡­¡±


    ¡°Not out here. We¡¯ll talk about it in the fault.¡±


    Another cold refusal to communicate. We ran in that bitter silence for a while. I still had to use my hands, falling on all fours like a rookie on the first day of mining training. He is also on his first day, I realized. But he doesn¡¯t have any time to waste on being clumsy. I kept up. Barely.


    ¡°Get ready to stop. Chasm ahead,¡± he announced when the incline started rising. I stopped with a couple of skidding hops before I could even see it. He stopped with one decisive motion ahead of me, right at the edge, the corpse still cradled in his arms. I walked the last of the distance carefully. A fracture in the rock, stretching from horizon to horizon. It was only a dozen meters across, not so wide that I couldn¡¯t make it in one leap, but it was so deep it seemed endless in the starlight, as if the fracture went all the way into the heart of the dwarf planet. If I had been running without guidance, I could have easily missed it in the dark.


    Diocletian knelt, holding up the corpse with both hands as one would a sacrifice, presenting it to the stars, then reached forward to place it above the void, and pulled his hands back. The body floated in space, then began to drift downwards. He placed his palms against each other, and as the body descended into depths unknown, he recited:


    We have gathered here, under star light rays,


    Not sun,


    To celebrate the end of all your days,


    And one.


    You weren¡¯t, when burdened by those who died,


    Undone,


    Stranded in the dark and found, you were tried,


    And won.


    He¡¯d recited quickly, for a lament. When he¡¯d finished, Diocletian¡¯s Second kept kneeling there, his hands together, his head bowed. In front of him was the rising wall of the crater¡¯s end, taller than any man-made structure, a dark backdrop to his brighter suit.


    ¡°You pray for them,¡± I said to his back.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± I asked, feeling even more awkward. I forgot how hard Real Journalism was.


    His voice was flat. ¡°Someone has to. This place holds together because everyone does their part, and this is Diocletian¡¯s part. One of them.¡±


    ¡°Are all the bodies down there? Everyone who was ever here?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t know. But Diocletian have been protecting the dead for as long as we can remember.¡± He hadn¡¯t moved yet. It was the first time anyone had talked to me in Last Day Town without also tending to some other activity.


    ¡°Protecting them from what?¡±


    ¡°You may have noticed that Last Day Town is constantly in need of raw construction material,¡± he said as he rose to his feet, watching the corpse as it faded into the infinite black. ¡°Human bodies become very strong once they¡¯ve cooled enough. Now watch,¡± he said, taking a step forward so that his toes were hanging over the chasm, ¡°and follow.¡±


    Knees bent, he let himself topple forward. Only when his weight was way over the edge did he leap, throwing himself straight forward in a shallow arc, almost horizontal, clearly not enough to make it to the other side. There was no way to correct his leap, nothing to push against. I watched in silence. Even if I had had any way to jump after him, without the jetpack I could do nothing to bring him up, only drop farther with him.


    Finally, he collided with the wall on the other side, far below the edge, mostly hidden in shadow. He must have managed to grasp at some handhold, because he wasn¡¯t falling further down. An asteroid shot through the sky above us, lit by the sunlight that never made it here, and its reflected light was enough to make out the shapes in the darkened chasm: a cave burrowed into the endless wall, where once someone had decided to follow a vein of ice. A cave now large enough to catch a man in flight.


    From that hole in the wall, where he was sitting comfortably, he waved for me to follow. Encouraged by the better lighting I leaned over the fault line, one booted foot on the edge and another trailing behind me, holding onto land.


    My limbs were frozen. As if my legs knew that I was supposed to get as far from Last Day Town as I could, confused that I chose instead to dive deeper into this place and its specific brand of insanity. But how was I supposed to get away without help from others?


    I leaned even further, letting my weight pull me off balance, and finally jumped. I didn¡¯t dive forward like he had, and as a result my trajectory was too high to reach the cave opening, but too low to make it to the flat surface above, neither here nor there. As I reached the leap¡¯s apex the chasm started coming up to me, like a behemoth¡¯s jaws. I looked down into the blackness as I floated above. If I fell, could he save me? Would he?


    Finally, I hit the wall on the other side, just above the entrance; my back and shoulder the first to touch the rock. But the impact was too hard, and I bounced away, out of the wall¡¯s reach. There was nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep myself from falling into darkness. Not fast, yet, but I was quickly gaining downward speed. Too quickly.


    Something caught me¡ªan iron vise of a grip around my wrist. I looked up and saw that he had thrown his entire body out of the hole and was holding both of us above the abyss, holding on to the rock with one hand. Diocletian¡¯s eyes met mine with a frozen expression I couldn¡¯t decipher. He didn¡¯t seem as disturbed as I was, but that made sense¡ªwhat difference would it have made to him, if either of us fell?


    One handed, he climbed back into the safety of the hole, and only then pulled me inside.

 Diocletian II

    Once in the narrow cave, Diocletian started moving again in the dark, making no commentary or even acknowledgement that something had happened, and I followed. He slid feet-first down a tunnel that had been dug almost vertically, just wide enough to crawl through, like a service hatch. I followed. Beads of sweat had formed on my forehead, I noticed, annoyingly out of reach. The tunnel opened onto a spherical chamber, lit by a handful of white lights. All of them combined had less power than Anaxagoras¡¯s head-mounted light, and compared to Anaxagoras¡¯s cave, it was almost dark. At the center of the room, a pile of empty suits lay on the ground, taller than either of us.


    In the darkness, I made out a small figure, floating in space with a blade in hand, swinging and twisting, landing with both legs on one vertical surface to leap off again into another. It was a woman, so petite her suit seemed a couple of sizes too large, the excess tied up in makeshift loops of tape. She noticed us, turning her head to us even when she was upside down, at the midst of a complex twist. Her eyes were a deep, cold blue; her face was flushed, the blood clearly visible under a skin that was pale even by Ceres¡¯s standards.


    What was she doing? I could have thought that she was training, but training implied anticipation of something, and time.


    She absorbed the next impact and brought herself to a halt against the wall, then kicked herself downward in a seemingly effortless somersault. As she descended gracefully, her eyes went over my suit for a moment, likely taking in the fact that the model was not government issued. She turned to her Second and nodded, still floating.


    ¡°A visitor from the inside,¡± he said. ¡°He seems to have lost his way back.¡±


    She raised an eyebrow, her face otherwise expressionless, but her eyes twinkled with fascination. ¡°As in lost a vehicle or got turned around?¡±


    ¡°My skipper isn¡¯t responding,¡± I said. I couldn¡¯t afford to be shocked anymore. I needed to use what I had. ¡°I¡¯ll get you oxygen, if you get me another ride. Even a rocket.¡±


    Her boots landed softly on the floor of the cave. ¡°What happened to it?¡± She looked at Second, who by then placed himself behind me, blocking the exit.


    ¡°I saw a flash of light up north,¡± he answered. ¡°Possibly an explosion.¡±


    ¡°But who would do such a thing?¡± Her voice had a peculiar quality to it¡ªnot the tranquil acceptance that had resonated in Anaxagoras¡¯s last words, but a confidence that reminded me of a large cat, particularly in that pale lighting. Her suit, I noticed, was marked with a streak of dark red at the chest, just like Second.


    ¡°Listen, it really doesn¡¯t matter. You do want more oxygen, don¡¯t you? I could you get you a couple of days¡¯ worth, for starters, and Anaxagoras has at least three rockets¡ª¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ll get to that,¡± she said as she floated towards me from the far side of the cave, perfectly coordinated, her gaze still scanning me even as her eyes narrowed in concertation. ¡°Let¡¯s see¡ªwho would have both the means and the heart to blow up The Visitor¡¯s skipper?¡± I couldn¡¯t understand how this could come before oxygen. Had she lost her mind? ¡°Anaxagoras would have the means, but not the heart. They¡¯re too righteous to leave someone to die out here, even a visitor. We, Diocletian, would have the heart but not the means. Also I¡¯d know if we did. Right, Second, you didn¡¯t go around my back and blow up an entire skipper, did you?¡± He didn¡¯t even smile at her joke, and she continued, amused. ¡°Pythia would have neither the heart nor the means, and Ctesibius would have both, but they¡¯d space themselves before letting a resource like an entire skipper go to waste. Who, then, did it?¡±


    I didn¡¯t understand most of what she had said. ¡°I really don¡¯t care who did it. What¡¯s the point of this? I don¡¯t want to die here. You don¡¯t want to die here. Let¡¯s figure a deal out.¡±


    ¡°She said that we¡¯ll get to that,¡± Second said, articulating every word as if I was hard of hearing.


    She swaggered closer, the blade in her hand, and stopped just close enough to put me in its range. ¡°Please don¡¯t be annoying,¡± she said, deadpan. ¡°Second and I saw a lot of people die in the short time we spent here, and let¡¯s say we don¡¯t get as worked up about it as we used to. Tell me, why did you come here?¡±


    Insisting obviously wasn¡¯t going to get me very far. I decided to indulge her until I realized how to get out. ¡°I needed to find out if the rumor was true. To see what was happening out here.¡±


    ¡°An immortal visiting the land of the dying, taking notes,¡± she laughed. ¡°Is it anything like you expected?¡±


    Since I¡¯d gotten the message that Bar Kochva was being thrown out, I was in a rush to reach Last Day Town as soon as I could. I didn¡¯t have time to wonder what would people do when they found out that they had only one day to live. What I would have done, in their place. ¡°No,¡± I said finally, ¡°I thought either people would kill each other for oxygen, or they¡¯d sit in a circle and console each other in their last moments. I didn¡¯t expect to find this¡­ order.¡±


    ¡°Is this order?¡± She still held the blade in her hand, tapping the blunt side absentmindedly against her boot.


    ¡°Everybody seem to know where they¡¯re supposed to be. Almost everybody.¡±


    She raised her eyes to me at that. ¡°The airlock spits out about twelve per standard day, each with a little more than twenty-four hours of oxygen on them. We assign them into one of four lines, each with its different name and role, each made of a First, Second, and Third. Someone thought it was a good idea, and people have been doing that ever since. It¡¯s been three weeks; an eternity in this place¡¯s scale.¡±


    Three weeks. I realized I had already heard it, but I¡¯d been too¡­ preoccupied to register. ¡°Wait, I thought they were throwing people out for more than a month now.¡± That¡¯s what Arik¡¯s report had said.


    Something in her smile changed, as if she was going to scold me for interrupting but decided to leave it. ¡°Maybe they were. But it wasn¡¯t Last Day Town, but a formless, chaotic mess. There were no traditions, no lines taking on a name and passing it from Firsts to Seconds to Thirds and so on. Perhaps it was like you imagined, just people supporting each other, but the only thing we know for sure is that people were stealing oxygen at some point.¡±


    ¡°How could you know that?¡± My intention was to get her talking to soften her up, but it wasn¡¯t that I wasn¡¯t glad to get the information on camera.


    ¡°How do I know that it had been three weeks?¡± Her tone was educational, as if she expected me to get it wrong so she could teach me something.


    ¡°I guess¡­ the Firsts told their Second, and so on?¡±


    She clasped her blade at her hip, perhaps as a sign she wasn¡¯t going to use it just yet. It really didn¡¯t matter, though: They were two, and armed.


    ¡°Obviously, but that¡¯s not enough. My predecessor could have told me it was three weeks, even if Last Day Town was only formed yesterday, and how would I have known? That¡¯s what recitation is for. Sad that you just missed it. While each line can tell their own whatever they want, when all of the lines meet for Recitation it makes sure that everyone is on the same page on two things. One of which is the time.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the second thing?¡±


    ¡°The most important law in this place. You¡¯ll see.¡± Her leisure was an extreme contrast to Anaxagoras¡¯ non-stop motion, or Diocletian¡¯s Second¡¯s laconic answers. She was the first one to take the time to explain these things to me, but she was taking her time and I couldn¡¯t, for the literal life of me, understand why. I looked back at Second, who still held the blade in his hand in a thinly veiled threat¡ªbut what were they threatening me for? It¡¯s not like I could do anything to them. Was there a point to this, or was I at the mercy of people who have gone truly mad?


    ¡°That¡¯s truly amazing, if you ask me,¡± I said. ¡°That there are laws at all. That there is order at all.¡±


    ¡°You find it amusing that people spend their dying breaths telling others what to do?¡± She cocked her head, clearly enjoying herself.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say amusing. I said amazing, and it¡¯s not about telling others what to do, it¡¯s about finding a reason¡­¡± My voice died as I failed to put the concept into words.


    ¡°Me? I find it amusing. That the sum of short-lived parts is something¡­ A little more long-lived. Here¡¯s a riddle¡ªWhat¡¯s born in nothing, lives off nothing, constantly dies without ceasing to exist? That¡¯s Last Day Town. That¡¯s the lines, going about their work.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the part I don¡¯t understand, though,¡± I tried, hoping that questions would antagonize her less than opinions. ¡°What are the lines doing?¡±


    ¡°Oh, poor thing; no one even gave you the basic rundown?¡± She laughed as she walked over to her Second, and patted some of the dust off his suit. I was no longer wedged between them, but they still managed to make it very clear what kind of pressure I was under.


    ¡°No, only bits and pieces. Granted,¡± I said, sounding calmer than I felt, ¡°Everyone is, understandably, very busy.¡±


    ¡°Well, it won¡¯t do to let you write your story when you aren¡¯t familiar with its characters. So. Anaxagoras journey. They venture out into the dumpsters and bring back whatever they find useful¡ªmetal, plastic, machines. Not big talkers, as you probably noticed. Ctesibius spend their day trying to build technology from the trash, tinkering with the stuff Anaxagoras find. Pythia sit in a dark chamber and listen to people talk about their lives. Weird thing, but I guess people consider it a worthy service.¡±


    Everything she said just prompted more questions, and I doubted we had enough oxygen between the three of us to answer all of them. I started with something simple. ¡°And what do you do?¡±


    ¡°Diocletian keep things in order. We welcome the new ones, and we send them to become a part of their line, be it Anaxagoras, Ctesibius, or Pythia.¡±


    ¡°Or Diocletian,¡± Second added.


    ¡°Yes, of course: or they become a part of Diocletian.¡± She smiled, as if intentionally drawing my attention to something, though I didn¡¯t understand what. ¡°You could say we take care of the ugly stuff. When the newcomers arrive, we make it clear we¡¯re going to cut them open if they so much as speak the wrong word, make sure they¡¯re that much more grateful when their line finally comes to pick them up. Sometimes we actually do, but most of the time the threat is enough; the thought that if they misbehave, we¡¯ll be there to take them out. And if they do reach the end of their day with no offences, and they¡¯d rather breath vacuum than choke on their own CO2, we¡¯re there. Everyone does.¡±


    There was a pretense there. ¡°Anaxagoras don¡¯t,¡± I said, driven by instinct to pry at that opening. ¡°At least not with your help. I saw them cut their own First out of her suit.¡±


    She grimaced at that. ¡°They forfeited Diocletian¡¯s¡­ services, as did Ctesibius. Demoted us to undertakers. We take the bodies, we pray for them, we dispose of them. But we don¡¯t get to kill them.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯re upset about this.¡± I said, as flatly as I could.


    ¡°Of course we¡¯re upset about it! There is an honor in being an executioner, but it isn¡¯t just that. Last Day Town came into being because Line Diocletian, the first line, carved order out of the chaos, with these very blades we still carry today. And they just decided to go back on that order.¡±


    ¡°So why did you let them?¡±


    ¡°The two lines came out together with their announcement. We voted on it, and with Pythia abstaining they won two to one. There wasn¡¯t much we could do. We¡¯re supposed to kill individuals, not lines.¡±


    I looked at the display at the side of my visor, counting down the time. I didn¡¯t know how it was for them, to look at a similar clock and know that when it reached zero, their time was up. Not hard to imagine that they hated me for the fact that I might still enter Ceres and live the rest of my life.


    Diocletian raised a hand like a caricature of a Shakespearean actor, and recited:


    The toil of Diocletian,


    Most proud and ancient line,


    has passed through generations,


    And now is yours, and mine.


    The blade we bear is heavy,


    But it has served to keep,


    The schemers and the madmen


    From plunging to the deep.


    Take pride, my Diocletian,


    If not the scorn you face,


    This Last Day Town of ours,


    Was gone without a trace.


    For a moment, I was dumbfounded, like I had been after hearing the prayer for the dead. Someone had composed that here, and they had kept it going ever since, passing it on from one to the other. How long ago had it been written? How many people had to memorize it just to pass it on? The fact of its existence was, in itself, a triumph.


    I had to focus. ¡°Listen, I really appreciate that you¡¯re telling me all of this, but I don¡¯t have that much time in this suit. If you have any way to get me back inside, I need to know. I¡¯m sure we can strike some sort of deal.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure we can,¡± she said flatly, then paused, waiting in silence which I, for the life of me, still couldn¡¯t get the reason for. She stood as if she were waiting for a train. Second pursed his lips and flared his nostrils, looking bored.


    ¡°What, then?¡± I sounded urgent, even to my own ears, but not panicked. ¡°I need some kind of jet if I want to make it back to one of the civilian airlocks. I could give you whatever you want once I¡¯ve returned. Oxygen tanks? Torches? New jets? Just tell me what you need.¡±


    ¡°The civilian airlock? Why not the governmental one at the heart of Last Day Town? It¡¯s walking distance. You must have passed it on the way here.¡± Her smile grew even more sardonic. ¡°If I went there, it¡¯d burn me alive. But you can ask politely and it will recognize you as a citizen of Ceres still; open up to you.¡±


    It was becoming clear she was wasting my time on purpose, I thought as I looked at the ticking numbers on my display. I would have started hating her at that point, if it hadn¡¯t been for the fact that she was dying, too. If this was her last chance to feel power over someone, could I really judge her for taking advantage of it?


    Second nodded, his eyes dim, as if he didn¡¯t care for this thing one way or another. I hoped that he thought, like me, that all of this was vicious and unnecessary. She was wasting his time, too, but he didn¡¯t protest. Was it loyalty that kept him quiet, or fear?


    ¡°Because,¡± I answered finally, ¡°as you may have noticed, we¡¯re in the middle of a large-scale political cull. That¡¯s the real reason they throw people out here, and they only need the faintest excuse to stick you with something. If I go to that airlock they¡¯ll eventually let me in, but the Shadow Man will know I¡¯ve been here, and will find something to stick me with and throw me back out. Which I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware of¡­¡± Because something similar must have just happened to you, I wanted to add, but I was afraid of¡­ what? Insulting her?


    ¡°Oh, so that¡¯s why you need my help? How unfortunate¡­¡±


    ¡°How many hours do you have left?¡± I snapped at her. ¡°You¡¯re so comfortable with us just chatting.¡±


    ¡°Rude!¡± she exclaimed, and turned so her face was momentarily hidden in shadow. ¡°You don¡¯t just ask a lady how many hours she has left to live.¡± The lightness of her words was still staggering. I¡¯d never thought people could be so brave, albeit obnoxious.


    ¡°Listen, I get it: you¡¯re the one in power here. I¡¯m at your mercy, ok? I think that¡¯s pretty obvious¡ªI¡¯m unarmed, and I¡¯ve got the most to lose. You don¡¯t need to drag it out any further.¡±


    ¡°You have the most to lose?¡± She mock¨Cpouted, but there was a note of honest indignation in her voice. She let the question hang in the space between us.


    ¡°Because I can still go back. The airlock won¡¯t blow me up.¡±


    She took a step forward, making her eyes as big and childlike as she could, rolling her lower lip out in a mock-pout, an impression of a child about to burst into tears. ¡°I want to return, too. Don¡¯t I deserve it just as much as you do? Won¡¯t you help me?¡± The fact that I was a full head taller than her only made it clearer how perfectly in control of the situation she was, playing with me.


    I felt the flare of heat known well to every man who had ever thrown the first punch, the fluttering of the eyes just as you were about to lose it. Not necessarily a bad thing, if I needed to change strategy. I raised my voice. ¡°Ok, What the hell is your problem? Do you want to die today or what?¡±


    ¡°What a brain-fucking!¡± a loud, female voice declared, but Diocletian¡¯s lips weren¡¯t moving. Disoriented, I turned back and spotted a figure sliding down from the entrance of the cave. I could have recognized Diocletian¡¯s Third by her defiant body language alone. ¡°There are going to be some changes around here,¡± she declared, the anger in her flushed face clear even in the weak light. She unclasped the blade from her hip and held it in front of her with both hands. ¡°I¡¯m going to say some things,¡± she said. ¡°If you¡¯re going to kill me for it then I¡¯d like to see you fucking try.¡±


    The rest of them didn¡¯t reach for their blades. Second didn¡¯t so much as change his expression.


    First smiled at Third. ¡°Welcome back, Third. What kind of changes do you have in mind, exactly?¡± she asked, her tone unchanged.


    Third seemed surprised by the lack of resistance, taking a moment to regain her balance. ¡°This is insane. I have twenty hours, and you must have less, and we¡¯re wasting it over some ritual crap. We should be doing everything we can to return. We have this visitor here, and even if his ride blew up there must be something useful we could take from him, at the very least his oxygen. And if we can¡¯t, well, why not fuck around with the time we have here? I mean, seriously? Are you really going to spend your last hours following these made up rules? We should be out there, dancing and singing, sharing stories about the loves we had and our tragedies or some shit. Maybe crack someone¡¯s skull open, because why the hell not? I bet you¡¯re tired of pretending any of the shit we do actually matters.¡± She stood by the entrance, knees bent, ready to jump into action at any moment. I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that my chances of seeing tomorrow was dependent on what decision this group would come to.


    Their expressions unchanged, First¡¯s eyes moved from Third to Second and back to Third; a slow, deliberate gesture. ¡°Did you tell the lines anything like this?¡± she asked.


    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Third almost flinched, and her eyes widened. ¡°No, of course not.¡±


    ¡°And did you perform your duties?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I made sure the baby Anaxagoras got home, even gave him a little briefing,¡± she answered with a raised chin.


    ¡°Good,¡± First assured Third. ¡°Good. You see, every single Diocletian¡¯s Third has a moment like that. It¡¯s only natural, only logical that you have doubts. Second, do you think it¡¯s time we told her?¡± She grinned with an intensity that made her previous expression seem like a pale mask. Her eyes twinkled.


    ¡°Fine,¡± Second answered. ¡°But if we tell her, he also knows.¡± That¡¯s good, I noted. That implies they want me alive.


    ¡°That¡¯s alright with me. Come here, Third,¡± she said as she reached both of her hands forward. Third remained standing, blade in hand, confused. ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± First tilted her head, closing her eyes, a beckoning, motherlike gesture.


    She walked towards them, suddenly shy. I started moving to make room for her, taking half a step away from them. A rough shove from Second pushed me back forward. Nothing that put me in a better position to escape was allowed.


    Third put one hand in one of First, still holding on to the blade in the other. First didn¡¯t seem to be at all nervous by the proximity.


    Third smiled shyly. ¡°This isn¡¯t how I thought you guys would react. Like, at all. What¡¯s going on?¡± She looked back at Second, ignoring me completely, and First quickly pulled her attention back to her.


    ¡°You¡¯re right. It really doesn¡¯t make any sense to toil away at janitorial tasks when there¡¯s so much to be done. You think to yourself, the only thing that matters is staying alive, then why isn¡¯t anyone doing anything about it?¡±


    ¡°Yes! Fucking exactly!¡±


    ¡°And the reason is that by the time people get it together from the smack in the face they got coming in, they see that no one else is trying to save their own lives. And that¡¯s enough for them not to try¡ªjust to see that no one else is trying. So that leaves two options: Either Second and I are fools like all the rest, or¡­¡± She let the silence hang; her head cocked.


    Third¡¯s eyes widened even further; her mouth opened in awe. ¡°You whore-children,¡± she whispered. ¡°You have a plan.¡±


    First smiled and nodded graciously. Then looked at the blade in Third¡¯s hand. ¡°If you¡¯re going to space me, do it right now, or put the blade away. Either way you need to stop wasting everyone¡¯s time.¡±


    Third looked at the blade, as if confused that it was still in her grip, and clasped it at her side, the edge of the blade passing between the both of them. She placed her hands in First¡¯s, and smiled, excited. ¡°What¡¯s the pla-¡°


    First¡¯s boot rose upward like a snake, sinking into Third¡¯s lower abdomen so quickly she barely made a sound, as she folded forward.


    Not missing a beat, Second caught me by the oxygen balloon and sent me flying backwards, throwing himself at the women. He drew the blade at the height of his leap, holding it with one hand as the other reached around Third¡¯s helmet, grabbing it as a counter hold. First placed both boots against Third¡¯s chest, and pulled, legs straight, as if she was trying to tear her arms off; making sure she couldn¡¯t reach her blade. Third screamed; a short, breathless sound more of frustration than fear, cut short as Second smashed the blunt handle of the blade into the base of her neck. Her body relaxed in an instant; the once decisive limbs now flailing like seaweed.


    He struck her again and again, one hand still around her helmet. The only sounds on comm were the bone-breaking strikes and the background of quick, frantic breathing.


    I was afloat in space, flailing and trying to twist until my helmet hit the wall behind me. The exit was even further away now. I slumped against the wall, dizzy, and struggled to stop myself from hyperventilating.


    Second must have let go of Third¡¯s body because he was above me before I managed to get on my feet. He caught me with one hand by some clasp on my suit, the other holding the blade to my chest. I was all too aware of the shape of the blade, the broken-glass-like sharpness of the hyper-cooled metal. It would not require much effort to slice my thin suit open. ¡°Stay put and you don¡¯t die,¡± he said, his tone hardly harsher than before. His face was so close I could see every fold on his skin under the violet light of his visor, the dark circles under his black eyes, every hair in the stubble under his long, sharp nose. Big pores. Behind him, Third¡¯s head hung at an awkward angle as First hauled her body to the center of the room.


    I couldn¡¯t breathe, let alone speak. I nodded.


    ¡°Come on!¡± First urged him. In haste, she sounded like a real person. She sent her blade floating towards Second, and I felt a measure of cowardly relief as he let go of me to join her, kicking from the wall just above my head and catching the blade by the way. She cleared some of the suits that were lying on the floor, revealing a bubble made of many suits cut open and glued together with the same type of tape First had used to tighten her suit. I watched, paralyzed, as she lifted it into space. The bubble was semi-rigid; the suit material, usually soft and flexible, turned hard in the cold.


    She found an opening made by the hermetic zipper of one of the suits, and crawled inside. With the help of Second, who still kept me in view, she drew in the limp body of Third. The tent was so small it didn¡¯t seem like they¡¯d both fit, but they managed it somehow.


    ¡°Done,¡± Second said as he zipped the tent shut from the outside.


    I could see First moving against the elastic sheet, stretching it, and Third¡¯s limp body as it shifted, helmets and elbows making distinct bulges through the gray material. There was a fumbling inside, a frantic movement, as if First was scrabbling for some latch or hold, and the tent swelled up like a balloon. My breath stuck in my throat.


    For a moment, a human face, relaxed and expressionless, pressed against the sheet, warming it enough for it to bend and stretch. Then another face appeared¡ªthis one the epitome of struggle, teeth clenched, eyes shut hard. The bodies pushed and writhed against the stretching suits, so hard that I feared the entire contraption would snap open, but it held, with only the faint sound of teeth chattering and quick, shallow breathing, the sounds one makes when enduring an unbearable cold.


    Second stood watching me, his hand resting weightlessly on the handle of one of the three blades that were now clasped at his side. His gaze pinned me with an almost physical weight. I managed to articulate one clear thought¡ªI¡¯ve never met a murderer in the wild before; only in captivity. I had not noticed that my legs were starting to freeze over¡ªthe suit wasn¡¯t made for direct contact. Frozen with terror as well as physical cold, my limbs were reluctant, shaky, but somehow, I managed to get my body into a crouch.


    The bubble of the tent descended slowly to touch the rock. From within, something pushed back to drive the whole structure back into a float.


    ¡°Stand up straight,¡± Second said.


    ¡°What?¡± First said, confused, and the writhing within the tent halted.


    ¡°Not you, The Visitor. Slowly. Tippy toes. Don¡¯t crouch.¡±


    I realized his intention as soon as I stood; crouching made it easier to leap in any direction, while standing tall meant that I had to fall if I wanted to move, and falling would take a long time in near-zero G. Effectively, this was the similar as lying on the ground in full G, with your hands behind your head.


    My panting had subsided to shallow breaths by the time the tent finally opened. The bubble lost its tension as oxygen escaped and First¡¯s helmeted face peeked through the zipper, checking the room for safety, like a worm crawling out of a carcass. The rest of her body followed. The suit she was wearing was closer to her size now, without the need for tape to tighten it to her tiny frame. It bore no bloody marks.


    Second moved to hold the tent, one eye still on me, and First pulled the body from its depths. To my surprise, Third¡¯s body was in a suit, a trail of red-black blood marking its chest. I looked at her face through the helmet and saw the softness of her cheeks, un-mummified. I would have suspected that she was still alive if it hadn¡¯t been for the way her head moved, unrestrained, and the way one of her eyes stayed open. She seemed nothing like Anaxagoras.


    Did the blow kill her, or did she die later, when First screwed off her helmet? Did it matter? She had died the moment she had entered Last Day Town, and I was starting to suspect I had too.


    They kept moving, orderly, completing the endlessly complex ceremony. Second sent a blade towards First, who snatched it out of space and floated the body his way, driving herself back with the counterforce. He caught the limp Third with both hands, holding the body¡¯s back, hiding behind it, not exposing his fingers to First, who kicked off the wall and charged at the body, swinging the blade with the same grace that I had seen as I first entered the cave. What the hell was this for?


    She slashed broadly, hitting the body¡¯s chest, just above the heart, cutting deeply through suit and flesh. A spray of red droplets erupted, flying through space and staining First¡¯s clean suit with a blurry red-black blot, just like the one she had before. Oh.


    Second grabbed the body by the arm and swung it over to the cave¡¯s entrance. She flew in a shallow arc, revolving around herself, her limbs spread, as the skin and flesh inside the depressurized suit dry and shrink.


    First laughed, evidently relieved, her hands on her knees. ¡°Very well done,¡± she said to Second. Her eyes scanned the display on her visor, absently taking a sip from the straw at the side of the helmet. ¡°Everything looks good. Another perfect execution.¡± She laughed again.


    ¡°Good,¡± he said, now watching me again. ¡°I am now First.¡± I heard a collision on comm as Third¡¯s body struck the rock wall by the entrance, but didn¡¯t turn to look.


    ¡°I am now Second,¡± the other Diocletian answered, and turned to me. ¡°Oh, relax, and get off your toes. Nothing bad¡¯s gonna happen to you.¡± Her smile returned, but the expression wasn¡¯t as perfectly frozen as before. Beads of sweat had accumulated on her forehead.


    I descended to my heels, my legs still shaking. The exit was just at the edge of my vision to my left. Could I dive for it, crawl inside, kick myself out of the tunnel? Not without one of them getting to me first. It was clear by then how small my chances of escape were. ¡°Listen, First -¡± I managed to say, barely.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you following? I¡¯m Second now.¡±


    ¡°Ok, Second ¨C¡±


    He cut in this time. ¡°You refer to her as Diocletian.¡±


    What the hell did they want with these games, now? ¡°Diocletian, I¡ª¡±


    ¡°Do you understand what you just saw?¡± she asked.


    ¡°You killed her?¡± I said, and she nodded slowly, urging me on. ¡°Because of the law¡ª"


    ¡°Nah, we would have killed her anyway. The oxygen I had in my bag was about to run out,¡± she pronounced every word very clearly. ¡°While Third, as she professed so loudly, had quite a lot of time in hers. Bags like these need a very specific wrench in order to unplug the oxygen balloon, a wrench which I don¡¯t have. So, instead, I took Third¡¯s body into a hermetically sealed chamber, where I could take off her bag, and put it on myself so I can use her oxygen. Do you follow so far?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± I said. But why put her own suit on third, and cut her open?


    ¡°Don¡¯t look at her, look at me,¡± she said, and I hurriedly turned my head back. ¡°The other lines are constantly watching, so there are appearances to keep. Traditionally, Third cuts open First when her time is up, thus earning her mark,¡± she gestured towards the thick line of dark red sprayed on her chest. ¡°So if someone sees me once with a marked suit, and then with an unmarked one, they might deduce correctly that I¡¯ve been switching bags. If someone talks to First here once while he¡¯s Second, and then eight hours later sees that he is still called Second by his Third, they might suspect. Do you still follow?¡± As if to punctuate, Third¡¯s body finished its descent and collided with the floor, settling in an unnatural position.


    I swallowed hard. ¡°I think so.¡±


    ¡°Then that brings us to the first law of Last Day Town, called Vampire law. Stupid name, but it drives the point across¡ªno one is allowed to achieve immortality by taking life from others, you get it? And that¡¯s exactly what we¡¯re doing here. With three new Diocletian Thirds coming in every twenty-four hours, each of them with twenty-four hours of oxygen in their suit, we have enough to survive with a little bit of extra. Any questions? I know this part can get a little technical.¡± She smiled, her blue eyes shining with cold pride.


    ¡°Why are you telling me all of this?¡±


    ¡°I want you to know that we have all of the time in the world, out here.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    She took a step closer. ¡°Because we are going to send you back inside Ceres, and we are going to need you to do something for us. And when you can breathe in lungful after lungful without giving it a second thought, you might forget about Diocletian, and the deals we made, and you might try to convince yourself that we will have already died off.¡± She waved a finger as she spoke, like a teacher warning a child. ¡°This demonstration should serve as proof of the lengths we¡¯d go to, to avoid dying. As you so concisely mentioned earlier, all it would take would be sending the authorities the message that you were here, and you¡¯d be thrown out. And when you are, we¡¯ll still be here, waiting.¡±


    The words rang in the silence of the chamber. She stood only a couple of steps away, between me and the center of the almost empty room. Did she just say that they are going to send me back inside? I wanted to believe it, to let out a big sigh of relief. But she was too confident for someone wearing a suit just taken off a dead body, swinging a blade of broken steel. I didn¡¯t cross out the option I was being told what I needed to hear to play along. So I did. ¡°What,¡± I said finally, ¡°do you need me to do?¡±


    They looked at each other. ¡°There¡¯s still a chance Ctesibius can hear us, here,¡± First said flatly.


    ¡°Let them hear,¡± Second answered. ¡°By the time he¡¯s in the sky, they won¡¯t be able to shoot him down.¡±


    ¡°Why the hell would anyone want to shoot me down?¡± I asked, and Second turned to me.


    ¡°I just said that they won¡¯t. Focus on getting back inside. First?¡±


    He nodded, and went to rummage in the pile of abandoned suits, throwing up a cloud of clutter behind him while She spoke. ¡°When you get back inside, you will submit a legal appeal in my name, as well as my colleague¡¯s, here. My identity number is 2046849316. And his is¡­¡±


    ¡°3,¡± he answered, hidden in the glacially shifting cloud of suits. ¡°846513517.¡±


    ¡°Do you expect me to remember-¡°


    ¡°There are probably more than a hundred people named Lev Shalem on the inside,¡± First said, still hidden, and the way Second¡¯s eyebrow twitched made me think that she¡¯d never heard his name before. ¡°It is useless as an identifier.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± Second picked up the thread. ¡°We¡¯ll make sure you remember. You will appeal for us, or at the very least contact our families and make sure they appeal, even if you have to threaten them to do so. Once the appeal is complete, which should not be so difficult, considering that Shadow Man, or whoever it is that chooses who gets thrown out, thinks we¡¯re already dead, you will send a proof to us, via drone, or by your-fucking-self if need be, and let us know we can return. If the airlock recognizes us as Ceresians, well, we can re-enter and carry on with our lives inside.¡±


    A silence stood in the air. That¡¯s absolutely insane. No use telling her that, though. ¡°Ok, I understand. But how do I return?¡±


    First finally emerged from the cascade of suits that were falling slowly around him, holding something that I had learned to recognize as a rocket. Not the same as Anaxagoras¡¯s exactly¡ªit was a simpler design, with rectangular handles and a bulky outline. He floated slowly towards us, holding the rocket as he had Anaxagoras¡¯s body.


    ¡°With that,¡± Second continued, ¡°you should have just enough delta V to get back to a civilian airlock.¡± First landed in front of me and presented the device, as if inspecting it would somehow affect my decision.


    No tracking, no collision detection, not even so much as any shielding, against either meteorites or radiation. ¡°You can¡¯t expect me to ride that,¡± I said, sounding cowardly to my own ears.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± Second said, ¡°Ctesibius wouldn¡¯t sell us faulty merchandise. The lines remember, and they keep their promises, even to Line Diocletian. Do we have a deal? You promise to get us back in, we give you transportation. You fail, we fuck your life up.¡±


    I took the device with both hands before answering. It was heavier than it looked, and tipped me off balance. I inspected it. Makeshift, yes, but built with care, glued conservatively in places and welded neatly in others, the hyper-cooled steel changing colors where it had been touched by the welder from silver to blue. What had the person building this thought, as they were spending their last hours on it? Not one person, probably, but a chain, passing the work from one generation to another; making an effort to build this as a part of a deal made by someone they hadn¡¯t even known the day before. Could I trust them?


    I shook my head, forcing myself to focus. There was no point in speculating when I had no better choice. ¡°We have a deal. I¡¯ll go back in, and I¡¯ll do whatever I can to get you back inside as well. Contact your families or sign an appeal. How long do I have?¡±


    ¡°We expect you to bring proof of submitting the appeal within a week,¡± she said.


    ¡°A week? You¡¯ll keep doing this for an entire week?¡± Three times a day, Third¡¯s just like this one will come here to die at the hands of people they trusted.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ll handle it,¡± she answered, misunderstanding. ¡°We have our routine already, the rituals and everything, letting Third run around and make an impression. Whatever it takes, we¡¯ll figure it out. Even if we have to wait here so long that Last Day Town revolves back to the sunny side, we will find a way to survive that too.¡± Her smile was even colder, even prouder.


    ¡°You¡¯re rambling,¡± First cut in, and for an instant, her smile faltered. ¡°You. A week should be enough for you, but remember,¡± He unclasped one of his blades as he walked over to me and grabbed me by the suit with his free hand, making sure I wouldn¡¯t get away. ¡°You tell anyone anything they shouldn¡¯t know, outside or inside, and we make sure you regret it. You might think a broken spine is bad, but there are worse ways to die.¡± He brought the blade against my visor and tapped the glass twice, as if to check its toughness. The bluish metal was close enough to my face that one of its edges was faintly lit with the violet glow of my oxygen timer.


    I looked away, trying to make myself as small as possible, and he drew my attention back with the edge of the blade as it scratched the glass.


    ¡°Do you understand me?¡± he said, speaking slowly.


    In a feat of self-control I couldn¡¯t even guess the source of, I returned his stare. There was no malice in his expression, no joy at terrorizing me. He seemed to be completing a chore, acting out of necessity. ¡°Yes,¡± I answered, my voice still weak.


    ¡°Good.¡± He smiled, the first smile I¡¯d seen from him. A pained, joyless expression.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 22:26:47


    First took a couple of patient minutes to make thoroughly sure that I remembered both of their identity numbers, presenting me with a series of mnemonics and testing me on them, while Second watched. Motionless, her predatory presence was intensified, unblurred, like a hawk perching. I decided not to tell them I¡¯d been recording all of it through my helmet-camera¡ªI wasn¡¯t sure how they¡¯d react to the knowledge that I¡¯d documented the murder, but I couldn¡¯t believe they staked their lives on an old man¡¯s long-term memory, either. When First was done, Second stepped forward, and presented a steel rectangle smaller than her palm¡ªtwo ten digit numbers were scratched on it, and by now I¡¯d learned to recognize them. Coming very close to me, she opened a pocket in my thigh suit and slid it inside while I watched.


    My memory was only a backup, I realized. They really had planned this thoroughly.


    After that, they escorted me outside, instructing me how to climb through the narrow tunnel and out of the chasm, twisting uncomfortably and looking for handholds in the dark.


    I finally managed to get myself to the edge of the chasm, where I stood beneath the open sky with the rocket in my hand. I took a moment to reorient myself, taking in how every little bright star, burning to its fullest, lightened the darkness, mixing into a color that could have seemed, at a glance, like gray, but wasn¡¯t gray at all.


    A large, egg-shaped asteroid emerged from Ceres¡¯ shadow, twisting around a complex axis, surrounded by smaller asteroids. A rare and beautiful pattern; probably the result of a collision. I stared as the chaperones around the larger asteroid drifted further and further away, making the walls of rock dance with the shifting light patterns.


    I¡¯m going to live, I thought. I wasn¡¯t quite out the thick of it, yet, but I had a way to return. Soon I could put this all behind me. Even Arik, I realized. I had forgotten about him, and now I was about to leave him behind as well. Maybe he¡¯d died already. Maybe he too was already insane, just like all of these people. Maybe I just had to admit that I wasn¡¯t in control of this situation, that I couldn¡¯t help anyone but myself and even that was in doubt.


    Someone shoved me forward. ¡°You¡¯ll have enough time to be in shock when you¡¯re inside,¡± he said. ¡°Now listen.¡±


    I managed to find my footing, using the rocket as a counterweight to balance myself. I looked back, at First¡¯s frozen expression and Second¡¯s predatory grin. ¡°This rocket is weak, but it can get you far enough if you use it wisely. Are you familiar with the Oberth effect?¡±


    There was a hint of recognition, something I must have studied and tested upon. I could probably come up with the formula, given enough time.


    She rolled her eyes. ¡°In essence, it means that you ¡ªare more efficient using one big burst of thrust at the beginning of your flight, and another one at the end, when you decelerate. Don¡¯t do a series of bursts¡ªtry to reach top speed in the first couple of minutes, and then cruise. You should reach about fifty meters per second. Understand?¡±


    I once again noticed the glaring lack of any indicators on the rocket¡¯s interface. ¡°How do I know how fast I¡¯m going?¡±


    ¡°Good, you¡¯re paying attention. See that cliff over there?¡± She pointed straight east, to the edge of the other side of the crater. ¡°That protrusion? You should point the rocket in a vertical 45 degrees, and pass just above it. Then count how long it takes you to go over the next large crater. If it¡¯s more than one thousand four hundred and fifty seconds, that means you¡¯re too slow and you gotta pump it some more,¡± she said.


    ¡°One thousand four hundred and fifty,¡± I repeated. ¡°How do you¡ª¡°


    ¡°We had a lot of time to prepare. Anyway, it¡¯s easy to get confused when counting, so use your visor for that. When you start, jump as high as you can. Take to the sky first, at least until you learn how to control it. There¡¯s only one button, for thrust, and the rest is done by pointing the nozzle in the direction you don¡¯t want to be in.¡±


    I sat the rocket on the ground, getting a feel for how jumping with it was going to be. ¡°Now?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yeah, fucking now,¡± she scoffed, clapping her hands soundlessly.


    Swinging the rocket as a counterweight, kicking the ground with both legs, I shoved Last Day Town away from me as hard as I could. I floated three meters, six, and kept rising while I mounted the rocket, pointing the nozzle down, and pressed the only button. The thrust was so weak I wasn¡¯t even sure it was working, but second after second, meter after meter, I gained speed, upwards and forward, pointing right above the cliff in the distance. Before I knew it, Diocletian were tiny and far below me, on the edge of the abyss. I squinted. Are they dancing?


    #


    Diocletian¡¯s bless their luck. Some time ago, in the past that they could not afford to remember, they got their hands on one of these Ctesibius-made rockets. Now this rocket is the crux of their plan to return to the interior, to stop being Diocletian entirely. But Diocletian are uneasy. Something just doesn¡¯t sit right, with the way things keep falling into place. The Visitor said that his vehicle was sabotaged, and if someone went through the trouble of doing that, they must have expected to reap some gains.


    Perhaps Diocletian should have gone and killed Ctesibius, the obvious suspect, outright, and taken their rockets¡ªthey weren¡¯t so certain in their own rocket¡¯s ability to reach the airlock as they had The Visitor believe. But if they did, Anaxagoras would retaliate, perhaps Pythia as well, and Diocletian weren¡¯t counting on their chances to kill three lines without taking any losses. No, they will wait for now, and if any complications arise, they will take care of them then.


    Diocletian keep their cool, stay focused. Competent Killers always do.

 Ctesibius I

    Estimated oxygen time: 22:19:32


    I saw Last Day Town from above, lit by the asteroid still making its journey through the sky¡ªits crests and caves, the fault that served as a cemetery, the blinking airlock. I rose high enough to put myself above the crater and see Anaxagoras¡¯s cave with the mounds of metal waiting outside, glinting in the light.


    Funny thing about space¡ªas soon as you lose contact with the surface, as soon as you have some off-ground velocity, you lose perception of up and down. Every child knows that, in theory, but what they don¡¯t know is how it feels, when what used to be the ground starts seeming like a wall¡ªa wall infinite in all directions, so tall it seems like it can never be surmounted, sliding down under you.


    I was going in a direction that felt like a vertical 45 degrees, trying to ignore the disorienting view and focus on the task. My target was only four hundred kilometers away; if I reached even a measly fifty meters per second on the rocket, I could make it in less than three hours, and I had much more oxygen than needed for that. The rocket was intuitive to control, and I was confident that I could return home, if only it kept providing thrust.


    Then it stopped.


    The feeling of weak acceleration was gone. I looked down at the massive wall moving in front of me, but I couldn¡¯t tell if I were gaining speed or not. I looked behind me at the exhaust, but there was nothing to see¡ªit was just a metal funnel, it looked the same whether or not it was functional. I covered the exit with my gloved hand, and pressed the button, hoping to feel some pressure against my fingers, but there was none.


    No pressure meant no gas coming out, and with no gas coming out, there couldn¡¯t be any thrust. I pieced this together very carefully in the tightening grip of a full-fledged panic. I pressed the button again, and still felt no pressure. I wanted to fiddle with the controls, but there were no controls to fiddle with. There was a panel just between the hand holds, glued instead of welded, and even if I¡¯d been desperate enough to try to open it, I couldn¡¯t have managed it with nothing but gloved fingers. I pressed the red button again and again. Had Diocletian given me a faulty rocket as a practical, deadly joke? Or had Ctesibius given it to Diocletian, hoping they crashed? Diocletian were right¡ªhaving the rocket intercepted had not even been a problem.


    The surface seemed so far away. Even with the low gravity, a drop of a couple of hundred meters would shatter my bones and tear open my suit, at the very least. My thoughts were very clear, but cold, numb. Technical.


    My upward momentum died as I reached the top of my ascent, but I still had significant forward speed. The cliff was coming at me, right in the middle of my path. I couldn¡¯t think about it as upward anymore¡ªit was in front of me now. When you are falling, you get a very clear sense of where ¡®down¡¯ is.


    I punched the button again, grabbing the neck of the rocket with one hand and jabbing my thumb into the button as hard as I could, like I was gouging the eye of some stubborn, tough animal. Nothing changed; the rocket was completely dead.


    This was the primal terror of dropping from a high place, but slowed down, almost frozen. I would have a couple of hundred long seconds of falling before the rock finally swatted me out of the sky. I could wait, or throw the rocket down to lose some momentum, or nick the suit somehow to get a tiny bit of thrust from my own escaping oxygen. None of those options left me in any better position to survive this, to return home, and I ran through them in circles, again and again. I wanted to scream, but I knew that if I started I wouldn¡¯t be able to stop. I clenched my teeth hard, as if I could bite the madness down.


    There was also a sliver of self-schadenfreude, of amusement, as if gloating at my own fate, mocking myself for having dared to hope; to trust strangers I had never met, who had died long ago. This is how an idiot dies¡ªif nothing else, I was heading towards a spectacular crash. Quick, what should I do with that little time I¡¯ve got left? Review my life? Think about how I¡¯ve failed as a parent, as a husband? Tsur and Ayelet were the most important people in my life, and I ruined their lives. Is that what drove me to come out here? God, I don¡¯t want to be one of those people crying for forgiveness as they die. Maybe going insane is a better use of the time. Better use of the time? The truth of the matter is, it doesn¡¯t matter what I do with the rest of my life. I felt a measure of relief I wasn¡¯t ready for. It just didn¡¯t matter. I was free.


    The top of the cliff was coming closer and closer, a juggernaut that was about to ram me to pieces. Closer now, I could see an entrance at the top of the cliff, perhaps to another cave, and light coming out of it. A small figure stood at the door, casting a long shadow over a plaza. A quiet witness of my swan dive, whose expression I could not even see.


    It seemed like a short landing strip, like something I could have easily landed on if I weren¡¯t going to crash directly at it. The little figure grew and grew, revealing more details. In their hands was a panel, like the one I¡¯d seen Anaxagoras use when they killed my electronics. Every detail was infinitely important.


    Closer now, I recognized more features. Bands of suit material lay at the figure¡¯s sides, nameless tools bound to the ends of them, and the feminine lines of her body were broken by the frame of a jetpack on her back.


    I found myself lamenting that I will never get to find out what the hell that was about, on account of my terminal velocity.


    She bent her knees, taking a second to descend, then leaped towards me. Her hand went for the jet¡¯s controls, and she accelerated, kicking up a cloud of dust beneath her, her tools dragging behind. I was going down fast; she was going up even faster. I raised my arms, putting the rocket between us as a shield, but she passed me, leaving me unharmed. I turned my head to look after her and saw that she¡¯d left a trail of fabric behind and beside her, one long loop coming my way. With a whiplash impact, the loop snagged me, slamming the rocket into my gut. The acceleration was intense, organ crushing, the world spun around, too fast to track, and the rock platform passed by me once, twice, each time quick enough it would still crush me if I so much as touch it. The only thing that wasn¡¯t blurred was the woman on the other side of the band of suit material, spinning around me as I spun around her. I could see her face clearly now, dimpled and tan, her tongue between her teeth as she used her jetpack¡¯s joystick to control the motion of the pendulum she¡¯d built out of the both of us with short, accurate bursts. The rock drew closer, slowing down from a deadly thing to a surface again, something you can land on.


    I collapsed onto it and let out a series of short screams.


    I¡¯d accepted it all being over. Been ready for it. It¡¯d been an actual miracle, that someone had pulled me back from the jaws. This was going to take a while to process.


    Using her jetpack, she brought herself to a gentle stop on the platform, boots first, raising another cloud of dust, and stood with the lit entrance of the cave behind her. It was my jetpack, actually, I realized now that I got the chance to look at it. I rose to my feet somehow, finding shaky balance, and pushed the loop away from me, stepping away and letting the rocket fall beside me. She pulled the loop towards her, catching it with one hand, and inspected me with her large, brown eyes as she began coiling the loop in quick, practiced movements. Her expression was soft, full of pity. Who was this person, who could throw themselves into such wild chaos, and tame it?


    ¡°We apologize for the inconvenience,¡± she said in a tone that was confusingly formal, like an official spokesperson or a recorded message. ¡°We hope that you are in no way injured?¡± She clasped the loop by her belt, and her gloved hand reached forward for a shake. ¡°Let us formally introduce ourselves. We are line Ctesibius. What is your name?¡± Her smile was nothing like Diocletian¡¯s¡ªshe seemed honest, unguarded, albeit slightly manic.


    ¡°Just¡­ give me a second, ok?¡± I said, slightly breathless. I hadn¡¯t noticed how little I¡¯d breathed in the last couple of minutes. I was sweaty, itchy, and my muscles were tense. I was dying to get out of this stinking suit, to shower, to touch my own face, to get back home and be done with all of this. Funny, how we miss the places we try to escape, as soon as we succeed.


    She took her hand back, watching me as I got my breathing in order, hunched. I straightened up, and she put her hand forward again, somewhat off beat.


    I grabbed her hand shakily and tried not to stare at my jetpack on her back. My grip tightened, and I felt the delicate bones of her hand through two layers of suit. I could probably land a good strike, I thought suddenly. The jetpack has a stronger thrust than the rockets, and she¡¯s going to die even if I don¡¯t take it away from her... Something in her smile made me decide against it¡ªthere was something na?ve in the way she¡¯d acted: too na?ve for a place like this. The way she¡¯d used ¡®we¡¯; the way she¡¯d saved my life without as much as a single wrong movement. This wasn¡¯t someone who¡¯d go in without a plan.


    I let go of her hand. ¡°My name is Yossi Ben Ze¡¯ev,¡± I said.


    ¡°Are you holding up, Yossi Ben Ze¡¯ev?¡± she asked. She had a way of moving her head when she looked at me, as if changing her viewpoint would gain her a better perspective into my soul. She was shorter than me, but unlike Diocletian her movements didn¡¯t signify power¡ªonly curiosity and concern.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said, not knowing what for. I looked around, orienting myself. We were standing only a couple of meters away from the edge of the cliff. The crater lay beneath us. At the dead center of it, barely noticeable, was a flash of white, strobing light. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect to be here very long, and every moment I spend here things just seem to get worse, and it seems likely I¡¯ll die here, and I was just on a rocket taking me outside when it failed, and I¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. We¡¯ll take care of you.¡± Her tone made it clear that I wasn¡¯t the first dying man she¡¯d comforted.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry; I just need to know¡­ am I going to die here?¡±


    Genuine surprise lit her face, and for a moment she just seemed like an ordinary woman. ¡°No no no,¡± she said quickly, then regained her peculiar composure. ¡°Rest assured; Ctesibius will do whatever is in our power to get you back inside safely.¡±


    ¡°Is it? In your power, that is.¡±


    ¡°Absolutely,¡± she said, and smiled again. ¡°Now, if safety is what you¡¯re after, we should probably get inside. We want to get you home as quickly as possible.¡±


    This wasn¡¯t a place where you could trust people, but I wasn¡¯t in a position to survive without trust, either. After Diocletian, my worst fears about this place had been confirmed: it was kill or be killed, just like you¡¯d expect. Even with that in mind, I followed her into the cave. What else could I have done?


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 22:10:02


    Ctesibius picked up my dead rocket and went through the large hole in the rock into an entry tunnel. The ceiling was three to four times taller than me, and the walls even wider apart, the floor sparsely littered with small pieces of plastic and metal. Despite still being a closed excavation with a single entrance, leading to a widening cave, where Anaxagoras¡¯s and Diocletian¡¯s narrow tunnels had obviously been tactical choke points this one felt welcoming, even more so because it was bright with yellow light scattering from the chamber the hall led to. A light that drew me in, after hours of nothing but the faintest illumination.


    One person sat at the far end of the hall, in a gray space suit, their hands fumbling inside a bubble made from suit material. It was similar to Diocletian¡¯s bubble but much smaller, its form elongated and narrow. Ctesibius and I approached with a couple of soft kicks, and when we got close, I saw more clearly: While most suits had been cut to create sheets of material, one of them hadn¡¯t had the helmet cut off, leaving the transparent visor as a viewing port for looking inside. The figure had their hands inside inverted sleeves that let them work the inside the bubble without opening it, though I couldn¡¯t see what was in it.


    They lifted their eyes to us for a moment, bright green looking through the short hair falling over their forehead and I saw that it was a woman, though she was so young that ¡°girl¡± would have been more appropriate. A single ray of light landed on her freckled face, and the shadow of her pixie-like nose fell across her cheek. Her eyes darted between the two of us, then to the rifle that sat by her side, then back to the woman who introduced herself as Ctesibius, who shook her head slightly.


    She went back to her work, mumbling. When we drew closer, I heard what she was reciting.


    -Cartridge in place,


    Three in a row,


    Make sure each one clicks


    Panel in place,


    Little light on,


    Hatch should make a tick.


    Ctesibius left my rocket leaning against one wall and stood over the other woman, and peeking over her shoulder, into the bubble. I kept my distance. ¡°How¡¯s that rocket coming along, Third?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s hard to tell. It¡¯s like I¡ª¡±


    ¡°How many verses are left to the poem?¡±


    ¡°Just the last one, checking the remote deactivation array. First?¡± she asked in a voice that almost broke, and threw another quick glance at me. Considering she had probably been thrown out only a couple of hours ago, and spent her last hours memorizing a poem, maintaining technical gear, her expression was surprisingly reserved.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Something in the tone of the woman who brought me in, the one I knew was Ctesibius¡¯s First, changed, making it clear that Third should ignore me.


    ¡°What if I fail?¡±


    First, looked at me, pleading for my patience, and placed a gentle hand on Third¡¯s shoulder. The tools tethered to her belt floated after her, gently colliding with Third and the bubble.


    ¡°Line Ctesibius made mistakes before. It happens. What matters is not that this rocket should work, though it probably will¡ªwhat¡¯s important is that we devote ourselves to this work, making sure we do our best, like we did yesterday and the day before that, and like we will do again tomorrow. Breathe in, breathe out. Be here, be now. What¡¯s the next step?¡±


    Third took a deep breath and let it go. ¡°Connecting the kill-switch. But I can¡¯t make it ¡®tick¡¯ when it reaches the slot.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s not what that means. There¡¯s a little motor that opens up in internal aperture¡ªa spring shuts it down. ¡®Make sure that it ticks¡¯ means that when you activate the kill-switch, make sure that the hatch not only closes, but closes hard. You¡¯re supposed to feel the vibration of the impact if you¡¯re holding the rocket.¡±


    First was standing behind the girl, blocking the viewing port for me. By the way Third¡¯s shoulders tensed, she was exerting some kind of effort. ¡°I feel it,¡± she whispered after a moment, and I could hear the smile in her voice. ¡°It works.¡±


    It dawned in me, embarrassingly late, what it meant that they were installing remote kill switches on the rockets. Rockets just like mine, which had malfunctioned just at the right moment to land me in Ctesibius¡¯s arms. Ctesibius, who had been standing there with a control Panel in her hands. Fuck.


    First looked back at me, inspecting my face like one looks at their visor to check the status, and I realized not only did she not try to hide it from me¡ªshe wanted me to understand. There was no point of confronting her; she knew that I knew, and there was no shame in her expression for it. No use wasting energy on anger. I needed to focus.


    ¡°Great,¡± First patted Third¡¯s shoulders. ¡°Now finish the verse. You¡¯re doing fine.¡± The last encroachment was murmured, as if there was something forbidden hidden among the words. She motioned for me to follow, and went deeper inside to a larger chamber, brighter than any room I¡¯d seen so far. I found an undeniable pleasure just in being in that lit room, after hours of darkness; in how clear colors were, how stark our shadows were. The light was coming from a single light bulb in the center of the ceiling, yellow and warm, making the rock look a soft brown instead of cold gray.


    "Can you guess how the rockets work?¡± She said, a hint of pride in her voice.


    ¡°Not really,¡± I said. I wasn¡¯t very interested in the mechanism itself, but I chose to play along. ¡°How?¡±


    She walked beside me, maintaining eye contact as she spoke. ¡°Are you familiar with the mechanisms of your life support systems?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    Their main hall was large and full of devices, half-built contraptions, and raw materials in equal amounts. A short, emaciated man sat on top of a formation of rock and investigated the way a short spear moved inside a long metal tube, applying what seemed like machine oil. His helmet was hooked with a cable to an aggregate of radio receivers, connected to one another. His eyes were squinting with focus. First chose not to bother him, and so did I.


    ¡°The system in your suit, do you understand how it operates?¡±


    There was a time where I could tell you the name of each chemical, but that was long ago. ¡°I¡ªunderstand the principal. It scrubs out the carbon dioxide and pumps in new oxygen.¡±


    ¡°Scrubs?¡±


    ¡°Just¡­ takes it out of the air and locks it somehow.¡±


    ¡°It is the system that sustains you, and you didn¡¯t take the time to understand its basic principles?¡± She sounded honestly surprised. ¡°The tank supplies oxygen in breathable pressure, while exhaled CO2 is absorbed by a carbon-lithium filter. After a day of use, the filter accumulates such high levels of absorbent that even the lowest drop beneath standard pressure causes it to dump CO2 back in its immediate atmosphere.¡± She glanced at me, gauging my level of understanding. I nodded, and she continued.


    ¡°When oxygen runs out, the user starts suffocating on their own CO2. For that reason, residents of Last Day Town avoid reaching the end of their countdown at all costs, even if that means having their suit cut open.¡± She scrutinized my expression again. ¡°As you may have seen. But, with a little engineering, the negative can be turned into a positive: If the filters are taken out without being exposed to vacuum, and heat up enough for them to eject their CO2, they can serve as a propellent source for these rockets. That obviously requires a pressurized environment, or the gas dissolves in space.¡±


    ¡°So that¡¯s what that was?¡± I gestured at the little bubble Third had been tending to.


    ¡°Precisely,¡± she said, encouraging.


    The man turned to us, grimacing. His eyes were open now, worried, as he looked at First. ¡°Diocletian are moving,¡± he said flatly. ¡°They left the receiver¡¯s range.¡±


    ¡°Are they furious?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Rabid.¡±


    ¡°Plug it off,¡± she said. ¡°We know where they¡¯re going.¡±


    Where were they going? If they¡¯d seen me drop from the trajectory they¡¯d planned and land right at Ctesibius¡¯s door, along with their only chance at survival, I could imagine they would have something to say about it.


    He nodded, then looked at me for a moment, his eyes not even meeting mine. ¡°The jetpack Anaxagoras sold us; Was that yours?¡± The question was a pure technicality, like there was nothing to be angry about.


    I nodded. First waved an apologetic hand at me and turned to the man. ¡°This isn¡¯t the way Ctesibius speaks.¡±


    He looked at her as if calculating the exact amount of effort it would take to argue, and finally surrendered with a shrug. ¡°May we assume that you also have the wrench needed to disconnect the propellent?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t.¡± There had been, inside the skipper, in case I needed to replace a gas balloon. That didn¡¯t matter now¡ªit couldn¡¯t have remained intact after the explosion, and the fall that must have followed. ¡°Are you going to use it for your rockets?¡±


    He looked at First, ignoring me, seemingly not just displeased with my answer but disappointed at my very existence. ¡°Ctesibius doesn¡¯t need more rockets,¡± he mused. ¡°But we could use it as propellent of a spear gun.¡±


    She stiffened slightly. ¡°We don¡¯t even know if we have a wrench for that kind of gas balloon, and you¡¯ll waste hours looking for one. Ctesibius spent many days making those springs for the spear gun, Second. Finish the design you were given.¡±


    ¡°Ctesibius used to think we should spend the time looking for that wrench,¡± he said through clenched teeth.


    ¡°And now Ctesibius thinks that we shouldn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°You know what I mean.¡±


    ¡°And you know what I mean,¡± she said, her voice growing slightly louder, before she regained control of herself. ¡°Our predecessors are dead. We are the line now, and as First I¡¯m telling you that having the kind of wrench that could replace gas tanks¡­ it¡¯s going to be more trouble than worth. If we do have it somewhere in our stores, it should be left there. When you¡¯re First, you¡¯ll know what it¡¯s like to hold that responsibility. Now, for the last time: hurry up with the spear gun and finish the fucking springs.¡±


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    He looked at her for a long moment, anger shining in his eyes, then at me, as if angered that I¡¯d seen him humiliated, then turned his back to us. A frustrated exhalation was heard through the helmet radio.


    She took a deep breath and smiled a little, apologetic smile. ¡°Don¡¯t mind that. Everyone¡¯s a little tense. The day is short, and the work is plentiful.¡±


    ¡°And the laborers are lazy,¡± Second chimed in, recognizing the quote that I didn¡¯t, his anger softened, ¡°And the reward is great.¡±


    ¡°And the landlord is pressing,¡± First finished. I almost remembered where it was from.


    ¡°That¡¯s the one thing everyone seems to agree on. Even¡­ Even Diocletian.¡± I turned to look at the pile of radio receivers. ¡°They¡¯re coming here, aren¡¯t they?¡±


    ¡°They are, but you shouldn¡¯t worry about that. We have a lot of time.¡± Her eyes narrowed. ¡°They really scared you, didn¡¯t they?


    ¡°You should know,¡± I started saying, then considered it. You tell anyone anything they shouldn¡¯t know, outside or inside, and we make sure you regret it, Diocletian had told me. But these people deserved to know that there were murderers amidst them, and it¡¯s not like Diocletian could kill me. ¡°They¡¯re breaking Vampire Law. They make their thirds think they¡¯re a part of Diocletian, but then they kill them and take their oxygen.¡±


    ¡°Yes, they are.¡± She sighed, her expression showing anything but surprise.


    ¡°You knew? But aren¡¯t the lines supposed to¡­¡±


    She let go of my hand. ¡°We were enacting a plan; it¡¯s just -¡±


    ¡°That there¡¯s always so much to do.¡± I hoped there was no blame in my voice. I raised my eyes to hers.


    ¡°Accurate. Though not necessarily in the way you think.¡± She averted her eyes, and I found myself wondering how she could have been entrusted with so many secrets in such a short time.


    ¡°When did you find out?¡± I asked.


    ¡°A while ago.¡±


    ¡°Then how¡­¡±


    ¡°You told Anaxagoras you¡¯re a journalist, right?¡± She said, doubt clear in her tone. ¡°Then it¡¯s safe to assume you have some questions. But before we start discussing Town politics, there are some things we¡¯d like you to understand. So let us suggest this¡ªwe show you this one thing, and then you can ask us whatever you like, or be on your way.¡± I noticed, suddenly, how big and brown her eyes were, how soft her cheeks seemed. She wasn¡¯t built for this, but she was doing her best.


    I nodded.


    Second¡¯s voice was in my helmet again. ¡°I know what you¡¯re thinking, and you should leave it alone. We¡¯re not in Pythia¡¯s shuttle, and he¡¯s not Ctesibius. We should just tell him what he needs to know and get him the hell out of here.¡±


    She turned to his direction when she spoke, even though there was no clear line of sight anymore. ¡°Hush,¡± she said, ¡°Ctesibius is building an alliance here.¡±


    ¡°One might think Ctesibius would have had an easier time if the visitor would have only come three hours later,¡± Second answered venomously.


    ¡°Surely,¡± she said, calmer now, ¡°by that time, Ctesibius¡¯s Second will have finished his training and become a wise and patient First.¡± For a moment I thought they were putting on a show, but First¡¯s sarcasm and the irritation in Second¡¯s voice seemed genuine that I actually believed it. She motioned for me to follow her around the corner to another area in the cave.


    ¡°Is your bag ok?¡± she asked. ¡°We can¡¯t offer you any real refreshments, but if you need a carbon filter replaced, or a water tank refilled, we could get you some.¡± She gestured to a contraption by the wall.


    And there it was again: a bunch of old space suits patched together, tethered to the wall at a point. I froze. For a moment I suspected oxygen pumps were working in partial capacity. The thermostat felt off, too, but according to my visor, everything was in order.


    Her expression fell as she turned to me, her eyes full of pity. ¡°No, no! It¡¯s not like that! It¡¯s just large enough for one person to get in and open their own suit for a while. Look at it.¡± I was scared to take my eyes off her in case she tried something, but logically I knew it didn''t matter. If she¡¯d have wanted to take my oxygen, she already would have.


    She was right: The bubble was much smaller than the one Diocletian had used¡ªcertainly not enough to switch suits in. She leaned over and reached for my hand, and I let her take it.


    ¡°If you did come here a bit later, you might have had a chance to see it used.¡± She let go of me and moved away, stopping herself with one hand against the wall, and caressed the device softly. ¡°In order to pack the carbon filters properly, we have to get into the bubble and wrap it there, once it¡¯s time to go. A sacrifice many Ctesibius have to make, and I,¡± she whispered the last word, as if it was forbidden, ¡°will be honored to make too. Diocletian are using a similar design, aren¡¯t they? We couldn¡¯t quite understand from listening to them.¡±


    I nodded, not managing to find words as I recalled Diocletian crawling in the bubble like a worm inside of a carcass.


    ¡°Is there anything we can do to help? There¡¯s a procedure that ejects the nitrogen out of the suits. It really helps one focus, though it makes you lose a bit of your oxygen.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t think of a less appealing idea than taking anything out of my suit. ¡°I¡¯m fine, thank you.¡±


    ¡°As you wish, but I want you to be at full capacity when we start doing business.¡± She pushed herself off the wall with one hand, and floated gently towards the other.


    I ground my teeth. ¡°Listen, Ctesibius, I¡¯m¡­¡± I looked at my O2 read. ¡°¡­already three hours in this suit, which is longer than I¡¯ve spent in one in years. I¡¯ve been assaulted twice, kidnapped, extorted once and counting. There¡¯s nothing I want more than to get out of here. Whatever business you have with me, please, let¡¯s get on with it.¡±


    ¡°Maybe if you took another moment to calm down¡ª¡±


    ¡°I just want to get out of here. I¡¯m way over my head, and if Diocletian wasn¡¯t completely bullshitting me, you can still fuck my life up even if I do make it out alive. So please, just tell me what you want and give me something to replace the skipper somebody just decided to blow up.¡±


    ¡°Somebody?¡± she said, confused. ¡°Oh, didn¡¯t you realize who was behind the explosion? That was us,¡± she said, as if she was just clarifying a misunderstanding, not possibly confessing to my attempted murder.


    ¡°You did what?¡± A spray of spittle hit the inside of my visor. ¡°Why?¡± My fists clenched; my elbows bent. I barely stopped myself from grabbing and shaking her.


    ¡°Ctesibius needed you to get here to make a deal. We knew Diocletian would give you their rocket, and all we¡¯ll have to do is listen and kill your rocket at the right timi-¡±


    ¡°They could have killed me!¡± I swung one arm so wildly that my boots left the floor. ¡°I would have been murdered for a single breath! You¡¯re the reason I¡¯m in this shitty situation!¡± My eyes jittered; my breath stuck in my throat. I wanted to smack her, and with cold clarity I realized that I could¡ªshe was unarmed, smaller than me. If I jumped her, I might have managed to get a hold before she used the jetpack. I couldn¡¯t put my hands around her throat with the base of the helmet in the way, but I could probably improvise something -


    Just as the thought crystalized in my mind, Third appeared at the corner of my eye. She was watching me carefully with the long rifle in her arms, her stance seemingly casual, but alert. I forced myself to take a deep breath, then another. I needed to think if I didn¡¯t want to die. That was the thing I needed to remember: not dying. I would be able to forget all of this in a week or in a year. Could these people say the same? At the corner of my visor, the seconds kept ticking down with each breath.


    ¡°Yes, we blocked your exit out of this place,¡± First said, looking straight into my eyes. ¡°Twice. Now we¡¯re offering you another one. Do you want to take it or not?¡±


    When I spoke, I did so very slowly, afraid that my voice would betray how close I was to losing it. ¡°Just tell me one thing. ¡°Was it you? Did you blow up my skipper?¡±


    ¡°I told you, it was Ctesibius that¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, not Ctesibius. Not ¡®we¡¯. Was it you, personally?¡±


    She moved away, putting distance between us. ¡°No, my predecessor. He dedicated his last breaths on that task, and exploded with the charge. He died alone up there, sacrificing everything he had to make sure that we could provide you with a ride, later on.¡±


    ¡°Wow,¡± said Second, heard through the comm even though he wasn¡¯t in sight. ¡°So much for Ctesibius as a cohesive entity. Might as well tell him the whole thing.¡±


    ¡°For the love of God, Second: Shut up, and stick to the plan.¡±


    She seemed so weak suddenly, so overburdened. To think that I¡¯d almost hurt her, for a crime that someone else had committed. To think that she, for some reason, had decided to take credit for it. ¡°Is this a part of the plan?¡± I asked.


    She shook her head. ¡°We were supposed to become friends first. But that isn¡¯t really our forte. We¡¯re more technically oriented.¡±


    ¡°I figured.¡±


    ¡°But I want you to know that letting you die here was never a part of the plan. You will get home safe. That¡¯s a promise, and Ctesibius never break their promises. How¡¯s it going, Third?¡± First changed the subject quickly.


    ¡°The rocket¡¯s finished. It works fine,¡± she said proudly. I couldn¡¯t understand how she could feel anything but terror and despair. How could she even focus enough to finish the thing, knowing it won¡¯t save her?


    ¡°Not surprised in the least,¡± First said, smiling. ¡°Surly Anaxagoras will be pleased. Go back to the entrance; we¡¯re expecting company very soon, but ask Second to bring you something to do in the meanwhile. Maybe you could help him understand that springs are a perfectly good way to power a spear gun.¡±


    Second interrupted on comm. ¡°I¡¯m on it, ok?¡±


    Third nodded and turned towards the exit, but didn¡¯t leave. First turned to look at me.


    Move, a tiny voice said inside of me. I could barely hear it over the blood rushing in my ears. Stop waiting for others. If you want to live, move. ¡°What do you even need me for?¡±


    ¡°Do you really want to know?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± I said, and realized I wasn¡¯t lying. ¡°You¡¯re spending your last hours doing hard, tiring work. You¡¯ve been doing this for a long time. There has to be a reason.¡±


    ¡°There is,¡± she said, and a smile spread across her face. ¡°Come see it.¡±


    ¡°Give it a break,¡± Second said as he floated into the room, and picked up a sheet of sandpaper from one of the shelves. ¡°We¡¯re extorting the man, trying to be friendly isn¡¯t going to change that. He wouldn¡¯t understand, anyway.¡± There was a similar tone of guardedness, there. As if the subject was personal.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough. I¡¯m still in charge here. Honor thy father and thy mother, so that thy days may be long.¡±


    He looked at Third, who was looking back at him with confusion in her eyes, and decided to remain silent. Not for fear of Third¡¯s rifle, I realized. He was afraid of her ears, of her taking his example and treating him later on like he had treated First. He made a small gesture with his head and clicked his tongue, and they both left the room.


    First looked at me, a glint of hope in her eyes. She braced herself against a wall, found an underhold and lifted it with ease, revealing an opening to a dark cavern, out of the reach of the lighting in the main hall. She fumbled with two wires that hung by the entrance, and the smaller room was bathed in white light.


    The smaller room contained just one construct, though it hardly brought the word ¡®egg¡¯ to mind: vaguely oval, though studded with edges of metal beams welded together, with some surfaces covered by patches of suit and tape, others with glass, in what almost seemed like a window. On the inside was a padded couch and two large glass, rectangular cubes, like aquariums, reinforced with metal at the edges. The entire thing was shorter than a person, about as wide as too, and had just one hatch, laying open, almost too small for a human to pass through. That was it.


    ¡°A ship for one person,¡± she said with quiet pride. ¡°The solar panels aren¡¯t finished yet, but they would fit here, and here, and here, and this is a window for sunlight to come in and feed the algae. The second aquarium is for fungi to treat human waste before the minerals are reintroduced to the algae. It¡¯s far from being luxurious, we agree, but it¡¯s much better than choking on Ceres¡¯s Everdark.¡±


    There was enough room inside for one person, if they didn¡¯t stand, or try to spread their arms. An agonizingly small space, like some medieval torture device. I took a step closer, morbidly curious.


    ¡°Ctesibius do wish for you to get home. But if you do anything to hurt this project, we will kill you.¡± There was no anger in her voice, but no doubt either. ¡°We get that you¡¯re pissed, but don¡¯t take it out on the Egg.¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡± I was getting used to people suggesting that killing me was an option. ¡°How long could someone live in there?¡±


    She placed a gentle hand on the frame. ¡°Decades, assuming we were provided with standard protein-and-vitamin-enhanced algae. Perhaps until natural death, if it were lucky enough to avoid collisions. There used to be a time when algae would degrade in quality, and mutants that produced less vitamins were fitter and thus took over the population, but they did this cool thing where the algae themselves are dependent on the vitamins so if they stop producing it, they die and¡­¡± She took a deep breath, reorienting herself. ¡°Years, at the very least.¡±


    ¡°Did you learn that on the inside, or did somebody tell you that here?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the wrong question,¡± she shook her finger, didactive.


    ¡°What¡¯s the right question?¡±


    ¡°Do Ctesibius know? And the answer is yes.¡±


    Again, that tenacious devotion to the line. I looked at the egg again, tried to imagine that voyage as anything other than a perfect nightmare, and failed. ¡°What will you do up there?¡±


    ¡°Not us. Ctesibius will have to stay down here. Whoever we send up there won¡¯t be a part of any line; they¡¯ll take whatever name they came with up to orbit.¡±


    ¡°But what for? What will they do up there?¡±


    ¡°Survive! Can¡¯t you see how grand that is?¡± She stepped away from the hatch, her eyes shining with a light that didn¡¯t seem entirely natural. ¡°The whole point is to refuse their verdict, to show that out here, sentenced to death, Line Ctesibius still managed to think ahead, to extend their mission, to have hope; or better yet, faith! And we did it for a stranger. It¡¯s our way to present the largest middle finger we can imagine to the Shadow Man, to a government that tosses its own citizens out to drown in darkness and despair. To everyone who thought they¡¯d beaten us, and would take away our humanity. Were you aware that Ctesibius is the first line? It¡¯s this vision that gave purpose to a place that they intended to be nothing but a human-disposal.¡±


    I nodded, not particularly interested in confronting her that each line I¡¯ve met so far insisted they were the first line.


    ¡°You¡¯re not convinced.¡± There was genuine hurt in her voice; it scared me to hear it.


    ¡°I wish I were.¡±


    ¡°It would have been better if you were, but it¡¯s not necessary. What we need you to do is send us four kilos of algae and fungi each, the kind you can get at any store, any flavor is fine. Dried and frozen is adequate, but double check that it isn¡¯t precooked, because that won¡¯t work. You could deliver it personally, or you could send a drone with the package. Again, four kilos of algae and fungi, eight kilos total.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all you want from me?¡±


    ¡°The panels will be done soon, and we¡¯ll find a way to get the gas out of the jetpack.¡± She stopped, hesitated, turned to me again. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about that, by the way. I truly am.¡±


    ¡°I believe you,¡± I said. I did.


    ¡°There¡¯s one more thing, actually.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°The remote control for your shuttle. If you don¡¯t have any use for it, it would save us the trouble of building another remote from scratch.¡±


    Why not? I opened the Velcro of my pocket and pulled out the small, now useless object. I recalled how Anaxagoras had decided on a whim to give it to me, thinking it would permit me to live. If I did make it out of here, I¡¯d remember that above anything else, with or without the object itself, long after the man who¡¯d given it to me had had his suit cut open by loving hands. I tossed it slowly at Ctesibius, who caught it mid-flight.


    ¡°I¡¯m assuming you¡¯re going to give me another rocket?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll explain in due time. Don¡¯t worry.¡±


    Why was it so hard to get a straight answer, here? Even blowing up my shuttle had a purpose, but this just seemed petty; needlessly cruel. For a moment I considered kicking the Egg, or ripping apart the delicate circuitry with my hands. Would it be apt revenge for constantly keeping me in the dark? It didn¡¯t matter. This woman was going to die soon, and it didn¡¯t make sense to take revenge on the Ctesibius that had already died. None of it made any sense.


    ¡°It¡¯s time we returned,¡± she said and turned to leave. ¡°Electricity¡¯s being wasted here.¡±


    ¡°Are you also going to threaten me?¡± I asked, as I followed her out of the room. ¡°If I don¡¯t hold up my end of the deal?¡± From around the corner, Second and Third could be heard, speaking softly.


    She untangled the wires, killing the lights, then lifted the fake wall from the floor and placed it gently against the opening, unconcerned about turning her back to me. It slid perfectly into place, leaving no hint of what¡¯s hidden behind. ¡°Unfortunately, yes,¡± she said as she turned around. ¡°Looking at you now we trust you, but we don¡¯t trust the person you¡¯ll be tomorrow, once you¡¯re breathing freely on the inside. We imagine that Diocletian acted similarly.¡±


    ¡°Diocletian¡­¡± I looked at her, realizing what I¡¯d forgotten. ¡°You expect me to follow through on their deal and yours?¡±


    ¡°Forget about Diocletian¡¯s threats. Ctesibius will take care of it.¡± She started moving towards the main hall, and I followed her.


    ¡°What are you going to do?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re going to explain the situation, calmly and plainly. We have superior claims, superior weapons, and it seems that they have even less to offer us than we thought. They won¡¯t be pleased, but they¡¯ll see reason.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but recall the way Diocletian¡¯s boot went up into Third¡¯s stomach, striking without any warning. If they were going to come over here to hash things out, I¡¯d rather be somewhere else when they did.


    She chuckled, and for a moment seemed very similar to Diocletian; but as the moment passed the difference became clear¡ªshe chuckled at herself, in embarrassment, not as some display of control. ¡°Could you imagine that we spent a lot of time talking about you? Not you, specifically, but The Visitor, when they came. Trying to plan how to manage you, we expected you to be smug, condescending to the executionees.¡± She wrinkled her nose at the made-up word. ¡°But here you are, cooperative to the point of submission.¡± She chuckled again and turned away from me before I managed to decipher her expression. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she whispered. "For what we¡¯re doing to you.¡±


    Second chimed in, heard around the corner. ¡°Easy on the I word. We need him to think of Ctesibius as a single entity, if we want his compliance on the inside.¡±


    I entered the main hall and saw him once again crouched on top of the pile of electronics, even though his helmet wasn¡¯t connected to anything. ¡°Is that why you talk about yourselves as ¡®Ctesibius¡¯, and not as individual people? So you can make threats and promises?¡±


    When he lifted his eyes from the piece of metal he was using the sandpaper on, looking down at me, he seemed focused, coherent like a laser beam. ¡°The lines weren¡¯t invented with you in mind, if they were invented at all. You want these kinds of answers, you follow the tracks southward to Pythia. But Ctesibius have always been pragmatic. The system works because day-old entities can¡¯t plan ahead, but lines can, and that¡¯s good enough for us.¡± First smiled.


    Third¡¯s voice came on the radio, from the entry point that she was guarding. ¡°But does that really work? I mean¨C¡±


    ¡°Enough,¡± First said, softly but firmly. ¡°Second¡¯s right. This isn¡¯t Pythia¡¯s shuttle, most of all right now. Third, I need you to stay focused, and keep guard. Second, it doesn¡¯t look like you¡¯re going to finish the spear gun, so be a dear and get both of us rifles before they get here. You,¡± She turned to me again. ¡°We should get you on your way before anything else comes up.¡±


    We all straightened, even Second in his crouch, even I who had nothing to do with the line and its order. Third made an approving sound, still out of sight, seemingly pleased that things returned to their natural order, but her tone changed when she spoke. ¡°Do you guys hear that?¡± I didn¡¯t. ¡°Sounds like two people, just outside of the tunnel.¡±


    ¡°So soon?¡± First¡¯s eyes moved to the corner of her visor. ¡°They must have really legged it. Prepare yourself, Ctesibius: we are going to witness history in the making.¡± She looked back at me, and her expression changed to one of impatience. ¡°We told you not to worry. They¡¯re going to present us with their scariest faces, trying to impress on us how insane with rage they¡¯ve gone so we¡¯d give them more concessions than they¡¯re worth. But they aren¡¯t. No one survives this long without reason.¡±


    #


    Ctesibius are lucky: Everything¡¯s falling into place, just like they planned. True, for a moment they were on the verge of going insane, fracturing, but the coming of Diocletian focused them, united them to a cohesive whole.


    Ctesibius reach the end of the hall, The Visitor at their heels, and peer into the tunnel. It is empty except for the shadows of their helmets stretching forward on the floor and walls. They can see the platform right at the end of the tunnel, faintly lit by the open sky, empty. Behind it, far away, they glimpse the crater, shifting in shades of gray as the sky changes. They stand there and wait, watching.


    Eventually a hand rises from below the platform to grab at the edge. Another three follow, and soon Diocletian throw themselves over, slowly enough not to drift too high, and smoothly continue into a walk.


    Diocletian shuffle in unison into the tunnel, squinting at the light, kicking at the walls at an even pace. Slowly, compared to what they must be capable of to have gotten here so fast. The blades are clasped at their sides, one for him, two for her, their edges gleaming greenish in the electric-yellow light. The expressions on their flushed faces, a grin for one and a blankness for the other, are as cold and sharp as their blades.


    ¡°No weapons past this point, Diocletian,¡± Ctesibius say. ¡°Stop where you stand, and put down your knives.¡±


    Diocletian keep approaching, their pace unchanged, their weapons dangling beside them.


    ¡°We¡¯re very insistent on this policy, I¡¯m afraid,¡± Ctesibius add, and lift their rifles to eye level.


    Diocletian stop a dozen steps from them, each by a different wall, grabbing on to a hand or foothold to stop their momentum without falling over. They stand there silently, inspecting. One Diocletian looks at The Visitor, and the tiniest wrinkle appears above his nose. The other¡¯s gaze follows, and her smile widens to a wolf¡¯s grin.


    ¡°Diocletian,¡± Ctesibius say as they lower the muzzles of their rifles. ¡°There¡¯s no need for this show. Do you expect us to believe you¡¯d risk your precious immortality by bringing literal knives to a gun fight? And knives that we forged for you, no less. We implore you to discuss this. We¡¯re certain a deal can be made that leaves everyone content. Again, for no one¡¯s sake but your own, Diocletian, put the knives down and let us speak.¡±


    Shrugging silently, Diocletian unclasp the blades from their belts and let them drop slowly in the micro¡ªg. Everyone can hear The Visitor¡¯s sigh of relief.


    ¡°You knew about the appeal, didn¡¯t you?¡± Diocletian ask, smiling coldly.


    ¡°We did.¡±


    ¡°You knew what this would mean to me.¡± The pitch of her voice rises by the tiniest fraction.


    ¡°Me¡­¡± Ctesibius consider their words for a second before proceeding. ¡°We mourn hearing you use that word, Diocletian. It should be about us, not about me.¡±


    ¡°What it should be about is not dying. Everything else is a waste of time.¡±


    ¡°Word of advice, Diocletian. Whatever we decide here won¡¯t last forever. This is not a threat. You were right: we do need you to break the Law, if only so we¡¯ll have some leverage over you. But if you cannot play this smart, no one will ever remember Line Diocletian.¡±


    ¡°Fucking lunatics,¡± one Diocletian whispers to the other. ¡°Calm down,¡± says the other in response. ¡°You¡¯re losing it. I¡¯ll talk. Ctesibius, you took something that is ours, and the equipment you gave us as part of a deal had been deliberately sabotaged. That¡¯s theft and betrayal.¡±


    ¡°As far as we¡¯re concerned, Diocletian, we took nothing from you. The rocket was never intended for the kind of distance you were counting on. You sent this man to a journey an eighth of Ceres¡¯s circumference long with a tool designed to cover forty kilometers between recharges. The most likely outcome would have been him getting suborbital velocity before the propellant ran out, and even if he¡¯d somehow managed to reach the airlock, he¡¯d have done so with deadly speed.¡±


    The Visitor turns from Ctesibius to Diocletian and back, the panic clear on his face.


    ¡°It¡¯s not as unlikely as you make it sound, but let¡¯s not beat around. You must have a better way to send him back. Something tells me you had no plans for him to keep his deal with us, even though it would cost you nothing.¡±


    ¡°Nothing? Imagine, Diocletian, how suspicious he would have looked coming back from the most boring trip anyone ever took, appealing in the name of someone thrown out of the interior days ago, and suddenly buying great amounts of supplies. You must have heard of the Shadow Man. Pythia say the stories trace a very clear image.¡±


    Diocletian bend down, and a wave of tension goes through Ctesibius for a moment, and passes when she picks up a piece of discarded trash from the floor, a paper-thin rectangle of some metal. They examine it, pretending to be bored. ¡°We are very much aware of the concept,¡± Diocletian say bitterly, ¡°even without Pythia¡¯s theories.¡±


    ¡°You really should pay them a visit. They can be really helpful, and it looks suspicious when you don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps when we set up a new Line Pythia, hmm?¡± Diocletian smile, but Ctesibius¡¯s expression turns into a snarl.


    ¡°Don¡¯t throw away everything we worked for. This can still work; we just have to update the deal.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s hear your offer, then. We,¡± Diocletian say as if offering Ctesibius a gift just by saying the word, ¡°are listening.¡±


    ¡°The Visitor will return inside using our¡­¡± Ctesibius smile, and look at The Visitor, deciding to keep the secret to themselves a little longer. ¡°¡­Vehicle. He¡¯ll send us the supplies we asked for. After he receives confirmation from us that the delivery reached its destination, he may appeal in your name, or, if he has any wits about him, pay someone else to do so to put one more step between him and the Shadow Man. In the meantime, you and us will complete our earlier deal, to¡­ restructure Last Day town.¡±


    The visitor glances at Ctesibius, perhaps recognizing the sound of murder in their voice.


    Diocletian look at each other for a long moment. She nods, finally, and he, after a slight hesitation, nods in return.


    Ctesibius sigh with relief and smile, ¡°See,¡± they say, ¡°All it takes is communication, and-¡±


    Diocletian flick the piece of debris at Ctesibius, so fast it takes everyone by surprise. Then they dive for their blades.

 Pythia I

    Estimated oxygen time: 21:29:47


    There was no sign that Diocletian were about to attack. One moment everything seemed fine, and the next Diocletian threw one blade at Third, flicking her wrist as it left her hand, twisting. The other jumped up at the exact same instant, his boots aimed at the ceiling.


    Third just barely put her rifle in the path of the blade, blocking, but it shattered on impact into shrapnel, cutting her suit. I heard the whisper of escaping oxygen on comm, and her face twisted as she realized her suit had been punctured in multiple places. She pressed down on a cut on her forearm with her other hand and screamed, one syllable of fear and anger and unfairness, lamenting that she had just got here, that she didn¡¯t want to leave, and that she was afraid of the place she was going to.


    Diocletian descended on Third and struck, making sure his blade touched nothing but suit and soft flesh. The rest of Ctesibius opened fire, but they were surprised and confused. They really hadn¡¯t believed this would happen.


    Diocletian, on the other hand, seemed right in their element as they threw Third¡¯s flailing body at the shooters, blocking their paths.


    I fled back into the cave, my helmet bursting with wordless yelling. My boots lost traction and I found myself barely scraping the floor. I crashed against some shelves, knocking down unfinished machines, and pushed myself away, only to collide with another wall. I managed to stop my tumbling, and focused on going through the piles of makeshift tools to figure out what I could use. Diocletian were coming for me, I knew. They might just send me on my way, but if the rocket wasn¡¯t strong enough to make the way back, they might just kill me out of spite. Who could predict the actions of people in this situation? Ctesibius¡¯s First screamed, her voice clear inside my helmet, tortured by pain, fear, and regret. Why the hell didn¡¯t she tell me where their ride was?


    I picked up one half-built device after another, not understanding their function or whether they were even complete. Something that looked like a syringe, something that might have been a pneumatic hammer¡­how was I supposed to know which one to choose? It was hard to think, hard to breathe. Eventually I recognized the bubble Third had been working on, still full of gas and resting by the wall. I wrestled to get a hold of it, and finally opened the zipper. A gentle gust of gas blew against my hand as I opened it. Third said that she had finished it, right? I pulled the rocket out, peeling off the deflated bubble. It was much like the rocket Diocletian had given me.


    I knew that it wouldn¡¯t take me back to the civilian airlock, but maybe it would be enough to take me through the narrow entrance tunnel of the cave. The kill-switch was in here somewhere, and I hoped that Ctesibius would have had no reason, or time, to tamper with my escape.


    All that was left now was making the way out. There was only one entrance, one exit. I had to make it through the tunnel. I picked up the rocket and hugged it close, my hands finding the familiar grips.


    The radio was still loud with grunts, war cries, screams of terror and violence. Even shaking with fear a part of me realized that was the better option¡ªif it had quieted down, I¡¯d have been in real trouble.


    I pressed myself against the wall and pushed as hard as I could towards the tunnel, switching on the rocket midway. Diocletian had First on her back against the floor; she was trying to push him off with her rifle, to block him, but he was sawing into her shoulder with the frozen metal. She looked at me, her eyes open wide and pleading, her face covered in sweat, grunting through her teeth. He turned, following her gaze, his eyes as dark and sharp as ever. She pulled a scalpel from her belt, taking advantage of the opening, and sliced the inside of his arm. He fell back in a spray of blood and air, but didn¡¯t make a sound.


    Ctesibius¡¯s Second was swinging a torch¡ªmy torch¡ªwildly, trying to scorch the other Diocletian with the violet-blue flame, his expression more animated than I have ever seen, bloodshot eyes wide open, clenched teeth barred.


    Diocletian danced out of his reach, using Third¡¯s body as a shield, letting the blade stick out from safety like a Roman soldier. She was equally animated and quick, but far more focused, practiced. She was blocking his exit¡ªour exit¡ªbut it was too late for me to change course.


    The movement of her eye, the recognition, came only an instant before she swung the sharp metal my way, reptillianly quick. I just barely managed to put the vessel between us, turning the rocket upwards in hope of shattering her blade, and just as quickly as she swung the weapon she pulled it away, protecting it from the impact, and I sailed past her unharmed.


    Ctesibius¡¯s Second leapt past the distracted Diocletian and made for the exit.


    I burst out of the cave in a wild upward arc. Pointing the rocket up had me spinning around myself, and as hard as I tried I couldn¡¯t get it under control, on the contrary¡ªthe more thrust I applied, the more I got turned around. By the time I figured out how to correct it I was already twisting too quickly to understand where I was going. The world was a spinning tapestry, spiraling around me, dark rock-gray and bright starlit-gray chasing each other until dark gray grew and grew, signifying that I was coming down fast.


    In an uncharacteristic stroke of common sense, I kicked the rocket away from me, just a second before the impact came, knocking the air out of my lungs. The rocket crashed, breaking into a cloud of fragments. I bounced, rolling as I flew, managing to catch only glimpses of what was happening around me in the moments between impacts, trying unsuccessfully to turn myself to a position that would make the next impact less painful.


    Finally, I came to a stop, lying on my back against the jagged rock. I didn¡¯t move, didn¡¯t breathe¡ªjust listened for any escaping oxygen, any alarms, any heavy breathing on comm from someone chasing me. It took my life support a moment to stop its soft whistles as the oxygen inside the suit rose to the highest level. The sky stood in front of me, the perfect immensity of light unmarred by an atmosphere, as I listened to the blessed silence interrupted only by my own heart beating in my ears. Most Ceresians never got to see this view, I realized. Most humans never will.


    I allowed myself to take in a staggered breath, and silently thanked whoever designed the extra protection into my suit. If I¡¯d been in one of the lowest-bidder-grade suits the residents of Last Day Town were given, I don¡¯t think it would have held. Hell, mine wouldn¡¯t have if I¡¯d landed on a slightly sharper rock. I almost died, I thought, and the thought wasn¡¯t that shocking anymore. It¡¯s amazing how quickly we adapt.


    I lay there a moment more and let my breathing calm down, my aching body recover. The timer was still counting down at the side of my visor, the numbers glaring at me, relentless. No time to rest while the clock¡¯s ticking.


    I rose to my feet slowly, examining the damage to my body. Everything hurt, but the aches were manageable, the kind you get from bruises, not fractures. Lucky, considering I¡¯d landed on a patch of rock that had surprisingly thin layer of dust to soften the impact.


    Not a patch, I realized as I inspected my surroundings, but a path, drawn where the bootsteps and rocket thrusts cleared away the dust, leading away from Ctesibius. The silhouette of the cliff stood against the stars. I figured the path led roughly south-east, where Ctesibius¡¯s Second had pointed. I wondered for a moment if his escape had been successful before realizing how stupid that was. What kind of escape could he hope for, if he was still trapped in a bag that held only a couple of hours¡¯ worth of oxygen?


    And I¡¯d find myself in the same situation if I didn¡¯t manage to find a way back. I examined my options with a clarity I haven¡¯t felt in years: Going back to Ctesibius¡¯s cliff seemed dangerous; there would be no one there but Diocletian, and I wanted to be as far from them as possible. If Ctesibius escapes, I¡¯ll finish my oxygen before I have a chance to find him. I could hide here in the darkness, but that wouldn¡¯t get me back inside before my oxygen ran out.


    I looked at the path stretching in front of me, all the way to the southernmost part of the crater. Right at the edge, where the inclined wall of the crater met the plain above, something glinted, reflecting the asteroid-light like glass. One visor would not have made a reflection large enough to see from so far away¡ªit had to be something else, and from the way it was propped up just looking down at the crater, I got the distinct feeling that it was there to be seen, to beckon.


    Pythia might still know something that I didn¡¯t. I clung to that hope, and took the first leaping, aching step towards that climb.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 20:10:02


    When I finally climbed out of the crater, reaching what felt like the top of a hundred-meter-tall wall, I grabbed the edge with both hands and threw myself over it, flying into a somersault that had me landing clumsily on my back. I lay there and watched my estimated oxygen time shorten with each breath.


    The climb had proven surprisingly difficult, even in the almost-zero G, and wasted an unbelievable amount of time¡ªfirst I¡¯d tried climbing slowly, which turned out to be practically impossible without slipping down, then tried charging up the wall, which had taken at least dozen tries, each misstep sending me back all of the way down. Several times I¡¯d found myself at the bottom of the cliff, exhausted and ready to give up. But what would I have done if I¡¯d given up? Wait for either the oxygen to run out or Diocletian to space me?


    Again and again the image of her one eye turning as she attempted to slash me had come up in my mind, haunting. There had been no hate in it, no rage burning uncontrollably, just a cold decision to kill, for whatever reason it was that Ctesibius failed to predict.


    Eventually I¡¯d found the rhythm of ascension, and managed to throw myself over the edge, my body even more sore than before. Presently something stood ahead of me in the darkness¡ªthe same reflective orb that I¡¯d seen from below. It was standing on some sort of bulky pedestal, clearly man-made, thin and tall against the backdrop of faraway rocky ridges, but the sky frustratingly offered almost no light and I could make no sense of the silhouette. I was just getting up when I thought I heard something, out of place and strange¡ªand so faint I wasn¡¯t sure that I had not imagined it. I stood silent, holding my breath and waiting for my life support to quiet down. Finally, I heard it clearly¡ªSinging. People singing. Two, I realized, harmonizing a slow, simple lament. What is it about people singing together, that brings so much comfort? Even a savage song like this. Is it that among people that sing together, no enmity can live? That if a harmony of one kind exists, others might as well?


    I wanted to see them, to hear the song up close. I kicked off the rock and set off toward the glass orb.


    By the time I reached the structure, the singing had stopped. An asteroid rose above the horizon, so large it seemed bigger than Ceres itself. It passed slowly above us, its sunlit surface filling a third of the sky, the reflected light turning the hills from a unified, dark mass to a horde of distinct cliffs and vast, wild plains; turning each crater into a bowl of shadow.


    The man-made structure towered above me, so bright I could hardly look at it directly, but I still glimpsed what it was. A statue of a person, five meters tall, metal beams visible through the material that made the mock-suit it wore. Its pose was triumphant: one crudely-made hand hung over the sheet of glass, a thousand round shards glued together into something that resembled a visor fit for the helmet of a five-meter tall man, as if it was protecting his eyes from the light. It stood on top of a shuttle that must have crashed here a long time ago, a medium-sized vehicle meant to carry six people at most. Pythia¡­ How many people had poured their final hours into this?


    By the statue¡¯s feet, two figures were sitting facing one another, holding hands and swaying from side to side. They were draped in suit material, formed into crude, hooded robes they wore over their suits, covering the shapes of their bodies and shrouding their helmets in darkness.


    The singers started again, chanting in droning, meditative voices. They sang -


    In the shadow of the world,


    You see the true forms,


    You are stripped of the lies


    Of the story of your life,


    In the shadow of the world,


    You see its true form,


    The shadow of your lies,


    Is truth.


    The shadow of my life,


    Is you.


    They stopped, still holding hands. One hood turned towards me, then the other. I stood beneath them, but it wasn¡¯t like they were looking down at me, more like they were children sitting on a tree¡¯s branches, not yet willing to come down.


    ¡°Don¡¯t stop on my account,¡± I said. As long as they sang, I could almost forget everything else.


    ¡°You came just in time for the ending,¡± a feminine, relatively low voice answered, and one of the figures moved slightly. As my eyes adjusted, I saw she was a tall woman, and that something in her movements telegraphed lean strength, even under two layers of suit. They let go of each other¡¯s hands and she turned to me fully, pulling off the hood and revealing a face seemingly built for stern expressions. Now, though, it carried a soft one. ¡°Pythia welcome you,¡± she said.


    ¡°Nice suit,¡± said the other. He pulled off his hood as well and I saw the chubby face of a man, a puffy beard crowding the inside of his helmet. ¡°Are you the visitor from the inside we heard about?¡± Both of their voices and faces had a tranquility to them¡ªnothing like Diocletian and Ctesibius¡¯s intensity, and softer than Anaxagoras¡¯s nonchalant rudeness.


    ¡°Not sure that¡¯s accurate, anymore.¡±


    Her bright eyes showed understanding, while his dark ones squinted in confusion. ¡°How so?¡±


    ¡°Visiting implies leaving.¡± I left it at that, waiting for the snarky remark that was sure to come.


    ¡°How unfortunate,¡± the woman said, her voice surprising me with its genuine sympathy.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± added the other. ¡°That¡¯s a fucked-up situation. What happened?¡± And I was filled with an awful sense of shame, that these people, who had less than a day left to live, were comforting me. Something in me softened, just a little.


    ¡°Does line Pythia have a rocket? I could trade you oxygen for it, for any kind of transportation¡­¡±


    ¡°Pythia don¡¯t have anything but the robes on our backs, a confession chamber,¡± she gestured at the bent, scraped form of the shuttle, ¡°and a beacon.¡± Her eyes rose to the statue above her. ¡°What happened?¡±


    I turned to her. ¡°When I ran, Diocletian were attacking Ctesibius. One of Ctesibius might have escaped, but if not, the whole line is dead. Maybe one of Diocletian died, but either way, I think Diocletian made it, and it¡¯s a matter of time until they¡¯re here, either to give me a rocket or to finish me off. They tried to kill me, as I was running away. The state they were in¡­ I¡¯m not so sure you¡¯re safe either.¡±


    This time he did burst into laughter, and she smiled, chuckling. ¡°No,¡± he said, ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re very safe here.¡±


    ¡°Come on,¡± she said as she saw my expression, her face an invitation, an inclusion. ¡°You have to admit it¡¯s a little funny.¡±


    I didn¡¯t. It wasn¡¯t. ¡°I¡¯m not just talking about you, everything you do here¡­¡± I started to say, realizing halfway what I said wasn¡¯t making any sense.


    ¡°Line Pythia was never afraid of dying. As people we waver, but the line never lost sight of what¡¯s important.¡±


    ¡°And honestly,¡± the man added, ¡°If I have to go, I¡¯d rather it be a violent death, an abrupt punctuation and not a fade-out, lying in bed and whispering, ¡®I love you¡¯s. I mean, I¡¯ve never even been in a fight!¡±


    ¡°Third,¡± the woman said, the single word not an admonishment, but guidance, pulling him back onto the right track.


    ¡°Shit, Second, sorry. Anyways, yes, it is a real tragedy,¡± he continued, ¡°not just the people who had their last day needlessly cut short, and had to spend their time in senseless conflict, but that Diocletian broke the truce. I don¡¯t know what Last Day Town will transform into, with either of the lines gone; with the order shaken.¡±


    ¡°Even if everything falls apart,¡± Second said, ¡°a new equilibrium will form, in its own time. It happened once; it will happen again. Pythia remember. Unless they kill all of us, Pythia will remember this as well.¡±


    ¡°And if they do?¡±


    Right under the statue¡¯s foot, the shuttle door opened¡ªor rather, was removed, as it had no hinges. A man stepped out, heavy-set and tall, holding a rocket in one hand. ¡°You.¡± He turned to me. ¡°You¡¯re still here.¡± I recognized him too: Anaxagoras¡¯s Third, the newcomer.


    ¡°The rocket,¡± I said before I could articulate anything more profound. ¡°I need it to get back inside¡ª¡±


    ¡°Diocletian is finally waging war,¡± the bearded man cut in, catching Anaxagoras¡¯s attention. ¡°They were fighting Ctesibius, and Anaxagoras might be next.¡±


    ¡°Fucking coldbloods!¡± The large man instantly turned north and whipped himself into a sprint, his movements full of fury and violence. ¡°We knew it. I¡¯ll break their fucking necks!¡±


    ¡°Wait!¡± I yelled after him while trying to propel myself forward, to grab on to him. ¡°The rocket!¡±


    Already in a crouch, he jumped into space, barely giving me a glance, and threw himself towards the crater¡¯s edge, hugging the vehicle. I came to a stop and looked after him as he went, my skin covered in goosebumps.


    Another man climbed out of the shuttle, wearing a robe, like the other Pythia, who were by now climbing down from the shuttle. He pulled back the hood, revealing a face that shone with brave acceptance, and looked around. Pythia¡¯s Third landed beside him. ¡°First! The visitor¡ª¡±


    First raised a hand, and Third fell silent. ¡°Look,¡± he said, and I followed his gaze. Anaxagoras was flying in a wild spiral, coming down to the rock to kick off again, gaining even more speed before he dived into the crater. ¡°See how beautiful he is. How full of meaning. Not empty; not confused. He knows exactly where to be, what to do. We should all pray to be so lucky.¡± He turned to me and examined my suit, my face, deep concentration in his green eyes. ¡°Welcome, Visitor. Why did you come here?¡± There was genuine wonder in his voice.


    As Anaxagoras and his rocket flew out of sight it dawned on me how hopeless it all was. Even if Diocletian did find me here, they might try to kill me again. Even if I did manage to get my hands on a rocket, Ctesibius didn¡¯t think it would make much of a difference. The skipper was destroyed, and whatever ¡®ride¡¯ Ctesibius planned for me could practically be anywhere, whatever it was. What an idiot. Why had I come here? ¡°I needed to know,¡± I said.


    ¡°You could have flown by.¡±


    ¡°There was a guy I was looking for. An activist, who was thrown out here just after he let us know what was going on. He said he had an informant, and I had to find out who that informant was.¡±


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    His lips curled into the tiniest smile. Not gloating, but sharing in a familiar pain. ¡°Did you?¡±


    I glanced at the side of my visor display. ¡°No; I must have been too late. I haven¡¯t met anyone by that name. Maybe you¡¯ve met Arik Rosen without even knowing it.¡±


    He laughed, a natural sound, without bitterness. ¡°You know that residents aren¡¯t allowed to talk about their former lives outside of confession, right?¡±


    ¡°I heard. What¡¯s so funny?¡± I turned to look at the others, who were failing to hide their amusement, like children. As much as Diocletian¡¯s smugness angered me, and Ctesibius¡¯s forced friendliness was off-putting, this natural, genuine laughter was somehow worse.


    ¡°As the head of Line Pythia, I would like to extend a hand to you, a Visitor to Last Day Town, and offer a confession. Would you agree to enter the chamber? You might understand the joke if you do.¡±


    ¡°First!¡± the tall woman grabbed his hand as soon as she finished descending beside him. ¡°You have hardly minutes left¡ª" she said and winced, as if belatedly realizing how rude she was being. ¡°There¡¯s no time. And Diocletian may have started a war. They already attacked Ctesibius. Is this really the time to entertain a visitor?¡± There was no trace of her former, compassionate demeanor.


    He looked at the horizon for a moment, deliberating, and when he spoke he did so with resolute certainty. ¡°You¡¯re right. Third,¡± he gave his other hand to the man, who grabbed for it. ¡°You should disappear for as many hours as you can spare, and come back after Diocletian¡¯s blood lust has cooled. If they destabilize Last Day Town, it¡¯s going to need Pythia more than ever. Second, I don¡¯t think anyone is going to make it to the Recitation, so it¡¯s better that you stay here, to comfort whomever comes to see Pythia. They¡¯re going to need your help.¡± He stopped for a moment, as if going over the words again in his head, making sure he wasn¡¯t forgetting anything. Or maybe he was just thinking about the minutes he had left. ¡°Thank you for these final hours,¡± he said at last, giving each of them a long, piercing look. ¡°It wouldn¡¯t have been the same without you. Goodbye.¡±


    ¡°But First,¡± the bearded man said, his voice like a heartbroken child¡¯s, ¡°this is your time, and we wrote a poem. Won¡¯t you listen to it?¡±


    ¡°Someone needs to take care of this deeply confused man. But then again, it isn¡¯t right to let your poems go unheard. Visitor,¡± he turned to me, and the rest of Pythia followed. ¡°Will you listen to these poems after I¡¯m gone? You¡¯ll be able to remember them, when I will not.¡±


    ¡°I can try,¡± I said, not yet grasping fully what I was committing to. We were all going to die here. This was the least that I could do.


    They reluctantly let go of his hands as he turned from them to lift the broken shuttle door, and held it aside as if the hinges still worked, a semi-formal gesture as the two others stepped back, moving out of my way. I was about to enter when I saw something out of the corner of my eye that stopped me. Close now, I could see that the marks on the shuttle¡¯s side weren¡¯t scrapings made in a crash. They were letters, initials scratched into the metal in four neat lines. The rows went on and on, reaching the end of the shuttle and around it. Hundreds, maybe thousands of names. I hurried into the darkness of the shuttle to escape that image and its meaning.


    The inside was relatively spacious for two people, but not comfortable. I caught glimpses of places where electronics and couches used to be. Nothing useful had been left untouched.


    When he closed the door everything became perfectly dark, aside from the little lights on our faces from the numbers glowing on our own visor displays. A quiet followed¡ªThe noise I had hardly noticed in the background¨C the electrical hum from inside Ceres, and the distant roar of the stars themselves¡ªwent silent. I recalled something about the Faraday effect, how radio waves could be blocked if you encased something in metal, even just a net. Someone, at some point, had realized this broken shuttle was the closest thing they could find to a confession chamber.


    I looked at Pythia¡¯s First, the unhurried expression on his face. The last moments of his life, and possibly the last hours of the line¡ªIf you¡¯d have asked me five hours ago, I would have told you that I can¡¯t imagine a more dangerous person. But nothing in the way he moved, or in his voice, spoke of violence. Considering everything, I felt surprisingly safe, as if I could wait here for my own time to run out.


    When he started talking, the atmosphere felt intimate, like we were nothing but voices floating in the dark, and I felt a faint nostalgia for the sleepovers I¡¯d had as a child¡ªjust me and a good friend, contemplating the hard questions of life. ¡°We don¡¯t have much time,¡± he said, ¡°but I have to know. What do you want from me? Who are you?¡±


    ¡°My name is Yossi.¡± Wait, did he just say ¡®me¡¯? Finally, I realized. ¡°You¡¯re him, aren¡¯t you? Arik; Bar-Kochva?¡±


    ¡°I was,¡± he said, a smile in his voice. ¡°Which one of our little resistance are you¡ªAcher? Watchdog?¡±


    ¡°PaperTiger, actually.¡±


    ¡°PaperTiger, of all people,¡± he said and whistled. ¡°I would¡¯ve never expected you to get off your ass.¡± The remark would have been offensive anywhere else, but here, it barely pierced the surface. ¡°Why did you come here, then? Do you want to die?¡±


    ¡°People are dying out here,¡± I said. ¡°People are being thrown out, and we have to do whatever we can. Isn¡¯t that what you wrote? If that means writing blogs, I¡¯ll write a blog. If it means risking my life to get this information, I¡¯ll risk my life to get it. The people inside need to know what¡¯s going on out here.¡± I said the words, but I didn¡¯t feel the pride that usually came with them.


    ¡°Is that the truth?¡± he asked.


    ¡°There isn¡¯t time. These are your last moments.¡±


    ¡°Moments like any other; they aren¡¯t special. Tell me, and I¡¯ll tell you what you came here to hear. Will no one miss you if you died?¡±


    Despite what he said, I felt an undeniable compulsion to obey dying wishes, to answer a dying man¡¯s questions. ¡°Not anymore. I had a wife.¡±


    ¡°Did she leave?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Because of you?


    ¡°That¡¯s a difficult question.¡±


    ¡°Yes or no?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Were you fair to her?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    His focus was intense, scrutinizing. Even in the darkness. ¡°Were you cruel to her?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Did you know?¡±


    Did I know I was mean to her; what kind of question was that? I didn¡¯t have time to argue, I either understood what he meant, on a visceral level, or I didn¡¯t. And I did. ¡°I knew.¡±


    ¡°Is that why she left?¡±


    ¡°No. My son¡­¡± I wanted to look away, to find something to focus on, but there was only blackness; nothing to distract from the memories of a world that seemed so far away now.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°He died.¡±


    ¡°Your fault?¡±


    ¡°No one had a clue¡ªnot even the professionals we talked to.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t make excuses. Tell me what you know, in your deepest self, to be true. Was it your fault?¡±


    I managed to nod, and then to whisper, ¡°It was. God, it is.¡±


    ¡°So,¡± he said, with no judgment in his voice. ¡°Did you come here to die?¡±


    I clenched my teeth. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°Why did you come here?¡±


    ¡°I wanted to do something worth remembering. To be the guy you read about, that risked his life for something just because it was the right thing to do, and it actually made a difference.¡±


    ¡°And if you died?¡±


    ¡°What would it matter?¡± My voice rasped. My throat hurt, as if it were untrained in speaking truth. ¡°Who would care?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said. It didn¡¯t sound like he pitied me. If he had, it would just have made me angrier. ¡°I hope you¡¯ll have found this helpful when you¡¯re back inside.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t come here to get therapy.¡±


    ¡°No; you came to hear a story. This isn¡¯t Pythia¡¯s protocol, but I¡¯m going to tell you one, and I hope you can find it in yourself to believe it.¡±


    #


    Arik Rosen isn¡¯t scared to meet the informant, not exactly. It¡¯s a state of mind he has cultivated, honed; a version of fear he can work with. To himself, he calls it the Flow. A willingness to accept things as they happen, a temporary remission from his addiction to trying to control the future. It is only when he stops planning that Arik feels alive, real. If it turns violent, let there be violence; if he¡¯s caught and tortured, well, that¡¯s just the way it is, sometimes.


    He bets that this is a trap. He can¡¯t believe it¡¯ll go smoothly, without him being caught off guard; his intuition screams at him that there¡¯s something he hadn¡¯t figured out yet, some ace up a sleeve waiting to be drawn. But he¡¯s too determined to let it go. Whatever trap ensnares him, he¡¯ll deal with it, in time. So far, he always has.


    He enters the hotel at the center of its rotation, where there is almost no gravity, and takes the elevator to the third floor, pushed slightly to one side by the Coriolis effect. The lower he gets, the stronger the gravity gets, but he enjoys the pressure of the floor against his joints, even if it worsens his limp. He walks down the hall, scanning for the right room, brushing his fingers against the soft, warmly colored carpet covering the walls. It is so spacious compared to the streets he¡¯s used to walking it makes him agoraphobic¡ªfive people could walk side by side without their shoulders touching.


    Finally, he spots the door number he was looking for. As he places his hand on the handle, he feels the Flow wavering, turning into ordinary fear. Leave now, he thinks, and you might still have your life. Stay, and this memory, of right now, might be the last thing you think of as you die, regret filling every pore of your miserable existence.


    #


    He chuckled, his teeth reflecting the violet glare from his oxygen timer.


    #


    He forces himself to swipe the card he received by courier that same day, and twists the knob open.


    He expected the room to be luxurious, spacious, comfortable, with broad sofas and gold-tinted mirrors, every little thing testifying to good taste. But it is rustic, almost crude, like the inside of a cabin, made of wood or something that looks like wood. Everything is clean, yet somehow there is a calming, damp smell. In the window¡­ first of all, there is a window. It¡¯s not something Arik is used to seeing. The glass is divided into four panels by thin wood spars, and through it a shaft of golden light is falling diagonally into the room, its shape traced by motes of dust. Outside is a meadow or a park, green with trees scattered through the grounds, and perhaps even animals hidden among them.


    Except there are no animals, there. There is no other side of the window. It is just a screen, albeit a sophisticated one. Arik is still surrounded by cold rock in all directions, like he always is. But it doesn¡¯t feel like he is closed. It feels like he could just step out of the door and walk into the meadow, lie on the grass, bathe in the sunlight.


    A man is sitting on the sofa, with his back to the door. His silver-blonde hair, or wig, is sprayed, and shaped like you¡¯d think hair should look like if you¡¯ve only seen hair once, from a distance. An IV drip is plugged to his arm, out of Arik¡¯s sight, the bag black, opaque, and unmarked. A dark blue blazer lies over the sofa¡¯s back. He is watching a fire, contained to a rectangular hole at the bottom of one wall. A real fire. A real fire-place. Arik had never seen one, and though it is more enchanting, more fascinating than he could have imagined, the waste makes him nauseous. The man turns around and raises his eyes to look at Arik.


    The face is unmistakable¡ªevery kid would recognize it¡ªbut the expression is so informal, so every-day, it confuses Arik for a moment. His voice is also softer than Arik expected. Off the podium, when there¡¯s no need to rile up the masses with a projection of decisiveness and vigor, he sounds like a reasonable guy. ¡°Coffee?¡± the prime minister of Ceres offers. ¡°There¡¯s supposed to be tea here somewhere, but I¡¯m not a tea person, myself.¡±


    Arik can¡¯t believe he was made to promise not to bring a recording device. Flow, he reminds himself. ¡°Coffee¡¯s good.¡±


    ¡°Great, great.¡± The prime minister, the fascist hatemonger who has pushed Arik¡¯s home, his only home, on the path toward crumbling dystopia, walks to the counter, dragging the IV stand with him, and pours steaming hot black coffee into two cups. He brings them to the brown and gold wooden table, then sits back on the couch, gesturing for Arik to sit down in front of him. Arik doesn¡¯t want to obey, but standing behind the man feels rude. He walks around the sofa to stand on the other side of the table.


    ¡°Sugar? Milk?¡± The prime minister asks, a pleasant smile on his face, like an indulgent uncle. Arik looks into the fire and considers kicking him in the teeth. Not to gain any advantage; not even to force the leader to avoid the cameras for a couple of days, until his face is fixed. No: Arik wants to kick the prime minister in the face because he deserves it, plain and simple. Because he destroyed so many lives, in such a deep, meaningful way. Beyond a murderer, beyond a rapist, the crime he committed has no name. Swallowing his own teeth wouldn¡¯t be punishment enough; an execution wouldn¡¯t be punishment enough. Both would be a step in the right direction, though.


    But Arik isn¡¯t a fool. Any violence on his part would actually benefit the bastard, who would use it as an excuse to roll out even harsher counter measures ¡®for the safety of the people¡¯.


    He takes a deep breath and sits down. As expected, the sofa takes him in a perfect embrace. ¡°No sugar or milk.¡± It¡¯s bad manners, but he refuses to thank the man. ¡°What the fuck are we doing here?¡± He keeps his voice calm, as he accepts the white porcelain mug, holding it correctly by the little handle.


    The prime minister smiles, his teeth even whiter in person. ¡°Straight to the point, eh? Good man. I want you to know that I¡¯m going to be one hundred percent honest when I present you with information that is absolutely detrimental to this government.¡±


    Flow, Arik reminds himself. Don¡¯t freeze up. ¡°This conversation is having the opposite effect, so far.¡±


    The prime minister stops the process of dumping spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his coffee and looks up at Arik, his face pure indignation. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t be mad at me! I¡¯m here to help you, even though I could have had you captured and executed. Doesn¡¯t that get me some credit, at the very least? You weren¡¯t even checked for weapons,¡± he raises his hands, one holding the mug and the other the spoon. ¡°You could assassinate me if you wanted to. Doesn¡¯t that trust entitle me to some respect?¡±


    ¡°One drop in an ocean,¡± Arik answers coldly. He holds the coffee in one hand but doesn¡¯t sip. It has a sophisticated, delicate aroma, and he¡¯s certain it would taste wonderful, which only makes him angrier. ¡°Why are you here?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll tell you, but only after you tell me. Why are you here?¡± He sips, making an exaggerated, delighted expression.


    ¡°Because getting this information is the only way I can put you in jail. And putting you in jail seems to be the only way to save Ceres. We¡¯re in a state of decay, and you and your fucking¡­ minions are perpetuating that decay to the point where it will destroy everything, even your own position, at some point. I am here,¡± he enunciates every word distinctly, more loudly than he intended, ¡°to save my home.¡±


    ¡°No need to get angry. I feel the same way,¡± he says, looking mournful.


    Is this a trick? ¡°You do remember you almost single-handedly made things what they are?¡±


    ¡°Not my intention, my boy; not my intention at all.¡± He waves a hand and brings the cup to his lips with the other, nonchalantly, as if this is all a misunderstanding.


    ¡°You fucking changed and twisted every law you could, every human rights protection; you tossed out anyone who was brave enough to try and stop you, and you say that wasn¡¯t your fucking intention?¡± Arik is standing, though he doesn¡¯t remember deciding to rise to his feet. Kicking the prime minister doesn¡¯t seem like a bad idea anymore.


    ¡°You have a point, I admit. But would you believe me if I said that I didn¡¯t expect any of it to work? That when I ran, I expected to fail quickly, bringing my name back into the headlines and gaining some cost-free publicity, nothing more?¡± He sighs dramatically, unironically. ¡°But my presence was too natural, my charisma too radiant. When I was elected, I thought I¡¯d be impeached, or drop in the polls hard enough I¡¯d have to resign. I broke the law on live stream! But the more reckless I became, the more obviously criminal, the more they cheered. Is it because I am truly brilliant when it comes to words, or that the populace is mad, and always has been mad, but no one talked to them like I have, no one understood them like I have?¡± He shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee, his eyes closed.


    ¡°I don¡¯t see how any of that puts us in agreement,¡± Arik manages to say, somewhat off balance.


    ¡°You¡¯re not the only one smart enough to see that we¡¯re not heading uphill. I live within the machine; I see its cogs and levers. I know better than anyone how strongly it has stuck to the trajectory but, and this is an important but, I think you could still manage to stop it, if you¡¯re smart.¡±


    Arik keeps his balance. For any deception, there is a truth to cut through. ¡°You are literally in the strongest position on this entire asteroid. Why don¡¯t you stop it?¡±


    ¡°The strongest?¡± He shook his head. ¡°You misunderstand: I am in the weakest position on this entire asteroid.¡±


    Arik raises an eyebrow, thinking of the countless people who were thrown out of airlocks, the people living in fear who haven¡¯t yet been thrown out. The people who haven¡¯t yet realized they should be afraid. He says nothing.


    ¡°I wish I could quit,¡± the prime minister continues. ¡°I wish I could take the stand and say: ¡®Hey guys, it was funny and all, but I think we went too far¡¯. But I can¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re threatening you. The shadow government. Is that it?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± The prime minister scoffs. ¡°Absolutely not. There¡¯s no such thing as a shadow government¡ªjust a bunch of house-broken clerks that do what I tell them while muttering under their breath that they can¡¯t believe they¡¯re taking orders from me. I agree with them, by the way.¡±


    ¡°What, then?¡±


    The prime minister put his cup down, turning his full attention to Arik. ¡°Can an anxious person know he¡¯s anxious? Sure. Can a sociopath know he¡¯s a sociopath? Most of the time. But what if someone suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder? Could they admit to themselves that their own mental faculties are lacking? The nature of the neurosis is that they couldn¡¯t. But that¡¯s the purpose of intellect¡ªand me, I¡¯m the biggest brain on this asteroid.¡± He winks at Arik. Arik recalls how the prime minister used that phrase at almost every rally, every speech. ¡®Biggest brain on the asteroid¡¯. Arik will never understand why people love him for it. In the age of space travel, living within a space colony, for the love of God, people hear a politician boast about his intelligence and simply take his word for it. ¡°Big enough to bypass that kind of mental deadlock, and tell you things as they are. I wouldn¡¯t think anyone on Ceres is so capable that they could become its leader without even wanting to, but I did. I don¡¯t think many could manipulate the entire political system to their side so easily, but I have. And of those who could have tipped the scales like I did, I don¡¯t think many would see that they are actually bringing ruin upon the colony, as well as themselves, like I have.¡±


    Arik clenches and unclenches the muscles of his good leg. There¡¯s something wrong about someone talking like that without getting some teeth broken.


    ¡°I always had an acute sense of where I was, mentally speaking.¡±


    ¡°Then why won¡¯t you fucking step down?¡± Arik snaps. ¡°If you¡¯re so capable. Tell them that you realized you fucked up, and resign.¡±


    ¡°Not so simple. You¡¯re the kind of person who can live their life, not giving a damn what anyone thinks, following their own moral compass. Look at you now, showing me how livid you are even when it serves no purpose; you wear your heart on your sleeve, and I respect that. I truly do; the world needs more people like you. But there are other people, like me, who have to rise to the top, to win the appreciation of their colleagues and underlings, no matter how beneath them said colleagues are. These people, winners, if you will, simply cannot back down, even when they realize they¡¯re running off a cliff. I cannot even imagine what my party¡¯s official line would be if I were to tell them I intend to resign, that our opposition was right all along. Their faces, if I told them I was quitting¡­¡± He shakes his head. ¡°Not to mention that I couldn¡¯t hope to keep scoring these,¡± he gently passes one hand over the tube running the drip into his other arm, ¡°and then what? Grow old? Slowly weaker and stupider, until I died?¡± He waves both hands. ¡°I cannot. I will not. And that¡¯s where you come in.¡±


    Arik has heard about the latest medical breakthroughs by Earth¡¯s Sovereign, but he didn¡¯t expect there to be such free trade between the Sovereign and Ceres. Arik takes a sip from the coffee, and it does taste wonderful, deep without being heavy. He wonders if it came from Earth along with the drips, and feels tainted by the proximity. ¡°How much are you paying for it?¡± He gestures towards the drip with his free hand.


    ¡°It¡¯s a gift, from the kindness of Earth¡¯s Sovereign¡¯s heart, if it has one. And what a great gift it is. Diamonds are a proof of effort, but what gift could be greater than giving a human being more time?¡±


    ¡°But¡­ What¡¯s in it for Earth?¡±


    ¡°Clever, isn¡¯t it?¡± The prime minister smiles, like a predatory animal who¡¯d caught the scent of another in a dark forest. ¡°If you¡¯re half as smart as I think you are, you¡¯ll figure it out.¡±


    Whatever that means, Arik does not yet understand, but he feels there¡¯s a realization behind that flat statement, staggering in its scope. Focus, he reminds himself. Flow. ¡°Why did you bring me here?¡±


    ¡°You need to take me down. Not assassinate me,¡± the prime minister says, one finger raised. ¡°Obviously, that would do more harm than good¡ªno: get something legal on me, or my appointees. Even if it¡¯s immensely damning, my people could still pretend it¡¯s another prosecution employed by an immoral opposition. As you may have noticed, I¡¯ve done extensive groundwork on that narrative.¡±


    ¡°Get something? You¡¯re here. I understand you¡¯re too scared,¡± the word makes the prime minister wince, ¡°of your supporters hating you to do something yourself, but we¡¯re here, now. Tell me where to look, at the very least.¡±


    ¡°I assume you know, doing what you do, that no one¡¯s getting sent to Earth.¡±


    ¡°Yes. You¡¯re throwing people out to space, suit-less, to choke.¡± The old man¡¯s pained expression gives Arik pause.


    ¡°Not suit-less. I wish it were that humane. But it is a constitutional law of Ceres that an airlock cannot be opened unless everyone inside has a functioning suit with at least twenty four hours of oxygen. It¡¯s hard-wired into the machine. Tells you something about how founders thought, if you think about it, but the bottom line is that the computer simply won¡¯t open the hatch otherwise.


    ¡°So what? It¡¯s an open secret at this point that you¡¯re executing so-called enemies of the states illegally, and your supporters don¡¯t seem to be losing sleep over it.¡± Arik sounds bitter, even to himself. ¡°So, what¡¯s the difference?¡±


    ¡°With suit-less airlocking you get a quick, painless death. The moment the pressure drops you pass out and it¡¯s over, everyone¡¯s happy. But when people are left in their suits to wander around at the dark pole of Ceres while their oxygen runs out, it¡¯s a form of psychological torture. A brilliant form of torture, born out of circumstance. Thing is, torture under state mandate is a breach of Ceresian rights.¡±


    ¡°And execution isn¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°You misunderstand. The law is whatever people decide it is. If they don¡¯t want the law upheld, it won¡¯t be. What you need is something that would convict me not only in the eyes of the court, but in the eyes of the people as well. If the people saw, not heard, but actually saw, what we were doing to people, they would change their minds.¡±


    ¡°Why would they care?¡±


    ¡°If it were Martian refugees, for example, they wouldn¡¯t care at all. That¡¯s the reason I let them come in at all, so people will have someone to hate. But show them a Ceresian citizen, just like them, crying about how their human dignity was taken from them, and the people will go running for their pitchforks. Trust me when I say that nobody knows PR better than I do. And I¡¯m telling you this would stick.¡±


    ¡°But it¡¯s got nothing to do with you. You¡¯re not the one throwing people out.¡±


    The prime minister looks at him with such palpable disappointment that Arik, to his surprise, feels ashamed. ¡°Not me, but it will put someone under me on low heat, and they will beg for a deal as soon as the cuffs touch their skin. They¡¯ll sing louder and clearer than the birds of Earth ever did.¡± He looks out of the window, and Arik just manages to catch a glimpse of a blue and gray wing fluttering past.


    ¡°Do they have anything to sing about that we don¡¯t know already?¡±


    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t be naive,¡± the prime minister says. ¡°When you see the snake¡¯s tail peeking from the dirt, you can be damn certain there¡¯s a whole lot more of it hidden underground.¡±


    ¡°Then why not just tell me yourself? Why have me get your underlings, so they¡¯ll rat on you?¡±


    ¡°I gave you the loaded gun, my friend. I¡¯m not going to shoot it for you.¡±

 Pythia II

    Estimated oxygen time: 19:40:49


    And there it was. The truth that I had risked everything to find out. A madman¡¯s death wish. Was that it?


    ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± I said, my words falling flat and echoless in the darkness. ¡°That is hard to believe.¡±


    He laughed again. ¡°True, but I¡¯m glad I got a chance to send it back to the inside.¡± He looked at the side of his visor and his expression tensed. ¡°And you have something to do now. Nobody knows my story yet, and they should. So, you can¡¯t die here.¡± He reached and squeezed my hand. ¡°I don¡¯t think the PM crossed me. I think the Shadow Man cleans up after him, keen to keep this information from coming out. I¡¯m counting on you to fuck it up for them. The confession is over.¡±


    He opened the door, exposing a patch of starry sky through the opening and filling my helmet with the background radio noise of open space. ¡°But there¡¯s one more thing I¡¯d like to ask of you.¡±


    I followed him outside. Pythia¡¯s Second was looking at the stars; the moment she saw us, she jumped to his side, unhooding her helmet while floating, and took his hand in one of hers. She held a knife in the other, just like the one Anaxagoras had used. ¡°Diocletian aren¡¯t coming,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯ll have to do it myself.¡±


    ¡°Let him do it,¡± First said, and she looked at me, her eyes darkening.


    I didn¡¯t understand, and then I did. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t¡­ I don¡¯t¡­¡± I choked on the words.


    She came close to me and practically shoved the knife into my hand. I closed my grip around it, angry at myself for not having more resolve.


    ¡°You¡¯ve seen it done, haven¡¯t you?¡± First asked. Second watched me, the hard lines of her face seeming even harder.


    I nodded.


    ¡°I want you to do it,¡± he said.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°For one, it will hurt horribly if you don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°You,¡± I said, looking at Second. ¡°You should do it. You want to.¡±


    She shook her head in a short, fierce motion. I held the knife in my right hand, limp. ¡°I can¡¯t.¡±


    He stepped forward and grabbed my free, left hand. ¡°Please,¡± he said. ¡°Time¡¯s up.¡± The violet numbers within his visor turned blinking red.


    ¡°You do it!¡± I yelled at the dying man. ¡°Why me? Why am I even a part of this?¡±


    Second placed a hand over mine in a firm grip. With the other, she held First¡¯s. I didn¡¯t look at her face. She didn¡¯t so much guide my hand as reassure it, but there was something easier about not being the sole culprit.


    Arik¡¯s face was beginning to turn red, and he was taking quick, shallow breaths, but he still stood, not like Anaxagoras in her final moments. We put the knife against the bag at his chest. He held my hand so tight I thought my fingers would sprain. ¡°Do it, you coward.¡± Spittle sprayed the inside of his visor. His face was turning purple, the veins bulging on his forehead and neck. There was surprise in his expression, as if the experience was not as he¡¯d imagined it. ¡°Do. It.¡±


    Was it me or Second who started moving the blade against the bag? It didn¡¯t matter; once we started, we carried on, flaying the suit open. In horror I looked at his face and saw the expression of someone grasping, as if he was holding on to something¡ªto what?¡ªeven as blood burst through his clenched teeth and the eyes dried and wrinkled, still he held, until his skin inflated and hardened and after long seconds the process of his dying finally ended.


    Second and I stood, still holding our hands together in one knife grip.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said to Arik. ¡°I am sorry, I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m sorry.¡± He probably wouldn¡¯t have accepted my apology, but that was all I had to offer. The corpse¡¯ hand was still clenched around mine, as if still he did not let go.


    I found the courage to look at Second¡¯s face. Her eyes were wet, and her lip trembled, but she made no sound. There was no softness in her expression as she met my eyes. She let go of my hand, leaving me with the knife, and took his body in both hands as my fingers squirmed out of the dead grip. She braced him and jumped; floating over to the top of the shuttle, holding him in her arms like a child who had fallen asleep on the way home. Once she landed she sat with her feet over the edge and placed his now rigid corpse on her knees.


    She tipped her head back to look again at the stars. ¡°Was it enough?¡± I heard her whisper. ¡°I thought I¡¯d get to do more.¡± She sighed, her voice breaking. ¡°I am now First.¡±


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 19:35:19


    I had so many questions, but I didn¡¯t know how much time she would need. I didn¡¯t know how much time I would, neither. Diocletian would arrive at some point, and all I had to do was wait. If they still wanted to send me back, they would. If they wanted to kill me¡­ Well, there were worse alternatives.


    I crouched beside the shuttle, looking at the history of the lines. Four long rows of letters, scratched into the shuttle¡¯s side. Some letters were large, carved with great force and perhaps distress; others were small, made in gentle, straight lines. Hundreds of initials, packed tightly together. Every dozen or so names there was a blank, a single line signifying an absence. For those who escaped, perhaps, or blown up by the airlock.


    ¡°You should sign it,¡± First said from above.


    I looked up at her, confused.


    ¡°You came here,¡± she said. ¡°You took part in our rituals.¡±


    ¡°Where? I¡¯m not a part of a line.¡±


    ¡°The top row is Diocletian; Ctesibius is below them; Pythia¡¯s at the bottom. It¡¯s customary for visitors to add their names near Pythia, but we don¡¯t remember why.¡±


    I traced the bottom row. Every hundred names or so, another name appeared, just below the lowest row. Who were these people? O.R..; O.S.; B.K.. They¡¯d seen everything I saw, but I never heard of them. Did they manage to return inside?


    I reached the end of Pythia¡¯s line. ¡­ A.R., V.S., T.G., S.B. ¡°Under the last name?¡±


    She nodded, and I used the knife to scratch a crooked Yud and Bet. It was comforting, in a way, to let someone know that I had indeed been here, whether or not I made it back.


    ¡°Don¡¯t try to memorize the poem,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s enough that you listen to it, fully, only once, but with your whole being. Be completely present.¡±


    I nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll try.¡±


    She took a deep breath, and recited:


    I have seen people go mad, clutching their sanity with manic fingers, slick with lunacy,


    I have seen children, confused but tenacious, sacrificing their lives, not their deaths, which is harder, for something, anything,


    I have become¡ªin ancient, cold death, in twinkling void, in insanity¡ªa person, in a way the oxygen-sucking monarch that I was could not have hoped to fathom.


    Gazing, slack-jawed, I saw the waterfall of humanity crash down into the past¡ªand in the flow, thoughts swimming upstream just to stay in place, struggling upwards, and I was blessed to pass those thoughts myself, mouth to ear, one at a time,


    And I had you there to show me,


    And I had you there to teach me,


    And I had you there to hold my hand.


    Goodbye, glorious fool; your blood will run through many hearts before it runs dry.


    She looked up, and in the asteroid-light her face shone. ¡°You know, everyone has the same confession, coming here. Sure, their prior lives are different, but their experience within the Town is virtually the same. For the first couple of hours they think everything we do here is insane. What¡¯s the point, if they¡¯re already going to die at the end of their twenty-four hours? Who the fuck is Pythia, they want to scream, I am a human being, and I have a name, and I¡¯m dying. But they go along with the motions, mostly out of fear of what would happen if they wouldn¡¯t, trying very hard to understand if this is for real, if we really mean it. Then their First dies. And the first time you watch your first die, you realize that even if they were pretending to care, they believed it was important enough to keep pretending even when there was nothing to threaten them with. And you realize that they, like you, had to watch their First in order to understand. Then you go to the airlock to pick up a new third, and they look up at you, their eyes full of the question whether this is for real, and you find yourself doing anything in your power to prove to them that it is. You feel like a part of this long chain of trust, and everyone along the chain trusted you to carry it along, and you¡¯re unwilling to disappoint them. Not like you have anything better to do, right? Feels weird, telling you this, but I guess it wouldn¡¯t matter, the way things are going.¡±


    The camera was still recording. I wondered if her words would carry the same weight when played from a speaker. ¡°If none of this matters, will you tell me who you are? Your name, your story?¡± I asked.


    She opened her mouth, and then closed it again. ¡°No, it still feels wrong. I¡¯m Pythia, as far as you are concerned. But you could make out the initials of my former name, if you wanted to.¡± She smiled, as if hinting at something.


    I looked at the letters again. A.R., V.S., T.G., S.B. She was Pythia¡¯s second when I got here, and no newcomer came into the line since then, which meant that she was T.G.. That was all that I was going to get to know about her, all she could tell me if she wanted to hold on the line¡¯s persona. I traced the initials of Arik Rosen, ¡°I only met him once, but I think I understand what kind of man he was-¡± I started saying, and stopped when I realized that I had, in fact, never met him at all. Whoever just told me that story, wasn¡¯t Arik. What an idiot. What an absolute idiot.


    ¡°Who did I just talk to?¡± I asked her, my voice surprisingly choked.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± she said, and I knew that she knew. There was no malice in her smile, no gloating.


    ¡°The initials!¡± I pointed at the letters. A.R., V.S., T.G., S.B.. You and Second are T.G. and S.B., which means that the person you referred to as First, the person I was just in confession chamber with, was V.S., and Arik Rosen fucking died before I even got here. Whose story did I listen to, then?¡±


    She looked at me from above, still sitting on the shuttle with the body in her lap, holding one hand in her, and laughed¡ªwith relief, this time, not amusement. ¡°One last joke, huh?¡± she asked him.


    ¡°Did you hear it too?¡± I asked. ¡°The story about the meeting with the prime minister? Did Arik tell it to you or did V.S. just make it up?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s said in the shuttle, stays in the shuttle,¡± she said sagely. ¡°But I will tell you this: I haven¡¯t seen Pythia do a single thing that wasn¡¯t out of kindness and love. Made up or not, if he chose to give you this memory, he thought it would help you.¡±


    ¡°How is a false memory going to help me?¡±


    ¡°No such thing, false memory. The world may agree with some of your memories, discredit others, but they are all real just the same.¡±


    ¡°What the hell does that mean?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll figure it out.¡± She shrugged, and even as she grieved her last friends, and herself, there was disappointment in her over not being understood.


    I looked around for an anchor, trying to stabilize myself, and my eyes found the statue. The simulacrum of a human being, meant to bring comfort. How had they built it? Not just how did they bring themselves to do it, but how did they, physically, weld the beams together? It was, just by standing there, a proof that there existed a dedication that was greater than one person¡¯s interests and ego. Kindness and love, she said. I let that image, that story that the statue told just by standing there, strengthen my resolve, empty my mind.


    ¡°What will you do, if Diocletian come?¡± I asked, after a while.


    ¡°I¡¯ll talk to them. I¡¯ll offer whatever comfort I can; tell them what they need to hear.¡±


    ¡°What if they hurt you?¡±


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll be hurt.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid?¡±


    She raised her chin at me. ¡°What does that have to do with anything?¡±


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 18:59:22


    It had been a very long thirty-six minutes. Pythia and I had sat in silence and watched our timers count down. The only interruption was a flash from deep within the crater, where the airlock should have been. ¡°A newcomer,¡± First said quietly. ¡°They never got to become Pythia.¡± There was nothing more to say.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Finally, something came in low over the horizon, straight for us. I¡¯d have thought it was an asteroid if it hadn¡¯t been for the shine of black metal, the accurateness of its trajectory. Not an asteroid, but a skipper: a rental like mine.


    No, I slowly realized. Not like mine. It was mine. Ctesibius hadn¡¯t blown up my skipper; they¡¯d stolen it.


    It stopped above us, then came straight down, close enough that I felt the landing jets scattering against the uneven terrain and pressing against my suit. Eventually the skipper touched ground, resting crooked on a bulging rock.


    I stared at it. First may have stared at it too¡ªI didn¡¯t dare turn away to look at her.


    The skipper¡¯s interior was dark, and the reflection of the sky against the glass made it difficult to see inside. After a moment I made out a small figure in a gray space suit, trying unsuccessfully to open the skipper¡¯s door. The entire craft shuddered as the figure tried kicking it open, once, twice. After a moment the inside filled with blazing, painful light, as the figure must have used a welding torch against the lower edge of the door, farthest from the hinge. The light died, and the figure kicked again. This time the door hinged upwards wildly.


    The bright light of the torch had left a pink stain in the middle of my field of vision, and now, even without the pane between us, I couldn¡¯t see clearly enough in the starlight to understand if I was looking at Ctesibius or Diocletian. Slowly, I fell into a deep crouch, ready to move.


    The small figure exited the vehicle, one slow step at a time. Something must have moved above us because all at once it became brighter, the shadows¡¯ edges sharper. The helmet crossed that precipice of light, and in it I saw her smile. I also saw the streaks of black against the gray of the suit¡ªone large blotch across the chest, but many more that had joined it since. Loops of tape had been added to her suit, one around her shin, another around her forearm.


    She stayed low as she moved, holding the handle of the blade, still clasped to her side, with one hand, protecting the fragile metal from the rock. She held the torch in the other.


    Pythia had let go of the body¡¯s hand and placed him stiffly beside her. She looked at Diocletian for only an instant, as if she were nothing but a passing asteroid, then returned to looking at the sky.


    ¡°Are you here to kill me?¡± I asked, my voice thin, like the sound of pressurized air escaping.


    Diocletian¡¯s eyes were unfocused and distant, and her breathing was ragged. Something primal had curled her spine, her fingers. ¡°Why would I kill you?¡±


    ¡°You tried cutting me, before.¡±


    She rolled her eyes. ¡°I tried nicking your suit, dropping the inside pressure. It wouldn¡¯t have killed you, if you¡¯d let me patch you up in time.¡±


    I looked at the tape on her suit. Had it been cut, and she just taped it down? ¡°What happened to Ctesibius¡¯s Second?¡±


    She looked at me, then, and recited:


    Why, she that cuts off twenty hours of life,


    Cuts off so many hours of fearing death.


    Her voice was a low, satisfied purr. Pythia turned to look at her then, perhaps in recognition.


    ¡°What does that mean?¡± I asked.


    Pythia replied, ¡°It means they¡¯re dead, and she considers she has done them a favor, even.¡±


    Diocletian had killed all of them, then. But that wasn¡¯t the part that was horrific, was it? They were going to die anyway. It¡¯s that she killed their legacy, crushed the flame they were trying to keep alive.


    Diocletian¡¯s eyes glinted, as if she were drunk. Her gaze darted to mine, and it terrified me more deeply than any oxygen-count display or blade. ¡°Ctesibius weren¡¯t afraid,¡± I managed to say. A laconic epitaph, not only for First, Second, and Third, but for a custom, a way of being that was now gone. ¡°And they lived for more than twenty hours.¡±


    ¡°You actually care about that? About Line Ctesibius?¡± She asked, fascinated.


    ¡°They worked for so long to keep it going. It meant so much to them. More than that: it gave people something to care about in their last hours.¡± Look at Yossi, finally finding his spine.


    ¡°Well, nobody cares about it now.¡± Her expression was dismissive, as if she didn¡¯t understand why I¡¯d even expect her to take my opinion seriously. ¡°Fly home,¡± she commanded, still crouching by a rock protrusion. ¡°Appeal.¡± She tossed the skipper¡¯s remote control to me and I stretched to grab it with both hands, almost losing my balance.


    ¡°Are you sure it wasn¡¯t damaged in the explosion?¡± I said.


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t around when the bomb went off,¡± she said. ¡°Ctesibius wrapped it in a faraday cage and carried it away.¡± I didn¡¯t want to ask how she¡¯d gotten that information.


    ¡°But what if they sabotaged it?¡±


    ¡°Then improvise something out of the parts, like we¡¯ve been doing all of this time. I¡¯ll wait one week to hear from you¡ªif I don¡¯t get any signal that you¡¯ve started the legal process, I¡¯ll walk over to the airlock and give them just enough information to track you down. They¡¯ll find something to stick you with.¡±


    ¡°One week,¡± I repeated. A very short time for a legal process.


    ¡°I told you I¡¯ll make it,¡± she assured me, misunderstanding again. ¡°Focus on your end. And in return, I¡¯ll reestablish Lines Ctesibius and Anaxagoras, as I see that it matters to you so much. It shouldn¡¯t be too hard, especially with Pythia here to help me. You have nothing to worry about.¡± Even an idiot could see that for the lie it was. ¡°Line Ctesibius will be exactly the same, except that they won¡¯t remember exactly what happened here. Poetic, considering that¡¯s what they planned for the other lines.¡± She said, as if I knew what she was talking about.


    ¡°It won¡¯t matter for the Ctesibius you killed, though,¡± I said.


    Diocletian shrugged and turned to Pythia and the body. ¡°What do you say, Pythia?¡±


    ¡°Diocletian.¡± Pythia turned to Diocletian as if she¡¯d just noticed her presence, her tone distant and strangely calm. ¡°You¡¯re late. I¡¯ve been waiting for you to pick up the body for a while, and now we¡¯re going to be late for recitation.¡±


    ¡°Is that how you choose to spend the last of your oxygen? Lecturing me on civic duty?¡±


    ¡°It held this place in one piece, didn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s up for debate, I¡¯m afraid,¡± Diocletian said. ¡°Tell me, Pythia: Did you know what was going on?¡±


    She nodded. ¡°The moment you stopped showing up for confessions.¡±


    ¡°I never liked those. Never made sense to me. And you know what else never made sense?¡± She put a hand to her chin, a movement that almost seemed natural until her hand found a rest against the glass of her visor. ¡°The names. I understand that Anaxagoras was an exile who liked stargazing, and Diocletian was a cavalryman-turned-emperor that retired to tend to cabbages. More than anything else it just sounds so cool: Dai-uh-klee-shn. Ctesibius discovered the basis for modern pneumatics. But why would the line tasked with hearing confessions be named after an oracle? This might be your last opportunity to let the world know.¡± There was pleasure in her tone.


    Pythia considered for a moment. ¡°Why don¡¯t I predict your future, then?¡±


    ¡°Sure, why not.¡±


    ¡°There will come a time when you will regret this. All of it: every time you killed to live a little longer. You will die without seeing the inside again, and by the time you do, you will have left behind nothing but chaos and suffering. You will realize you would have been better off accepting death, and the comfort that comes with dying alongside allies.¡±


    ¡°Chaos?¡± she protested. ¡°Did you not just hear me say that I was going to rebuild the lines?¡±


    Pythia shook her head. ¡°Don¡¯t cling to your lies. Do you expect me to beg, Diocletian?¡± She raised her hands, and her voice then changed to a dramatic, high-pitched impersonation of herself. ¡°Oh, Diocletian: Please don¡¯t kill Line Pythia! We carry so many memories, the history of this place, and if we die these memories will be lost forever!¡±


    Diocletian laughed, and Pythia laughed with her, the way a desperate victim laughs along with their torturer.


    ¡°You won¡¯t beg, even for the entire line?¡± Diocletian asked.


    ¡°Fuck you, Diocletian.¡± For the first time, her composure wavered. ¡°We both know you won¡¯t keep Pythia alive, no matter what I say. We know too much.¡±


    ¡°If you knew, why didn¡¯t you fight? Why, when you knew that everything you worked for was about to be taken?¡± There wasn¡¯t just curiosity in Diocletian¡¯s voice, there was anger.


    ¡°If we fought against you, we wouldn¡¯t be Pythia anymore. We hoped that Ctesibius will calm you down, or in the worst case that you¡¯d kill each other, and we were almost right, but-¡±


    ¡°You could have tried,¡± Diocletian cut in, and her anger flared, as if Pythia had taken something from her by not fighting back. ¡°You should have tried to survive.¡±


    Pythia shrugged, and for a moment said nothing more. When she finally spoke, her voice was a low lament. ¡°It¡¯s almost time, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Diocletian¡¯s tone softened too. ¡°I almost forgot about it. Yeah, it actually is.¡±


    ¡°Once more, Diocletian, for old time¡¯s sake?¡±


    Both of them looked behind me. I turned to follow their gazes, and saw the orbiter rising over the southern horizon¡ªfirst the black, slick body of the massive spacecraft, then the net dragging behind it, carrying colossal chunks of metal shining refracted sunlight on Last Day Town in colors gold and ferrous and all shades of silver and chrome, creating patterns I¡¯d never seen there before.


    I looked back at the two women, as the sky showered them with light. They recited, and as they did, I could see the people putting those words together, in those ancient times of three weeks ago, as if they were standing there now:


    Here lies King of Hellhole,


    We see him as he dies,


    We hear his O2 whistling,


    As the light leaves his eyes.


    We broke his bones and power,


    We took away his tools,


    We made him curse the hour,


    He made us into fools.


    We were kept proud and knightly,


    By the words Pythia strung


    And Ctesibius crafted rightly,


    Blades Diocletian swung.


    Anaxagoras ventured,


    To silence, frightful, dark


    To discover around us,


    The bounty of an ark.


    Be warned then you, if you might think,


    To spend your day time-stealing,


    For Vampire law, that we now forge,


    Compels to kill those killing.


    The light shone down on them from above, brighter than ever, and for the first time I could see their faces clearly. They looked impossibly tired.


    ¡°This has been the fifty-first Recitation,¡± said Diocletian.


    ¡°Fifty-second,¡± Pythia corrected.


    ¡°Yeah, whatever.¡± She turned to me. ¡°Why are you still here? You got your story. Now go¡ªday¡¯s not getting any longer.¡±


    I didn¡¯t want to leave them alone together, knowing what Diocletian might do. Would do. Pythia was still sitting on the shuttle, and put the hood back over her helmet. Her head was tilted upward; she must have been gazing at the orbiter as it drifted into the shadow of Ceres, the light dying. Even without seeing her face, it was obvious from her body language how aware of us she was, and how Diocletian frightened her. She turned to me as if she¡¯d noticed I was looking at her. ¡°Just go,¡± she said from the shadow of her hood. ¡°I¡¯ll handle this.¡±


    Pythia was going to die anyway, but leaving her alone with Diocletian felt wrong. I could have bargained or distracted, urged Diocletian to spare this woman her last hours, but my body moved on its own. It lurched into the safety of the skipper, pulled the door closed, pressed against the back of the chair, grabbed for the controls.


    I took off.


    #


    This is Last Day Town¡¯s last day, and Pythia¡¯s dying along with it. It is their final trial.


    ¡°Is there any reason I shouldn¡¯t kill you right here?¡± Diocletian, what¡¯s left of them, ask. ¡°Anything you could give me?¡±


    Pythia remembers how much Diocletian suffered, even if they don¡¯t. Always feared, always hated, their burden corrupted them. Unlike Pythia, they were never given the privilege of providing comfort. The bliss of having made people¡¯s lives better, even just fractions of it. At best, all that Diocletian got is to cut someone out of a suit, a brutal duty that taints the soul. And yet, for so long Diocletian held, as a line. How hard it must have been for them.


    Pythia look at the blade in Diocletian¡¯s hand, and find that they have given up all hatred. They have nothing in their heart now but love, even for this killer. They were tried, and found worthy.


    ¡°How would you like,¡± one weary woman asks another, ¡°to hear a story?¡±


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 18:47:22


    When you fly a little rocket, hugging it with your legs and being thrown about without any protection but an airtight bag, you aren¡¯t going through space: you are in it, exposed, alive, a tiny celestial body in its own orbit. When you fly in a spaceship, even a small one, you feel as if you are sitting in a room and space is whipping past you, the danger kept safely away.


    It was a long time before I reached the airlock. Flying through dead space, watching Ceres¡¯s craters and mountains, passing asteroids and ice haulers and cruise ships, I felt numb. I¡¯m going to live, I told myself. I should be relieved. But there was no relief.


    I chose an airlock on the skipper¡¯s console, trusting it to fly on its own. Not the same one I¡¯d exited through¡ªeven though I wasn¡¯t even down to half of the amount of oxygen I started with, I didn¡¯t want to see it come anywhere near finished. Or maybe it wasn¡¯t that rational. Maybe I just wanted to be back in the interior as soon as safely possible, even if it meant taking a longer time on the trains, back on the inside.


    The rental company would probably contact me in a couple of hours to ask about the damage to the door, and they¡¯d sue me for probably three times what it would actually take to fix it. They¡¯d sue me for the jetpack, and ask some questions, and that would be costly, too. Renting a jetpack and trashing it was a horrible way to buy a jetpack. But I¡¯d survive. I survived, and the video survived. Everything else is commentary.


    A metal sliding door that blended into the shape of the rock, large enough to let in a ship ten times larger than my skipper, slid aside to reveal a hangar with rows of spacecraft on each side, placed neatly on shelves dug into the rock to serve as parking spots. I piloted it slowly into one of the empty spots.


    Why did I feel only grief, rather than triumph? And grief for whom? Persons? Lines? I recalled Arik¡¯s insinuation that I¡¯d come there to die. Wait, that wasn¡¯t even Arik¡¯s words, were they? Or maybe they were, his thoughts passed down to someone else. None of it made sense.


    There was the matter of those I¡¯d left behind in Last Day Town¡ªthose I¡¯d done nothing to save, who would die there still. Had I done everything I could to save them? Had I done anything?


    I will, I thought, once I upload the video. If Arik was right, if the prime minister was right, if any of that was real, uploading that video might actually make a big change. After I edited it for my own safety, of course.


    The skipper informed me that I couldn¡¯t exit because of my suit¡¯s low oxygen. I had an oxygen reserve in the skipper, and the complex wrench needed for the piping used in spacesuits. I could have given it to someone in Last Day Town, but I¡¯d chosen to leave it so I could open my door. I opened the skipper¡¯s storage, to find that both the balloon and the wrench weren¡¯t there anymore. Not a big surprise, with both Ctesibius and Diocletian having more than enough time to pick through it for anything useful. If anything, it should have surprised me that they didn¡¯t take more. It was a good thing that Diocletian burned the door open, otherwise I¡¯d be stuck here now, waiting for a rescue team to come get me. I pushed the door open, and it gave way easily.


    Large arrows directed me towards the airlock itself, and I pressed the button with a flat palm; a door slid open without protest. The airlock was a small chamber, like a broom closet, with painted rock for walls. Inside were a console for authentication and a little window of space-proof glass.


    I looked at the airlock overseer: a bored teenage girl, sitting in front of a screen of her own, sucking something from a tube. The airlock couldn¡¯t be spun, so the overseer¡¯s hair floated around her in the micro-G. I lifted a palm in a gesture of peace, but she didn¡¯t lift her eyes from her screen.


    I turned to the console that stood by the inner door. It presented a symbol indicating that it was communicating with my suit, demanding authentication in some silent machine language. After that, it scanned my retinas, and finally demanded that I put my thumb to the socket. Fucking vampires, I cursed, as the needle pierced my thumb.


    But then again, I thought, if it weren¡¯t for all of this, Diocletian would not have let me return. I blinked, and saw in a flash how the first thing that Diocletian thought, the first time that she saw me, was how difficult it would have been to cut out my eyes and put them against the front of the visor while wearing my suit. Maybe the blood taking was unnecessary, but I wasn¡¯t angry at the founders of Ceres for designing one extra precaution.


    A logo appeared on the screen, letting me know that the computer was processing my genetic data, making perfectly sure that I was one of the people who were allowed to occupy this part of space.


    The overseer spat out the green juice she had been sucking on from the tube, her expression surprised in a cloud of green droplets. The gate behind me shut suddenly, with surprising force, the impact visible in the shaking of the little screen that had changed from its usual display to glaring, red letters. ¡°Wanted criminal detected. Arrest in progress,¡± it read.


    What an idiot. What an absolute idiot.

 INTERLUDE - PRISONERS - Gil I

    You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.


    ¨D Bhagavad Gita


    The first memory I had from my childhood, the chaotic time before my personality formed, was from the time I¡¯d been four or five.


    Yossi Ben Ze¡¯ev asks his mother if he can have some tea.


    "Sure, sweety," she says, placing a pair of heavy steel scissors in his hands. "Pick whatever you want from the garden, and I¡¯ll go put on a kettle."


    The garden is no more than a small balcony with a row of large clay pots, filled with rich, fragrant soil and sprouting with all kinds of herbs. The longest stems bend over a neat rail, hanging over a twenty-story drop, looking over the crowded city streets below. The rail is taller than he is, but it doesn¡¯t stop him from feeling a visceral fear of heights standing next to it; an excitement.


    He picks a handful of sage, a pale, fuzzy desert plant. It is not just for the taste that he like it: there is something about knowing that sage can stand the toughest soil and harshest sun, with almost no water, and grow into something beautiful. It¡¯s very bitter in the tea, but, in his childish stubbornness, he insists on drinking it anyway, holding on to a secret belief that he might become more like the herb by ingesting it.


    Just as he finishes cutting off a stalk, a flock of swifts decide to swoop in from above. He knows, or at least, that¡¯s how I remembered it, that swifts don¡¯t stop flying for months at a time; eating, mating, sleeping in flight. The only reason they ever stop is to nest, and if it weren¡¯t for their commitment to succession, they could fly forever.


    Little Yossi doesn¡¯t quite believe it, and as an old man on Ceres, I didn¡¯t fully believe it still, but it is true. Yossi thinks about how much they must have to eat to keep flying, and that swifts are perfect carnivores, meaning that everything they eat has to die. He is amazed by the juxtaposition of those two facts, not only that they fly so much, but that every bit of energy has to be taken by force. He watches the dark scimitar-wings gain a beautiful purple hue as they slash through the golden sunset-light in sharp hairpin turns, going around and around without ever stopping. And as if that glint is a spark that ignites inspiration, a realization strikes him, like lightning: that swifts die, after a couple of years of exertion, but that this process of hunting and mating and hatching has gone on longer than any living swift. The flight itself hasn¡¯t stopped since he was born, since his father or grandfather were born. When writing had been invented, when the first bread had been baked, the swifts were already dancing, just like they are doing now.


    Yossi looks at the stalk of sage in his hand, confused, unsure when he picked it and what for. He walks over to his father, who¡¯s sitting on the couch and reading, to try to explain to him what he just realized, but just as he opens his mouth his father starts talking to Yossi¡¯s mother.


    ¡°Remember when we thought colonizing space would be exciting?¡± he asks, putting down the screen he¡¯d been reading from. ¡°Seems so stupid now. Didn¡¯t we know? Didn¡¯t we realize that the driest desert on Earth is far easier to colonize than Mars? The coldest part of the poles, the most remote piece of ocean are all much more habitable than either Ceres or Luna or even Europa. In order for anyone to leave Earth it wouldn¡¯t just have to turn deadly, but deadlier than the harshest terrestrial environment. We thought we would leave out of desire for adventure, but it seems like we will only leave if we fear for our lives, from either death or enslavement.¡± He looks at Yossi then, as he stands there with a stalk of sage in his hand, afraid he¡¯ll get admonished for ¡®staring into space¡¯ again. His father just sighs, and Yossi knows, or at least this is what I remembered knowing, that they are about to send him off planet, even if they can¡¯t afford to come along. A desperate attempt to have him carry their dance along. He looks back at the flock of beautiful predatory birds, and stupidly wonders what kind of birds we¡¯ll take to other planets.


    ¡°What is it?¡± his father says, but he just shakes his head. He doesn¡¯t know how to explain.


    That¡¯s not the last memory I have of my parents, nor of Earth, but it¡¯s my only distinct memory of watching birds fly. Ceresian poets often express envy towards people who got to watch birds fly free, and if you ask me, they¡¯re perfectly right to feel that way.


    Here, children talk about birds like former generations used to talk about dragons and simurghs: graceful, bygone creatures that excite the imagination but not more. Even though flight is commonplace, in the sense that falling in space like a dead rock can be considered flying, a child¡¯s first reaction to being told that there were once living creatures who could float under a full G is disbelief, like ours when we heard about T. Rexes, polar bears, or whales.


    I was in a train carriage, alone. It was lit with the faintest white light, just enough to tell the walls apart. I was wearing the gray, rough uniform of a detainee I¡¯d been given in the police station, thin as paper, with slippers to match.


    The police officers that had waited for me on the inner side of the airlock had been about as professional as you can expect from people who had been trained to think the law was written for someone else. They¡¯d forced me to strip, confiscated the suit and camera, knowing full well that they were rental and the late-return fees were going to be vicious. None of it had been illegal or particularly brutal, the harassment so reflexive at this point it wasn¡¯t entirely accurate to call it intentional.


    They hadn¡¯t bothered telling me what I was being accused of, or my rights¡ªmachines took care of that, now. And they had no interest in letting me speak, shoving me around every time I¡¯d tried.


    I¡¯d seized my chance right before they shoved me into the train. Two burly men grabbed me by the arms and used force needlessly, accompanied by an officer with hair in two shades of brown and long nails. ¡°Their throwing people out to die, with twenty four hours of oxy-¡± I¡¯d managed to say, before she¡¯d slapped me on the balls with the back of her hand, hard enough to make me fold over. There hadn¡¯t even been any cruelty in her eyes, just a sort of playfulness like you¡¯d expect from a person treating avatars in a computer game.


    ¡°You angry?¡± she¡¯d said just as the door was closing. ¡°Why don¡¯t you write something about it?¡±


    Now that the pain had passed, I could appreciate that it wasn¡¯t, on its own, bad advice. What wouldn¡¯t I give for five minutes in front of my own monitors, I thought, To let the world know what I¡¯ve seen. But there was no screen to interact with, here. There was barely any light, as they were saving electricity on me.


    I couldn¡¯t feel if we were moving. I remembered having accelerated for a time, my body pressing against one wall, but my body had no weight since, aside from that caused by an occasional turn. Trains had no inside gravity and, because they were suspended in magnetic fields, they made almost no sound besides the whistle of wind. There were no windows either, a floating room in an unknown void. On the outside, I imagined it looked like a worm digging its way through the asteroid.


    I sat up slowly. The carriage had no handholds or seatbelts. If this thing stopped suddenly, I¡¯d have no way to stop myself from crashing¡ªnot that I even knew which side was forward and which was back.


    Whatever happened from this point on, it didn¡¯t have anything to do with my choices¡ªthere was a fear, yes, but it was not like the urgent, reactive terror of Last Day Town, where death had stood at the edge between possibility and reality, and every move could have pushed it over one end or the other. A part of me was relieved.


    Pythia said I had come to Last Day Town looking for my own death, but that didn¡¯t seem to be the case. Wouldn¡¯t I be happy, if it were?


    I was dead. A week in prison, and then a mock-trial. The trial probably wouldn¡¯t hold any actual merit, according to almost any source I had heard from. It wasn¡¯t even a show, just a technicality. The computer permitted trials to be held in secret if enough judges voted that it was necessary, and the judges knew exactly what was expected of them.


    In a corrupt place, everyone had to become as corrupt as the rest of the system to survive; Even if they lamented this reality, they couldn¡¯t resist it. I thought of Arik¡¯s story, if that was even his story at all. I¡¯d been too late for him. Perhaps he had waited for me, slowly accepting that I had abandoned him to die.


    Not that he was the only person in my life whom I¡¯d abandoned. I gave a passing thought to the people that I would never see again. My ex-wife, Ayelet; the friends that I¡¯d long neglected.


    Funny, that I would have preferred to sneak off and die without her noticing. Not a realistic thought; the news will at some point reach her, and she¡¯ll be devastated by them. She¡¯d be angry with me, and rightly so, and wouldn¡¯t even get a chance to give me a piece of her disappointed mind, the way these things worked. I¡¯d just be gone, and she¡¯d be left with a burden of anger. The least I could do for her was be angry at myself now. Deliver some of that anger to its rightful destination.


    Of all the people I knew, I could think of no one who would be crushed by the news except for her. Our friends had grown more and more distant after Tsur died. Or maybe we had; who knows. My parents had died on earth, as had Ayelet¡¯s, after things turned sour. What would my parents say if they saw me now? They wouldn''t be disappointed in my choice of vocation, no, just that I had failed to execute, that I didn''t think this through thoroughly enough even though I had all the tools in front of me.


    I grieved. Over Ayelet, the friends I didn¡¯t treat right, over never getting to meet Arik. Over future days I will get to live. No wonder the residents of Last Day Town avoided that - it took strength to examine all that grief without someone to comfort you.


    I didn¡¯t cry. When I¡¯d been younger, I¡¯d taken this inability as some sort of toughness, but I was old enough to recognize it for the defense mechanism that it was. At some point, the dam will break and I will feel whatever it was that I¡¯d buried. On the positive side, I might not live long enough for that to happen.


    Pythia were right - I really did go there to die. My life seemed meaningless without anything worth saying, and by the time I did find something worthy of saying, I didn¡¯t have the life to say it with.


    More than anything, I wished there was someone to talk to. How could I blame my friends for drifting away? It wasn¡¯t fair to expect them to willingly endure the company of this bitter old man when I could hardly bear it, myself.


    It felt like a sort of vertigo¡ª the perspective of a life violently flattened. I laid my head down in the corner between the wall and the floor, and both were impossible to perceive normally, both compressed. My life, my history, like a stream of time reaching backwards, so far that its beginning could not be traced¡ªand now death, a wall that stopped that stream completely, too wide and tall to be bypassed.


    I was relatively comfortable, lying in the corner. I put a foot against the far wall, pushing myself against the corner, taking solace in the pressure. That feeling of being squeezed, being held, is something all humans like, from as early as the moment that they are born, and maybe even before.


    The memory of what it had been like to hold Tsur in my arms was still clear.


    It wasn¡¯t just that I loved him more than I had ever loved anything; it wasn¡¯t just that my perspective had changed completely, my grasp of what was and wasn¡¯t important. As I¡¯d felt that delicate, fragile warmth against my breast, I¡¯d felt an unexpected, deep terror. To see so clearly how people were made, what minds, like mine, were grown from. Not pregnancy and birth, but the emergence of a human being from whatever a baby is¡ªfrom knowing nothing and being nothing, having almost no will or want but those that the body commands, to become something that decides and acts and demands. There was a wall there, just as grand and unfathomable as death. And just like with death, I¡¯d somehow managed to look away.


    But there are places that force you to look at the edges of your life, even if you have no desire to do so. Last Day Town was one of those places.


    #


    The train slowly began to tilt, or at least so it felt as it came to a stop. I finally got to find out which way we had been moving, as I slid gently all the way to one wall and brought myself to a stand.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    A part of the wall that had seemed like any other revealed itself to be a screen, lighting up the darkness with lines of text. There must have been a speaker system too, because a voice, dispassionate and pre-recorded, started reading me my rights.


    ¡°Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev, you will soon arrive at the Yirmyahu Detention Center, where you will await trial after which you will be sentenced for your alleged crimes. In order to prevent unequal treatment of defendants from different financial backgrounds, an attorney will be provided for you by the state¡ª"


    I laughed at that part, knowing that my defense lawyer, as well as the judge and the prosecutor, would be no better than automatons enacting a predetermined verdict.


    ¡°If you are to come in contact with another detainee, you would be instantly neutralized. If you are to throw anything, including your or aother¡¯s bodily fluids, at another prisoner, you would be instantly neutralized. If you are to touch another prisoner¡¯s possessions, including, cell, food provisions, and clothes, you will be instantly neutralized. Please remember that the Prisoner Protections System, from now on referred to as PPS, is here to protect you and your fellow inmates.¡±


    Funny, how quickly things changed. I had only once in my life been detained in a facility like this, more than a decade ago, and there had been real people threatening you then, not machines. It would be an exaggeration to say that it had felt less lonely, but I definitely preferred it to being processed by a blind, mindless machine. Practically, it didn¡¯t change much. I would be treated humanely in the technical sense of the word, and escape was not an option either way. As much as breaking out of space prison seemed exciting in novels from a hundred years ago. In reality, it was about as likely as beating the machine at chess.


    We came to a full stop, which sent me floating in the microgravity, and a door slid open to reveal a long hallway, well-lit with cheap, white light. The walls were bare, natural rock, a brutalist aesthetic that said more about economy than style.


    Far on the other side was a wall, and a ladder mounted on it, presumably leading to the heart of the compound. The detainment center, unlike the train, did have its own rotation, for the purposes of simulated gravity, and the door opened right to the axis of rotation. If I hadn¡¯t been floating in weightlessness, it might have caused me vertigo.


    I stepped into the hall, straight ahead, so I floated in space without touching anything. The hallway revolved around me. I knew that the moment I touched any part of the prison itself I¡¯d be caught in its spin, carried in its swirl and fake gravity.


    The speaker instructed me to grab it¡ª not that I had much choice, as I was levitating straight towards it. The ladder was mounted on a revolving wall ; As soon as I grabbed on the ladder it started spinning me too, as I struggled to match its speed and mount it. It made me turn around my own belly button, the opposite of a good G-creating roll. The speaker instructed me to follow the arrows, to climb ¡®down¡¯ on the ladder and I did, every step feeling more and more natural, and by the time I placed my slippers on the ground I was feeling the reassuring weight of my own body at one full G.


    A square of violet-blue light appeared around my feet. The speakers explained that I should not cross its perimeter, for safety reasons, and only move where it moved. It started moving, and I shuffled my feet to stay within it. It led me in an uncomfortable pace through a corridor with a low ceiling, even by the asteroid¡¯s standards, to a small cell. A sink; a dry toilet; a narrow bed; a thick violet line separating the inside from the outside. The toilet was right in front of the opening; sitting on it, I¡¯d be visible to the prisoner on the other side of the hall. Say what you would about Last Day Town: at least there you could pee without anyone looking.


    I looked to the cell ahead. A tall, bony man with curly graying hair was sitting on his toilet, pants still on. I waved. ¡°Peace,¡± I said. ¡°I really need to tell you something.¡±


    He pointed at one of his ears, and smiled apologetically. ¡°I¡¯m deaf,¡± he said, in a voice that really did sound like he had not heard a human voice in a long time, and waved goodbye before getting back to staring at the floor.


    I sighed. There will probably be somebody else to talk to.


    I examined the contents of my cell. In the corners, where the walls met the ceiling, were little sentinels, as small as my fist and entirely black but for a single, shiny lens. They looked like surveillance cameras, but I¡¯d learned from rare reports of people who had both survived their trial and agreed to talk, that they did much more than that ¨C they were the practical enforcers of this prison. When the speaker system talked about neutralizing, it was these devices it was talking about. The last time I¡¯d been here, it was an old-fashioned beating you were threatened with.


    The lenses tracked my motions as I moved around the room, shifting their angles in unison. I sat down on my bed, exhausted, and quickly found myself lying down. It was a stiff board covered with thin padding, placed in a way that felt deliberately uncomfortable. Interesting that they spent so much energy inducing gravity here, when a lower weight would have been more comfortable in this spartan setting. The bare, rugged rock of Last Day Town was more pleasant to put your head on than this thin pillow.


    What would I write about this place, if I manage to find a way to get a message out? Ceresian detainment centers are a culmination of its efficient, dehumanizing philosophy. There is no room for long-term incarceration in the dwarf¡¯s suffocating economy, only fines and exile.


    Since the formulation of Ceres as a commercial authority, before it declared itself a state, exile to Earth was the punishment of choice for people proved to be too much trouble to keep around. ¡°Reinstatement¡± it used to be called, the term gradually losing accuracy. Our work-contract-turned-constitution also states that transportation costs are to be provided by the convict, which essentially means that Ceres have always had the right to confiscate all of the convict¡¯s possessions and keep the change. That right, for some reason, was not abdicated even when it was revealed by Bar-Kochva that Earth started paying the fuel costs.


    What had happened to the people left on Earth, that it was easier to buy new ones and pay for the mind-bogglingly long flight than just breeding them down there? What happened only a several months ago, that had Earth stop accepting them off Ceres¡¯s hands?


    Perhaps it¡¯s best not to think about those things. The nightmare of Earth fuels the Ceresian anti-AI sentiment that had effectively killed any initiative to reduce mandatory weekly work hours¡ªthat machines could at one point treat us like we treat them. Sitting within this prison, being told where to stand and when, one will be hard pressed to ignore the irony in that.


    When the convict is determined not to be a danger, fines are the weapon of choice. Given the advantage of putting money in Ceres¡¯s pocket, without losing a productive member of society. On the surface a more humane punishment, there is a cunning cruelty to a well-placed fine.


    There is an inherent difficulty in determining the accurate financial value of a crime. Often the recipient of such a fine could pay them back in a couple of years, but often they would be determined too large, and the interest grew beyond the convict¡¯s ability to pay, making them abandon the attempt outright. But if they pegged it just right, the debt would keep going for a person¡¯s entire life, and later passed down to their children. We rarely hear it mentioned that when Ceres was just colonized, debts and fines were not hereditary. Since the law had been changed (curiously less than a year after the first Ceresian birth) Ceresians saw a sharp increase in the height of fines, as judges tried to hit that ¡°sweet spot¡± of unending debt. And why wouldn¡¯t they? The point was deterrence, and what¡¯s more deterring than ruining your children¡¯s lives?


    In summary, from a strictly financial, long-term standpoint, Ceres stands to gain more from a convict being fined than exiled. And so, what are we to learn that the ratio of exile to all convictions has risen from thirty to almost ninety percent in the last two years? At our most optimistic, we can see it as a response to Ceres¡¯s overgrowing population. While birth restrictions are still a visceral taboo, these¡­ artificially increased mortality rates were either ignored or outright applauded. At our most sober, though? One could come to the conclusion that our government has moved its focus from the future to the present. That they, too, don¡¯t think Ceres has much further to go.


    The prison itself didn¡¯t quite reflect any of this. Perhaps, we will see it become a shorter pipeline, arrest-to-exile, with the intermediaries cut out. But for now it was built to be a blank space, with as little distraction as possible. Official reason was never offered as to why trials take place only once every two hours. Perhaps that is another hard coded limitation, like the twenty-four hours of oxygen that a suit is required to have for an airlock to be open for it. Perhaps it was to give those who would end up being allowed to live, a week on average to contemplate their mistakes? Now that it seemed almost certain no good outcome waited in the end, that final week could be seen as courtesy, to be thanked for by the prisoners. Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant.


    And if it wasn¡¯t for that technicality, the trials being periodical and around the clock, I realized then, Last Day Town could never have existed.


    #


    I had just closed my eyes when an electronic voice spoke, startling me. ¡°Good noon, Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev. You are to be provided with three meals per day. In order to receive the second meal of the day, locate yourself immediately at the center of your designated square in order to be escorted to the dining chamber. If you do not locate yourself on the square, coercion measures will be used in one hundred seconds¡­ ninety-nine seconds¡­ ninety-eight seconds¡­¡± The voice was needlessly loud, and had some distinct quality that made it clear I was not being spoken to by a living human being. I got up from my bunk just to avoid it, and made my way to the supposed dining chamber, guided by the violet square through bright, colorless corridors. Finally, I turned a corner and found myself at what must have been the dining chamber. Only twice or thrice larger than my cell, with two men, each holding a bowl in their hands. They were standing in their squares, backs to me, near a machine the size of a large cupboard, with one nozzle in the center of it, above a little tray.


    I followed my square, which placed me at the end of the three-person-line. No one said anything, or threw me more than a passing glance.


    In front of me was a young, bulky man whose muscles bulged through the paper-thin uniform. He wasn¡¯t tall, but his thighs were so thick that he had to spread them apart when he stood; powerful signaling, in a world where gravity was optional, but oxygen bills were not. His clean-shaven head seemed to sprout right out from between his wide shoulders, with a partially healed burn mark right where his neck was supposed to be, the kind you might get from a strong electric current going through your skin. I took a moment to appreciate how much you could tell about a person when they weren¡¯t enveloped in a spacesuit. Even just standing and waiting, holding a wood-colored bowl in both hands, his body radiated energy, like a wrestler before a match.


    At the head of the line was an older man, his brown, watery eyes shadowed by protruding, hairy eyebrows. He held a bowl in one hand, hanging off the tips of his fingers, and regarded me with either wariness or pity, it was hard to tell. His arms were thin, but in a way that hinted there¡¯d been a time when they hadn¡¯t been, and the hair on them was the same tired salt-and-pepper as the hair on his head stubble. His square of light moved, and he followed it to face a machine.


    ¡°Peace,¡± I began saying, my voice raw from lack of use. ¡°They¡¯re killing people on the outside. I need you to deliver the message, in case you¡¯re-¡±


    The muscular man turned around, inspected me with his pale blue eyes, and put a finger to his smirking mouth. ¡°Show¡¯s about to start,¡± he said simply.


    Curious, I closed my mouth and observed.


    ¡°First Prisoner, place your bowl under the dispenser.¡±


    Obeying the speaker system¡¯s command, the older man placed his bowl under a nozzle, and the machine excreted a stream of watery porridge into it. It was gray, as if the color had been intentionally sucked out of it in an attempt to create the most visually depressing food possible. At another command, he picked up his bowl, and all our squares moved forward. There was no reason for mine to move one-and-a-half steps forward; there wasn¡¯t anyone in the line behind me.


    The old man stood at the exit with his bowl, confined to his violet square, even though there was no reason not to send him back to his cell. It was obvious that comfort wasn¡¯t the driving force behind the design. Not ours, at least.


    When ordered, the bald guy placed his own bowl under the dispenser, the machine filled it with porridge, and he took it away. The squares moved again, and I found myself standing in front of the dispenser. The speakers informed me that I will be given a bowl, that I will place it under the dispenser, that I will take the food and eat it in my cell and come back with the bowl for the next meal.


    A compartment opened, revealing a column of identical wood-colored bowls. I took one from it and placed it under the nozzle and promptly the nozzle discharged the gray material. It didn¡¯t smell like anything, either. I was under the impression that all the available strains of nutritional fungi on Ceres had flavoring in their very genes, so whatever this was made from was either specifically engineered to be bland, or had the taste bleached out. I didn¡¯t remember much from the last time I¡¯d been detained, but I was pretty sure the gruel had been beef-flavored.


    When the bowl was about halfway full, the bald prisoner turned to me. ¡°Do you know that if we touch each other, we both get electrocuted?¡± he said, an odd grin on his face.


    ¡°That¡¯s what I heard,¡± I answered, my voice raw from the lack of use.


    ¡°And that if one of us throws something at the other, whether a possession or bodily fluid, ¡± he mimed a tossing motion with his hand, getting closer than I would have liked, ¡°it¡¯s only the tosser that gets shocked?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± There was something obnoxious about the man¡¯s voice, as if he was delighting over how clever he was without saying anything new.


    ¡°But here¡¯s the cool thing. If I take a step over here.¡± He stepped out of his square, and immediately the speakers boomed.


    ¡°Second Prisoner,¡± the electronic voice addressed him. ¡°Return to your designated square or be neutralized. In ten, nine¡­¡±


    ¡°I still have time before the system decides I¡¯ve done anything wrong.¡± He took another step, towards the machine dispensing the fluid into my bowl.


    I took half a step away before I could properly think about it, careful to stay within the bounds of my square. I considered that he may be just going for my food, but then remembered the system was supposed to protect me from that, too. Not that I could do anything if it didn¡¯t: if I pushed him, as he so eloquently stated, we¡¯d both get electrocuted.


    ¡°Five¡­¡± He leaned next to my bowl, ignoring the speakers, so close that his mouth was just above the rim, inhaled sharply, and spat. A spray of translucent drops spread across the surface of the porridge, and a central mass of thick, stringy mucus hung from the rim of the bowl all the way to the center. ¡°Three¡­¡± He straightened up and looked at me, smiling as he wiped his mouth with the back of his thick forearm, then stepped back into his own square, unhurried.


    The warnings died down as soon as the system confirmed we were where we were supposed to be. ¡°What the fuck?¡± I asked, my voice flat.


    ¡°A welcome gift,¡± he said, still smiling. Behind him, the old man shook his head disapprovingly, not even looking at me.


    I looked at the bowl of sludge, now only slightly less edible, and felt a sense of disgust that had nothing to do with bodily fluids. I had to solve this, somehow.

 Gil II

    The squares of light led us apart, back to our cells. I held the bowl full of porridge and spit in one hand, unable to look away. The square led me to the precipice of my cell, and I placed the bowl neatly on the floor. I lay down in my bed, and wondered what the hell the point of any of it was.


    ¡°Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev, you are hereby notified that the prisoner protection system will not tolerate a hunger strike¡ª¡±


    ¡°What the fuck does that mean?¡± I grunted.


    ¡°¡ªYou must ingest at least eighty percent of your rations or we will have to take action. Please remember that PPS is here to protect prisoners from all harm.¡±


    I looked at the bowl, trying to map out where the spittle had hit, and decided that the porridge was thick enough that I could just scrape off the top layer.


    Standing above the toilet with the bowl tilted, I used the spoon to dig out one spoonful of porridge and shook it until it fell into the toilet-bowl. I was on my way to dig out another spoonful when I noticed the little sliver of spit on the spoon itself. If I used it to dig, I would contaminate the clean portion of porridge. If there even was any. I wiped the spoon with a piece of paper before carving out another spoonful, and repeated the process.


    ¡°If you choose to continue resisting, we will soon begin applying coercion for your protection.¡±


    I grunted wordlessly and carried on. Did I scoop out twenty percent already? It seemed like more. On a whim, I scooped another spoonful and tossed it down. The system made no comment, and I tossed away another spoonful, before electing to shovel away the entire contents into the toilet. What would my mother say, to see me throwing away food? I didn¡¯t know, but the system that now had the role of taking care of me made no judgment, which I took as a sign that we were no longer in conflict.


    Sometimes, the dysfunctionality of a system works in your favor.


    I lay in my bed again, and stared at the ceiling. Do something, I thought. I could¡¯ve handled this, if it had been just a day. But a week is a very long time, when you have to experience each minute, each second. There was an irritation that wouldn¡¯t let go. Not so much for the hunger or the harassment itself, but for the futility of it, the ugliness in that pointless cruelty.


    There was a part of me that would¡¯ve chosen to make the trial as early as possible, even knowing what the likely verdict was. There was a part of me that wished for nothing more than a screen to distract myself with, to gorge myself with news from around the solar system or, barring that, to just wallow in the epilogue of my failed life in silence.


    But I had a message to deliver. And if I wanted these people to get my message across, I needed to think of a way to get them to listen. I held on to that need, everytime I felt like I was going to


    Finally, the system called for me to get up and eat again, and I found myself flinching. I didn¡¯t want to leave this relatively tranquil place. I didn¡¯t want to fail again. But I had to try.


    #


    ¡°My name is Yossi,¡± I said as my square led me into the room, and the two other men waited at the exact same position as they had before. ¡°What¡¯s yours?¡±


    ¡°Nothing happens if I spit in your food,¡± the bald man explained, as if he''d been waiting for it since the last time we¡¯d met, ignoring what I¡¯d said. ¡°Good old Peeps punishes prisoners for touching each other and throwing things at each other, but not for throwing things at each other¡¯s things.¡± He pointed at his temple with his free hand. ¡°So, I can spit in your food as much as I want. Are you gonna do something about it?¡±


    Behind him, the older man silently placed his bowl under the dispenser.


    ¡°Hey, you. What¡¯s your name?¡± I asked the older man, but he only looked down at his bowl, refusing to make eye contact, refusing to communicate in any way. More than anything else, I felt a sense of disappointment. I turned back to the spitter. ¡°Is this what we¡¯re gonna do here? Spit in each other¡¯s food?¡±


    ¡°Try spitting in my food if you want to get some knuckles in your mouth,¡± he said, pointing at the first degree burn on the back of his neck, then pulling up a sleeve to show a similar mark on an overgrown triceps muscle; Proof of the depth to which he¡¯d be willing to escalate. ¡°Be my guest.¡±


    ¡°Not interested. What¡¯s the point of any of this?¡±


    ¡°The point?¡± He wrinkled his sharp nose as the older man took away his bowl, and placed his own. ¡°The point is that everyone in this prison is a fucking pussy. By virtue of being a little less pussy than anyone else here, I am the king of this place. Not much to take, but it¡¯s mine. And I can have my bowl of porridge filled without having the slightest worry that you¡¯ll do something to it.¡±


    Arik would have probably punched him right in the jaw, show him what went where. But I felt too hollow, too cold. Even if I put him in his place, what worth would it have? There was nothing in me that was even close to the raging, uncontrollable fire one needs to strike another person.


    He took back his bowl, took a step forward to stay with a moving square and gestured welcomingly as the speakers demanded I place my bowl under the dispenser.


    I did, and he stepped out of his square to the instant admonishment of a second electronic voice.


    ¡°...Return to your designated square or be neutralized¡­¡±


    But before he managed to get his mouth near my food, I placed one hand over my bowl. ¡°If you spit at my hand, that¡¯s throwing bodily fluids at another prisoner. Only you¡¯ll get shocked.¡±


    He returned to his square with an appreciative expression, and the countdown stopped. ¡°But if we touch each other, we both get electrocuted,¡± he retorted quickly. My bowl was starting to fill up. ¡°So if I take a step over here.¡± He stepped out of his square again, prompting PPS to play the same message from the start. ¡°And then, let¡¯s say, here,¡± he took another step, his slipper-covered foot entering my own square, ¡°you¡¯ll have to choose between getting fried or leaving your square.¡±


    He reached his hand forward, almost touching my face, and I did take a step back, out of my square. Another voice was added to the speaker system, repeating the same message but addressing Third Prisoner, this time. Not that I could do anything ¨C he was standing in my square now, so my only choice was between getting shocked because I was out of my designated place, or because I pushed him out of mine. My only advantage was that I stepped out of my circle a little after he did, so he should get out of mine and leave me time to get back, but he didn¡¯t seem above getting us both electrocuted just for the joy this whole thing seemed to cause him.


    He shot a stream of saliva between his teeth, arching into the porridge I was wary of thinking of as mine, and hopped back into his square. He gave me an expectant look. ¡°What are you going to do about it?¡±


    Once I returned to my square, the speaker system demanded that I pick up my bowl. I did, examining the drops of saliva on the shining face of the gray liquid. ¡°What are you getting out of this?¡±


    The old man looked at us from the corner of his eye, shaking his head slightly.


    ¡°What am I getting out of this?¡± the bold prisoner said, his face closer to mine now, catching my full attention. ¡°That you know exactly who you are, and who I am.¡±


    ¡°Who the hell are you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not a bitch, that¡¯s for sure. I¡¯m the one making sure that, as long as we¡¯re both here, you won¡¯t eat a single bite of food that hadn¡¯t been spat on,¡± he chuckled, and turned to walk away.


    The squares of light led us out of the room and we parted again. I wasn¡¯t even hungry, so logically, there was nothing to be angry about. But as I looked at my hands, one holding the bowl and one by my side, I saw that they were shaking, like the wings of something small and fragile. Back in my cell, I didn¡¯t wait this time for the system to raise its voice at me, and scraped my meal into the toilet right away. I wasn¡¯t even hungry, no, but there was a lukewarm anger that I couldn¡¯t shake, an itch. What did I have to complain about, though? This was still better than Last Day Town. At least I could breathe, sleep, drink, scratch my own asshole if I wanted to. And yet the people of Last Day Town tried. That was the secret, wasn¡¯t it? They all tried to do something. Even Diocletian.


    Diocletian. Even if the judicial system accidently let me free, it would still be a week without them getting any message from me. Diocletian would still snitch about my presence at Last Day Town. Not that it mattered - if the police confiscated my camera along with my spacesuit, they already knew that I¡¯d been there. That¡¯s not the reason I¡¯d like to deliver the message - if they did return, if they got to go free, they would be a strong hint for anyone looking to understand what happened in Last Day Town. And it¡¯s not like I wanted them to die. I tested my memory, to see if I remembered Lev Shalem¡¯s mnemonics, if only to keep busy. To my surprise, I found out that I did.


    I looked around the room, looking for a distraction, and found a shaving machine in a little holding place under the sink. Who in their right mind would spend time grooming when there¡¯s so little of it left?


    #


    The bald man¡¯s head shone in the white light, the oily skin of his scalp reflective, like something synthetic.


    ¡°Do you know what¡¯s waiting for you, at the end of this week?¡± I asked before he could start talking. I didn¡¯t know how much I actually slept last night, without clocks anywhere, but I had time to think about how to communicate with this person.


    He gave me a hard look before answering. ¡°Are you stupid? Everyone knows. Either you get to stay in Ceres, or they send you to be a slave on Earth.¡± Surprisingly na?ve. His tone switched from admonishing, to freely sharing, as if I¡¯d be interested in what he thinks is going on. ¡°You know what I think he does with the slaves? They can¡¯t do any work that that Sovereign computer can¡¯t do, so I think he just buys them for entertainment. Makes them fight to the death or do all of sorts of fucked up shit.¡±


    I shook my head. ¡°No one¡¯s getting sent to Earth anymore. If they rule that you¡¯re guilty of whatever you¡¯re accused of, which by the way you¡¯re behaving here I assume you know they will, they¡¯ll just throw you out to die, just like they will me, to choke on the surface, measuring our last words by the seconds of oxygen they require. These are our last days. Our last hours. And this is what we¡¯re going to do with them?¡± I tried shaping my voice into a righteous, angry tone, the kind that would make him wake up and stop. But even I could hear how tiredly it came out.


    He scoffed. ¡°Fuck all of those conspiracy theories. This is real. I¡¯m fucking with you right now, right here.¡± He kept moving his hands as he spoke, punctuating every word, as if he were explaining¡­ not to a child, because children are treated with patience, but someone who was disabled while somehow still undeserving of empathy. ¡°Are you gonna do something about it, or whine?¡± His breath was hot on my face as he forced me out of my square with nothing but self-confidence. Not that there was any need. I didn¡¯t resist, trying to get as much of his attention on what I was saying. He leaned over my bowl and let out a burst of stringy saliva.


    I clenched a fist and tried again. ¡°After your trial, you¡¯ll find yourself on the outside of the asteroid, with nothing but the oxygen on your back to sustain you. You¡¯ll be locked in a man-sized aquarium with your own terror and death, and then and there you will want nothing more than the comfort of other people, and this strength you pretend to have will suddenly seem useless. We¡¯re all going to die. Isn¡¯t that enough to make us care? Not cry on each other¡¯s shoulder, but perhaps enough to not be cunts to each other?¡±


    He raised his head from my bowl, looked as if he was considering everything that¡¯s been said. ¡°Did you just call me a cunt?¡± He said as soon as we were back in our squares, and PPS went silent.


    I took my bowl and offered it to him. ¡°What are you going to do about it? Spit in my food again?¡±


    He chuckled and shook his head, then walked away. After two steps, he turned back. ¡°Fuck caring.¡±


    #


    It isn¡¯t a big deal, I thought. It isn¡¯t anything to be angry about. And it wasn¡¯t. I wasn¡¯t. I just felt that persistent buzz, that frustration. Not just at him for choosing to make my life worse for no reason, but at myself for being so weak something so small bothered me, for still thinking about it, instead of spending these hours in some sort of tranquil contemplation, accepting what had happened. Instead, I kept going around in circles and complaining about how angry I was.


    It seemed funny, not to be angry because these were my last days, and I was about to die, but because I was spending that precious time thinking about someone I didn¡¯t care for. Moments like any other, Pythia had said.


    What awful gravity last words hold. Words like any other, he probably would have added, given the chance. But with all their weight, they did not remedy who I was. Even here, I was annoyed by my inability to change the world.


    I¡¯d been having this conversation with myself for as long as I could remember, awake in my bed, angry at myself for being frustrated with others. I¡¯d always expected that tendency to pass at some point. Maybe next year, I¡¯d thought, I¡¯ll be the kind of person who reacts like this, or thinks like that. The kind of person who processes things correctly.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    It seemed silly, looking at the bare rock ceiling of my cell, that I¡¯d expected things, including myself, to be anything other than what they already were.


    #


    The bald man snorted, pneumatically sucking what sounded like a chunk of snot from his nasal cavity down to his throat, then coughed it up into his mouth. He moved his tongue around to place it just behind his lips, and launched it in a shallow arc into my bowl. Half of the yellow gunk ended up hitting the side, and the rest broke on the surface of the gray gruel.


    I looked up and asked, ¡°PPS, I¡¯d like to file a complaint. Could I talk to a human representative?¡±


    No answer. I grunted, the frustration finally getting out of my control. ¡°And we have accept this as humane treatment just because some superstitious assholes are afraid employing AI.¡±


    And at this, of all things, the old man decided to open his mouth for the first time, his voice surprisingly full of emotion. ¡°Afraid? I was on your side, but you deserve what you¡¯re getting if you¡¯re one of those lazy punks who¡¯s ok with ending up like Earth.¡± In an intonation that made it clear that the next sentence was already as determined as the next line in a computer program, he added, ¡°Why not? Let¡¯s just risk all our lives, our dignity as a race, just so you don¡¯t have to go to work.¡±


    Incredible, that with how little time this person had to talk to anyone, this is what he chose to waste it on¡ªregurgitating propaganda that had been fed to him by someone else. It was a common trick -pretending that the two only options were either using no artificial intelligence at all or losing all autonomy to it, as if there wasn¡¯t any middle ground. I didn¡¯t bother answering¡ªI¡¯ve wasted enough of my life in this kind of fruitless argument, and it seemed like he didn¡¯t even need me to go through the motions.


    The spitter seemed pleased that the world coincided with his views. ¡°The question you¡¯re asking yourself right now is this¡ªdid they know, when they designed this system? Did they leave this opening on purpose, because they hate you so much?¡±


    ¡°Do you¡­ think they had me in mind, specifically?¡± I asked. If he had lost grip on reality, that might explain some things.


    ¡°Anyone who¡¯s weak enough to not do something about their situation. They¡¯re happier knowing that their prison still leaves a possibility for some good old-fashioned abuse, and not just this sterile shit.¡± He put a spoonful of his own porridge in his mouth and closed his eyes as if savoring the grand taste of un-spat-on porridge.


    ¡°Did they know¡­¡± the old man started, in a tone that made it clear that he wasn¡¯t quite following the conversation as much as looking for an excuse to keep talking, now that he¡¯d started. Wherever that sentence led, he didn¡¯t dare speak it, yet.


    ¡°So,¡± the bald man said, his tone soft, encouraging. ¡°What are you going to do about it?¡±


    There was nothing preventing me from punching this guy in the throat, right under that smooth chin, giving him exactly what he wanted. I¡¯d been so close to resorting to actual violence with Ctesibius. Why was it so much harder, now?


    I certainly didn¡¯t have enough fire in me to strike him, to willingly expose myself to the pain of electrocution. What was I going to do, then? Nothing, like I¡¯d always done. In this prison, on death row, there was no better time to ask ¨C why hadn¡¯t I done anything, in my entire life? Not anything that mattered, at least.


    #


    I sat down in my bunk and looked at the bowl in my hand. I was hungry enough to consider eating, which scared me. As if there was a defeat in eating now. I scooped the contents into the toilet before I had a chance to change my mind, and lay in my bunk, listening to the grumbling of my own stomach, as if it were the communication efforts of some newly discovered alien race.


    A good thing that no contact was ever made. Imagine how embarrassing that could have been.


    #


    When I returned to the dining chamber, the old man was already talking, perhaps prompted by our last conversation, emoting with his hairy hands. ¡°¡­They sent us here to see if it could even be done, a colony like this, but once we succeeded, they packed their shit and moved to Europa, where there are fucking oceans.¡± He scraped the sole of his soft shoe against the dry rock, agitated. ¡°And mining¡¯s done without so much as a gas mask. But we¡¯re not surprised, are we? We¡¯re used to them sending us as a wedge in some political game, and my great grandfather lived in a settlement, too, and it wasn¡¯t that much safer for him, now, was it?¡±


    He laughed to himself. The spitter, for all the violence his was ready to threaten me with, listened to the old man and laughed politely.


    The old man looked at us, saw that I wasn¡¯t laughing and the other wasn¡¯t understanding, and waved a dismissive hand. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter anyway. The dragon that was bred on Earth will end up eating the entire solar system. Why would it ever stop? Its creator doesn¡¯t mind, as long as it keeps giving him immortality¡ªyeah, that¡¯s what I heard: that he¡¯s immortal, that the system cooked up some drugs that let him live forever. On the other hand, some people say that he¡¯s been dead for a long time now, and the AI that runs Earth pretends that he¡¯s alive while it runs everything, and it¡¯s lost now. The most habitable planet we ever had, lost from human hands.¡± There was an intensity to his tone now, as the line moved forward.


    The bald man still looked at the man, listening attentively while leaning over and spitting on my food.


    ¡°Did they know, on Earth?¡± The old man hurried, as if some permission had been granted to speak and he had to make the most of it. ¡°When there was still time to stop it, when they could have waged war, do you think some people knew that all of Earth would turn into a hell where human beings are treated like wet machines? Where one person held all the power? Did they know, and still choose not to fight, or were they too stupid to figure it out, when all of the signs were in front of them? And which one would be worse, to be stupid or to be selfish, or a fucking coward¡­¡±


    ¡°Ariel Shem-tov: You have reached the termination of your detainment period. Follow your light square to your designated train on gate number two...¡±


    The old man¡¯s eyes widened with terror, but the tension left him as soon as it came. He turned around, surrender in his every movement, and turned his watery eyes to me. ¡°It told me in the morning,¡± he said, and pulled at his nose, as if holding back tears. ¡°But I thought I¡¯d just heard wrong.¡± He looked at me, really looked at me and for the first time asked me a question as if I could actually answer. ¡°Do you think they know what it¡¯s like for us out here? Do you think they know, and just don¡¯t care?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know which ¡®them¡¯ he¡¯d been speaking of, nor which ¡®us¡¯, but it didn¡¯t matter. The answer was the same. ¡°If we had known, in their place, would we have cared?¡±


    He nodded, defeated, and turned away. We all followed the light square on the floor to the corridor at the end of it. In previous days, every time we reached the T junction at the exit of the dining chamber, we all turned right. For the first time, Ariel turned left. The whistle of a train moving in a narrow tunnel echoed through the corridors¡ªa haunting, hollow sound.


    The two of us left, bowls in hands, followed our own squares to the right. I couldn¡¯t stop looking back at the old man, all while checking that I wasn¡¯t accidentally bumping into the spitter, but Ariel didn¡¯t look back. He shuffled around a corner, and I never saw him again.


    I stared at the other prisoner¡¯s back, getting ready to have another non-meal when I heard Ariel¡¯s voice again: a howl that echoed through the halls. ¡°I did! I did care¡ªI did everything I could¡ªbut it didn¡¯t change anything!¡±


    For a moment, the man in front of me froze, his light square moving ahead without him, and the speaker informed us that we were both out of our designated areas. Him because he chose to, and me because he was blocking my way, though the system didn¡¯t care about that. I thought I saw a shiver pass from one of his shoulders to the other.


    #


    I sat on my bed, the bowl in front of me. I was hungry, that much could no longer be denied. The last time I ate was before I got in the skipper that took me to Last Day Town, and I wasn¡¯t sure how long ago that had been. I could scoop this bowl down the toilet, and as soon as I did the dilemma would disappear, at least for the next couple of hours.


    But how long will I stay here? In two or three more days of fasting, I¡¯d start getting noticeably weaker. And any longer than that I¡¯d be completely powerless. It didn¡¯t seem like too bad of a way to stick it to all of them, to just stop eating, give up on that and peacefully wither away.


    But if they did throw me out, and I¡¯d spend my last day as an Anaxagoras or Ctesibius too lethargic to be of any use, I¡¯d be a disappointment to those great chains of impossible focus and dedication. And by now, Diocletian must have rebuilt the lines already. It was a part of our deal that she would, and I believed she¡¯d honor that.


    Giving up power wasn¡¯t any sort of rebellion. The spitter wanted me to either starve or fight him, but what he used to coerce me was nothing but psychological pressure, an idea. Both fighting him and starving were ways of giving in to that pressure, acknowledging it. The brave thing to do was to see through, to realize that it¡¯s a fiction. I already had spit in my mouth, and I never spared it a thought. We somehow never worry about that when kissing a lover¡¯s lips, do we? In fact, I remembered reading somewhere that even though back on Earth people used to have very different types of bacteria in their gut and mouth, in Ceres we all had the same forty something species, because of how crowded we were in here, how much of each other¡¯s spit we breathed regularly. So what did it matter? Why must I obey this irrational repulsion? Just because other people told me that it¡¯s something that I should feel? I was going to die this very week, for the love of God. How was I still bothered by this?


    I dug the spoon into the porridge, ignoring the strings of spit, and brought it up in front of my face, where it stopped, as if on its own.


    ¡°Coercion will be applied in ten, nine¡­¡±


    ¡°Just give me a second, will you?¡± I barked. There¡¯s no one there, I reminded myself. No one to be angry at.


    ¡°five, four¡­¡±


    Here we go. Eyes closed, I took in a spoonful, and forced it, gulping, down my throat. The cell was finally silent. It tasted just as bland as it seemed, artificially tasteless.


    I finished the porridge and washed my mouth in the sink.


    #


    The next day, the man who used to be second prisoner was at the head of the line, and there was a younger woman behind me. She had bright green eyes and a button nose, and long brown hair that swung all the way down to her not-unattractive waistline. She looked at us with an air of patient observance, as if she were taking the time to see what was going on before deciding on anything.


    ¡°Do you know what Peeps told me this morning?¡± he said as we waited for our squares to move closer to the machine. ¡°Right after the usual announcement, it told me that after the first meal of the day the judge will have time for me. That means our lessons will have to stop, and you¡¯ll have to complete the work on your own.¡± His tone was casual, but there was something frozen in his expression.


    I didn¡¯t want him to die; I did, however, feel something not unlike happiness knowing that I wouldn¡¯t have to be stuck there with him anymore. When you¡¯re in a deep enough hole, numb enough, it¡¯s easy to mistake relief for joy. ¡°Then you¡¯ll see soon enough,¡± I said. ¡°After the trial, you¡¯ll see what¡¯s on the outside. Maybe it will change your mind.¡±


    He shook his head as he took his bowl from under the dispenser.


    The squares of light moved, and we moved with them. When he turned back to force me out of my square, there was an atmosphere of ceremonialism about him, as if he was cherishing this last chance to harass me. He tilted his head backwards theatrically, snorting and gurgling louder than ever.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± the woman asked. Her voice was different from what I had expected, firm and commanding, as if she were the matriarch of an ancient, untamed tribe.


    ¡°He¡¯s going to spit in my food.¡± I shrugged, but there was a whole new dimension of humiliation, having this ritual observed by an audience. ¡°The system doesn¡¯t track it.¡±


    The expression on her face changed as quickly as a piece of paper catching fire, from confused one moment to absolutely furious in the next. She turned to him. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t do that!¡±


    #


    Here¡¯s something I¡¯ve never understood¡ªwhen someone¡¯s about to hurt someone else, or acting in any selfish way, people¡¯s natural response is to say something like ¡°Don¡¯t do that!¡± or ¡°Get away from me!¡±. I could never get my head around why anyone would expect that to work. If someone wants to hurt you, why would it help to tell them not to? What information is being conveyed, apart from the victim¡¯s desire not to be victimized, which we can assume the abuser¡¯s already aware of?


    #


    He lowered his head, smiled at her, and discharged a mouthful of saliva into my bowl. He walked back into his square and faced her. ¡°What¡¯re you gonna do? Slap me?¡±


    Her hands clenched into fists, and her face scrunched up in anger in a way that was somehow endearing. She strode towards him, ignoring Peep¡¯s warnings, each step quicker than the last, and I stepped instinctively to the side, out of her way.


    Her body language made it very clear that she was going to punch him. And once she did, I thought, she¡¯d be electrocuted, knocked out, scarred. I realized with numb terror that if I didn¡¯t want to see her convulsing on the floor, I would have to actually do something.


    He stood with his arms spread wide, ready to take the blow, looking at me as if to make sure that I was following along.


    ¡°Are you so afraid of getting shocked you¡¯d let a girl do it for you? Come on, punch me.¡± There was a strange desperation in his voice.


    And finally I realized what was going on, why he¡¯d been talking so much. He wanted me to reassure his philosophy, to justify his brutality by agreeing to play by his rules. But it wasn¡¯t just that, his own brutality was a way to justify what had been done to him, to make it all right, not a big, just the way of a world, nothing to fuss about.


    And I wanted to break his nose, right then and there. But Pythia would have never let anyone tell them how to think, wouldn¡¯t they?


    She was closer now, almost swinging for the punch, and there would be no way for me to step between them in time. But then again, did I need to?


    I took my bowl in my hand, Turned to the man, and threw it at his foot. The girl barely managed to stop her momentum before touching him.


    An exhilaration came over me, like a refreshing gust of wind, washing over me. An uncontrollable, mad smile climbed on my face. Did I feel¡­ free?


    He looked at it, not understanding, and by the time he raised his eyes there was a realization reflecting in them, and anger. ¡°What are you doing? You were supposed to-¡±


    Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev, you have been detected by PPs while assaulting another prisoner and as such¡­


    I spoke over both of them. ¡°What is your name?¡±


    ¡°Gil.¡±


    ¡°You were right, Gil. I am afraid. Now can you do me a favor? If they let you go, could you please spread the word that they¡¯re throwing people out with oxygen in their suits?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll let me go,¡± he lowered his eyes, lest I see the emotion in them. But he couldn¡¯t hide the wave of regret washing over him. ¡°Fuck.¡±


    ¡°Hope, you fucking coward.¡±


    He raised his eyes again, first in anger, and then, realizing how little time was left, his expression changed to that of quiet acceptance. ¡°Ok,¡± he said.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± I said, and turned to the woman.


    She looked at me, terrified. I looked back at her, so very close, and noticed the different shades of chestnut in her hair, the rare silver hairs like fractures, the hard lines of her lips, the freckles on her nose, the points of darker green in her surprised eyes, the laugh lines hinting that she was older than she¡¯d first seemed, having spent most of her life in low gravity. The smell of her hair filled me with something I had forgotten the name for.


    I was terrified, too, but it would do no good to let her see that, now would it? With a charm I had not mastered since hitting on Ayelet the first time we met, I winked at her.


    An arc of electricity shot out from one of the sentinels with a loud crack and connected with my elbow.


    I had gotten an electric shock once before, and I remembered that although it was very unpleasant, it wasn¡¯t quite accurate to say that it hurt. But this? This hurt.


    Are my muscles ripping themselves apart? Am I having a heart attack? If I am, will somebody do something about it? Is it supposed to hurt this much? When does this fucker turn off? I must have fallen to the floor at some point, because I felt my head banging against some hard surface. How long has it been now, three seconds, ten seconds, a whole minute? Who¡¯s the bastard that designed this fucking thing?


    Finally, I passed out.

 Keren I

    I woke up in my cell bed, uncovered, every muscle in my body tight, twitchy, and generally¡­ wrong. A chorus of aches accompanied my attempts to sit up, the echoes of the trauma resonating in my nerves. I opened my mouth and my jaw gave a loud pop. The muscles in my cheeks made their grievances clear, as well as those in my neck, my back, all the way down to my toes.


    Slowly, I brought my arm into view, inspecting the still stinging electric burn just below my elbow. It¡¯s going to take some time to heal, I thought, before remembering that it probably never will. And yet I was filled with a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of something having been done. All it had taken was one action, one movement on my own, and the blood was pumping freely in my veins again.


    I was still sitting in a prison cell, of course, awaiting a death sentence, and I felt like shit. But, despite everything, I was alive.


    Something of the numb fog dissipated, and I could think. Not just about this room and the next meal, but about my life, my long story. The first years on Ceres, the hard work, meeting Ayelet for the first time and choosing to bring a child with her into this cold, dry world. Pouring every bit of my life into that child, only for him to nullify that decision. To decide against it. The way we had numbly picked up the sharp pieces, Ayelet pursuing her career further and me going deeper into a community that was turning from journalistic to shamelessly revolutionary in nature. It was meant to be a redmption, but that, too, became a sort of hopeless, repetitive hell. Worse yet, it gave me an excuse not to admit to myself that I was too much of a coward to end it. I¡¯d waited in that hole until Arik¡¯s request came, like a rope slinging down from the lit surface to climb out with, not thinking too much where that climb would lead.


    It seemed so little, as I was sitting in my cell and looking through the narrow lens of my memories. A flaccid ending to a flaccid life. And still I was happy, a real point of light in this darkness, that I was about to die for having tried. That I had taken a risk once, that I took my chance to make a change bigger than myself. That I became enough of a danger to be killed.


    And as I thought that word, it was as if I realized for the first time that it was ending, that there was going to be no more, and the horror of it struck me. How my body will soon be lying dry and frozen on the surface.


    More than anything, I wished not to be alone, but there I was, in a cell, with no one to keep me company but the man on the other side of the corridor, sitting on the toilet and farting long, whiny farts. A shitty lament. Perhaps things had been easier when I still had Gil and his psychological torture as a distraction. He was probably already in Last Day Town, foraging or building or, God forbid, taking confessions. I wondered if he was doing ok.


    ¡°Good Noon, Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev. You are to be provided with three meals per day.¡­¡± Peeps began.


    Noon. The last message I¡¯d heard was in the morning, and I didn¡¯t feel like I¡¯d slept for more than a day straight. Good. I¡¯d worried that I would spend a long time knocked out, wasting what little waking time I had left. A refreshing thought.


    ¡°If you do not enter your square, coercion measures will be used in one hundred seconds¡­ ninety-nine seconds¡­ ninety-eight seconds¡­¡±


    I placed myself in the square, and went back to the dining chamber.


    #


    I was at the head of the line now, waiting alone in the dining chamber. Why was I waiting here? What was the point of this design? Wouldn¡¯t it make more sense to serve the porridge before everyone was here?


    The woman from yesterday arrived, going around the corner, her square of light leading her into the room. ¡°Good noon,¡± she said, and casually raised a palm.


    I turned, fully facing her. All of that time to plan, and I just said the first thing that came to mind. ¡°Why did you do that? You would have been hurt.¡±


    ¡°Do what?¡±


    ¡°Try to push that guy. You would have gotten shocked.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind that so much.¡±


    ¡°You just saw me convulsing on the floor today. Do you think it wouldn¡¯t hurt? Are you insane?¡±


    ¡°Probably.¡± She shrugged, her good mood unaffected. The third person entered the room then, humming as she did, and my square finally moved forward. I placed my bowl under the dispenser and turned to look at the newcomer.


    She had deep creases around her eyes and mouth, and a bend to her back that could only have come from decades of sitting at a desk. She was so thin I was surprised that she could even move in time with her designated square. She smiled at me and the young woman, bitterly, mocking all of us.


    The young woman waved to her. ¡°Peace,¡± she said.


    ¡°Oh, peace,¡± the old woman murmured, her rasp a mock-cheer, making it clear she didn¡¯t want anyone talking to her.


    I put my bowl under the dispenser. ¡°It wouldn¡¯t have looked good in the trial,¡± I said, catching her attention. ¡°If Peeps let them know that you got into a fight with another prisoner.¡±


    She raised an eyebrow. ¡°And it wouldn¡¯t affect yours?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m already fucked as it is.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s two of us, but then why¡¯d you let that guy spit in your food? That seems more insane to me.¡±


    The old woman chuckled, her eyes on the floor. Whether she was listening or not was anyone¡¯s guess.


    There was no time to think up an excuse. ¡°Because I¡¯m a fucking coward.¡±


    She frowned quickly. ¡°Didn¡¯t seem like a coward to me.¡±


    ¡°Listen, friend - ¡±


    ¡°Keren.¡±


    ¡°Listen, Keren, this came out wrong. I owe you. For what you did before.¡± I took my porridge-filled bowl from the dispenser, and we all took a step forward when ordered.


    She put her own bowl under the dispenser, and turned her palms upward. ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything.¡±


    How do I explain that new burst of life that I¡¯d felt? That I wouldn¡¯t have done anything if she weren¡¯t there? ¡°You did. I wish there was something I could do to pay you back.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re even, as far as I¡¯m concerned. But...¡± she mused, wasting a precious second. ¡°You told that guy you know what happens after the trial. Do you?¡±


    ¡°I do.¡±


    ¡°Tell me. I¡¯m dying to know,¡± she smirked, and I couldn¡¯t help but smile.


    Funny, how I¡¯ve been struggling to get it out, and here was someone wanting to hear without any coercion. ¡°It won¡¯t make any sense.¡±


    ¡°Few things do.¡± Keren took her bowl away, we stepped forward, and Peeps instructed the old woman to take a new bowl and place it under the dispenser. She obeyed silently.


    ¡°They¡¯re throwing people outside, at the Everdark craters,¡± I said. ¡°With suits, and twenty four hours of oxygen in them.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all you saw?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the most important part. If you get out of here, that¡¯s the message you have to spread.¡±


    She cocked her head, as if trying to understand what my problem was.¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°Yossi.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re terrified, aren¡¯t you, Yossi?¡± She said, and for the rest of my life I could try to figure out how she could say something so personal without making me want to turn away.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t anyone be, in my place?¡±


    She closed her eyes and shook her head; the tiniest motion. ¡°Even before that. Always scared. We need to take care of that.¡±


    ¡°How long do you think we got to be here?¡± I gestured at the cafeteria, not saying the word together.


    ¡°About a quarter minute, I¡¯m guessing.¡±


    The old woman picked up her bowl, humming as she did and the squares of light began moving again.


    ¡°No, I meant like, total.¡± Until they throw one of us out. ¡°It isn¡¯t enough. How the hell are you going to take care of anything? It doesn¡¯t matter. There¡¯s no time to analyze. But you can tell me who you are. Why did you risk yourself to help me? What are you here for, that you¡¯re certain they¡¯ll throw you out?¡± I asked, but the light squares had already begun moving. Our time for that meal was over ¨C I had devoured it with my rambling, asking so many questions there was no time left to answer.


    She took a moment to weigh the words. ¡°Really?¡± she said as we were in the hallway, our paths separating. ¡°That¡¯s what you want to hear about?¡±


    And before I found an answer, she was gone.


    The walk back to my cell felt longer than ever before. I fought the urge to look back at her as our ways parted. Back in my cell, I sat down, and placed the bowl of porridge beside me. I wanted to count the time until I saw her again, but there was no time to count. Without a clock to chop down time into manageable portions, I was left with a fluid, continuous stream of moments each one identical to the other. I was going crazy. I studied the cell, every detail of it, trying not to think about anything but that one minute, that one portion of human interaction that I was going to have. How little time I will have to understand who that strange person is. How long, in contrast, I will spend in that cell, alone, most of the rest of life, in fact, instead of being with another person, listening to their voice, watching their smile. Just when I thought I couldn¡¯t get any more pathetic.


    I tried the porridge. It tasted the same as it had before, but also, somehow, absolutely amazing.


    #


    She started talking as soon as she stepped into the dining chamber, not wasting a second. ¡°My past, of all things, is what you want to hear about? Sounds boring to me, but I¡¯ll make you a deal¡ªyou tell me what¡¯s outside, and I¡¯ll tell you how I got here,¡± she said. ¡°And if you listen closely, you might realize how to stop being afraid.¡±


    ¡°Stop being afraid of what?¡±


    ¡°Death, the future, anything.¡± She smiled, and I spent just a second longer than was necessary looking at the smile in those green eyes.


    Something in me softened. Not that I expected talking to her to actually cure me of anything, but I found myself looking forward to playing along with her¡ªto being part of a game; any game. I smiled back.


    The old woman entered the room last, her bowl in hand, and was already rolling her eyes.


    I placed my bowl under the dispenser. ¡°How can you teach someone not to fear death?¡±


    Keren smirked. ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t care about that¡ªthat you just wanted to know how I got here.¡±


    ¡°Well now I wanna know both.¡±


    ¡°And I want to know what goes on the outside.¡±


    ¡°And I want to know what silence sounds like,¡± the old woman murmured to herself. We ignored her.


    ¡°There¡¯s no time to argue,¡± I said.


    ¡°Then stop arguing. We don¡¯t know how many days we have, so we¡¯ll make a deal. One day you¡¯ll answer my questions, and one day I¡¯ll answer yours.¡±


    ¡°That means about three minutes of talking per day.¡± And if I¡¯m lucky enough to spend six more days here, that¡¯s¡­ ¡°Less than eighteen total.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re porridge.¡±


    ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    She pointed at the full bowl waiting patiently under the dispenser; I had missed the speakers encouraging me to take it. I took it, moved ahead, and brought a spoonful to my mouth, indulging a hunger that now returned in full. She put her own bowl under the dispenser.


    ¡°That¡¯s why it¡¯s doubly important that you don¡¯t lie to me.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I swallowed hurriedly. ¡°What would I even lie to you about?¡±


    ¡°You look like a good liar; I¡¯m just saying. These little talks could save your life, if you¡¯re for real. No bullshit, no lies. Whole truth and nothing but, with all of the shame and discomfort that it brings. Do we have a deal?¡±


    I wished that I was a better person, one that could see that reaching out to be as wholesome as it was. Unfortunately, I was a disgusting old man, and my brain responded the only way it knew how when a younger woman expressed interest in me. Images flashed in front my eyes, so real the experience was almost dissociative. Her eyes focused in deep concentration, her breath ragged, sweat pooling in the hollow of her throat as I held her back with both of my hands and thrust in manic, desperate intensity against the metal railing of somewhere with no G, the center of some great turning room, her hair floating around her as if she were a siren.


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    ¡°You know,¡± she mused as I didn¡¯t answer, looking at the ceiling of rough rock. ¡°My grandfather was one of the people digging the first tunnels of Ceres. This is his legacy. I wonder if someone else would have felt pride, at that.¡± She turned back to me. ¡°Anyway, deal?¡±


    I blinked hard. ¡°Deal,¡± I said, somewhat unsure as to what I was agreeing to.


    She nodded decisively as the light squares started moving. ¡°Afraid we better not shake on it,¡± she said, quirking her lip, and our time for that day was over.


    #


    Sleep wouldn¡¯t come to me. It might have been the terror that had to be somewhere in there, or the excitement, or the resurfacing rage at a system that treated human beings like this. So I spent the night perfecting a fantasy, almost forgetting my surroundings, sinking into it with focus and intent that would have been impossible if I were not in this isolation. I forced myself to see, to smell, to feel as if her skin was actually on mine.


    I savor the feeling of her weight¡ªno: of her mass as we wrestle in zero G, her legs wrapped around me, keeping me close. The taste of her thin lips, their texture. The pressure of her lean body, of her small breasts against my skin. My hand pressing the small of her back, making sure she¡¯ll never leave.


    I imagine what it would have been like not just to be alive, but to live.


    #


    ¡°Good morning, Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev. You are to be provided with three meals per day¡­¡±


    From what I understood from Gil and the older man, Ariel, it would be in the morning that Peeps notified me of the trial. I listened closely to see if today was the day. But it ended on the usual note ¨C ¡°Coercion measures will be used in one hundred seconds¡­¡±


    I got up, stepped into my square, walked, and waited at the head of the line, bowl in one hand and spoon in the other. Not just stood still, but actually waited for something.


    She came around the corner and waved, smiling, as soon as she saw me. A small, relaxed movement, a gesture so out of place it stunned me. ¡°So,¡± she started with no introduction. ¡°How¡¯d you find out what¡¯s going on outside?¡±


    Funny, the words that come out of your mouth when you have no time to think. ¡°I was looking for something worth risking my life for, something worth becoming a real journalist for, and this tip came with a burning fuse. I did, but never got a chance to write it down.¡±


    ¡°What would I have read, if you did?¡± She asked, amused but genuinely curious.


    I did my best to oblige, telling her about the airlock, the functioning suits given to those thrown out, the horror in Anaxagoras¡¯s voice is he realized he isn¡¯t going to Earth.


    She tilted her head in curiosity. ¡°Why not just no throw them out naked?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    The old woman laughed, her yellowing teeth visible, clacking like a haunted skull.


    #


    Another third of a day passed staring at a ceiling. In a way, this was even worse than when Gil was around.


    #


    ¡°Maybe they¡¯re afraid.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°The people who deicided to throw people out with suits on.¡¯


    ¡°What are they afraid of?¡±


    ¡°Guilt.¡± She gave me a long look, and seeing that I didn¡¯t quite follow her intention, continued to her next question. ¡°Never mind that. What do people do there all day? Is it like a support group?¡±


    I told her about the lines, how the residents insisted to be called by their line¡¯s name. I didn¡¯t have time to tell her how they schemed against each other, just that they did.


    Her surprise was mixed with visible appreciation. ¡°Really? In such a short time, they get into a tribal mindset?¡±


    ¡°It was like a persona. They didn¡¯t just learn what they should do, in that short time, but also¡­ how to behave. Who they should be.¡±


    She looked off into the distance, amused. ¡°What strange games people play.¡±


    #


    I fell asleep, even with the light on, and when I woke from my unplanned nap by the sound of the deaf man having a coughing fit in the other cell, I was disoriented and confused. I had the distinct feeling that it was all a pretense; this prison, my life, Keren and my infatuation with her, death and the fear of it, all thin pretenses that I tried so hard to keep in the waking world that I had forgotten it was a pretense at all. I washed my face in the sink and after a while, it passed.


    #


    ¡°What was it like to talk with people in that situation?¡± Keren proceeded, as if nothing had happened in between, as if there was no break, as if she had not waited for hours upon hours in a cell, struggling with torturous isolation. I wanted to say something about how strange that was, but that was not our deal. The only thing she asked of me was to tell her about Last Day Town, so I was going to do just that, to the best of my ability. But that was the thing, I supposed. Regardless of my aspirations, regardless of my practice, putting thoughts into words was just never my strong suit. It was easier to admit it then, when it was becoming increasingly clear I¡¯d won¡¯t get another chance at the game. ¡°I thought it was just madness, at first, and then that it was a pretense. They kept talking about tomorrow, about yesterday, as if this had anything to do with them. Isn¡¯t that absolutely insane?¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t sound insane to me. At least, not more than most people.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll explain when it¡¯s my turn, but now it¡¯s yours.¡± I took my bowl away, and she put hers in place. ¡°What did they talk about, when they mentioned tomorrow and yesterday?¡±


    ¡°They were¡­ grateful. Or vengeful.¡± And I envied them for that. Even when I had a tomorrow, I didn¡¯t feel either of those things. ¡°Paying back to people who had only now been given their names for action comitted by people who were already dead.¡±


    ¡°And you think it really mattered to them, or they were pretending?¡±


    You¡¯d think that she¡¯d ask first about the kind of things they do, or how they died, but she went straight for the heart of it. ¡°I don¡¯t know. What¡¯s worse? I mean, even if they were pretending, that was the only reason they could do anything other than going mad with grief ¨C And I think, if anything they told me is to be believed, that they actually cared for each other.¡±


    ¡°They had somebody to play along for, to give that measure of comfort.¡± She looked away, her lips pursed as if she was suddenly taken with the urge to cry.


    ¡°I think so. I¡¯m sorry, is this upsetting you?¡±


    She picked up her now full bowl. ¡°It is, but I want to know. Isn¡¯t it heartbreaking that we would do that for each other?¡±


    We? I hadn¡¯t joined any lines, yet, and wasn¡¯t sure I''d be able to.


    The light squares started moving again. ¡°Tomorrow¡¯s your turn,¡± I said as our paths diverged. ¡°I honestly can¡¯t wait.¡±


    For a moment I regretted it, thinking it sounded too eager, but she just smiled. No bullshit.


    #


    I spent the night crafting another fantasy, a synthetic dream.


    I¡¯m awkward as hell, when we meet on the outside, after our acquittals. Not knowing what to say or do, I reach out a hand for her to shake, and she ignores it, slamming into me with a hug, engulfing me, and I find myself drowning in the smell of her hair. My arms wrap around her, and she holds onto me like an astronaut without a tether holding on to a passing ship. It hurts when she lets go. We decide to go on a walk, nowhere in particular, and immediately start arguing about something meaningless. My heart pounding, I reach out and hold her hand.


    I wake up to the sound of a machine attempting speech. ¡°Good morning, Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev¡­¡±


    #


    ¡°So, how¡¯d you get here?¡± I asked as soon as I saw her.


    ¡°My mother decided to send me here, when it became undeniable Mars is going to stumble into its first world war. I thought it was an overreaction, that no one would start something so futile as a war while we were barely holding on. I didn¡¯t want to leave her, but I wasn¡¯t going to talk back. Never argue with an old Jew when she tells you to pack your bags,¡± she chuckled. ¡°Not that there was room for bags, anyway. Have you seen what the ships from Mars are like? They cram you in a little pod and drug you into a coma so you¡¯d waste just a little less oxygen. But I have a heart condition, and if they sedated me I might have not woken up on arrival. So my mother bribed the crew to cram me in a pod without sedation¡ªI never asked how she got the money for that¡ªand I went on a crash diet, so my oxygen intake wouldn¡¯t draw attention, and I stayed in my pod for the entire forty-day trip, all the time with a pipe going up my nose and down my throat. I regretted it so much, wondering if mom even understood what she put me through. I was sure I was going to go insane.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said, sounding clumsy in my own ear, and she waved a hand like it really didn¡¯t matter. ¡°How didn¡¯t you? Go insane, that is.¡±


    She gave me a confused look, her hair transmiting the wave of motion as she shook her head all the way down. ¡°I did. Of course I did.¡±


    I looked at her, contrasting what she was saying with the way she spoke, the way she acted. ¡°Is this what insanity looks like?¡±


    ¡°You learn to hide it.¡±


    ¡°What are you actually hiding?¡± I dared ask. The old woman gave us a look, grinning to herself as we danced our little dance, but only hummed quietly.


    ¡°You see, I spent every day trying to calculate how much time was left, how much longer I have to take the feeling of the feeding tube going down my nose and the other tubes up the other side, how much time until the next feeding time, the pumping sounds and the pressure in my stomach being the only distraction. I kept calculating, counting seconds, comparing. Then something happened: I realized that it makes no difference whether I had one more day or thirty-nine. It just doesn¡¯t matter. While I¡¯m in there, I¡¯m in there, and that¡¯s all I know and all I need to know. The Keren that is out of the box may as well be someone else.¡±


    We were led out of the chamber, and is if to play us off, the old woman let her voice ring, surprisingly deep and melodious in the fullness of its rough grace. She sang ¨C


    Mars, oh Mars,


    Why didn¡¯t we go to Mars?


    Mining toxic water,


    Killing my own brother,


    It¡¯s cold, but not as cold as space,


    It¡¯s cold, but not as cold as Ceres¡­


    Keren looked at her, perplexed without taking offense.


    I wanted to apologize on behalf of the old woman, but wasn¡¯t sure how. ¡°It¡¯s from a skit,¡± I shouted after her, as the square of light led her around a corner. ¡°It¡¯s satire!¡±


    It had been popularized by a satire show called ¡°Ceres Tonight¡±, though not many knew that it was originally published as a mock-poem on Acher¡¯s broadcast before being appropriated. He did not mind the theft, as long as his idea got around. And it did¡ªat the time you could hear it sung by shopkeepers in their own shops, or murmured on a crowded train.


    Keren must have come to Ceres after its popularity died down¡ªWe¡¯d found it hilarious at the time, the words warm and alive, but now they felt as lifeless as the cold rock they were about.


    #


    ¡°And now that you¡¯re out of the box, how do you see what happened to you in there?¡± I asked as soon as I heard her steps around the corner.


    ¡°I think that it happened to someone else,¡± she said, giving me a look as if that were obvious. ¡°I just remember it.¡±


    ¡°Do you seriously believe that?¡±


    ¡°Think about who you were as a child. Does that person still exist?¡±


    ¡°Listen, we have so little time. Couldn¡¯t we spend it better -¡±


    ¡°There is little time only because you think there is. There¡¯s nothing more important I could give you in this time. I¡¯m going to clap my hands.¡± She raised her hands, a small distance apart. ¡°And now here you are, anticipating the clap,¡± she paused for the briefest moment, then brought her hands together, creating a sharp, almost painful sound. ¡°And here you are now, a man who remembers the clap, even though you don¡¯t hear it anymore. You want to know me? Then tell me, are those two men the same man?¡±


    I wanted to end this quickly, to move to a more interesting subject. ¡°Yes. I still have his memories. I still remember what it was like to be him.¡±


    ¡°So it¡¯s the memories that count?¡±


    ¡°If you deleted all my memories, I¡¯d be a different person.¡±


    ¡°What if we did the opposite? If I told you all my memories, would you become me?¡± She laughed at something in her own head while the machine dispensed grey goo that had been designed as a form of torture; while she waited in line to be thrown out to die. I was impressed. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t it be funny if I told you all my memories, just talking and talking until I told you everything, and in the morning you woke up and went to my clinic and did my job and drank tea the way I like?¡±


    I laughed too¡ªnot because I found it very funny, but because I enjoyed watching her laugh. I wanted to know what she did for work, but not enough to break this flow. ¡°It would,¡± I said. ¡°But telling someone your memories isn¡¯t the same as remembering them yourself. The colors, the sensations, would be lost, or reimagined.¡±


    ¡°You mean, just like the brain does anyway?¡± The side of her lip curled in a way I had already learned to adore.


    ¡°It¡¯s not the same thing.¡±


    ¡°You have some of the memories you had as a child, but they aren¡¯t as detailed as they used to be, because what you have is memories of recalling those memories, like a story told from mouth to ear with little variations each time. So here you are now, in the present, holding onto memories that may or may not correspond to events in the past. It doesn¡¯t matter whether or not they do ¨C the past is gone and all you have are the things that are happening here, now, and your memories, which also only exist in the present.¡±


    I wished I could understand what she meant, that we could have this grand truth to share, but it just seemed so¡­ obvious. ¡°If they have mostly the same memories, and behave in almost the same way, they¡¯re still me, aren¡¯t they?¡±


    Her eyes narrowed, and that disappointment hurt more than anything she could have said. ¡°That¡¯s the answer you want, not your real answer.¡±


    The squares moved, and we walked out, separately.


    #


    I was going to go insane in that cell, waiting to see her again. Waiting to talk to her again, waiting to have someone actually want something from me that I was able to provide.


    #


    ¡°So, in that case,¡± she continued as if nothing changed. ¡°Anyone that is sufficiently similar to you is another version of you?¡±


    I hadn¡¯t noticed when my hands went up to grab my head. ¡°I can¡¯t keep doing these conversations with these hours in between,¡± I said.¡± I feel like I¡¯m losing my mind. Are you really that calm about this?¡±


    She leaned towards me, as if she was going to grab my hands, then remembered our limitations and straightened. She spoke slower now, letting a heavy calm into her voice. ¡°I know it¡¯s hard for you. But please use the time you have to think about it. What¡¯s the difference if it¡¯s been a couple of hours in between, or a couple of seconds? When you¡¯re in your cell, you¡¯re waiting to be here, and when you¡¯re here you¡¯re thinking about the time you were in your cell. You¡¯re not using your imagination.¡±


    ¡°You want me to imagine being somewhere else?¡±


    ¡°I want you to imagine we are having this conversation with no interruptions. When you are here, remember only our last conversation. Time isn¡¯t continuous, it¡¯s a string of separate moments that you can connect however you¡¯d like. From now on, try to remember our conversations as one flow. These aren¡¯t idle words.¡±


    ¡°And what about when I¡¯m not here? I¡¯m going insane, waiting in that little cell for the next time that we get to talk.¡± I¡¯ve only known this woman for three days. Isn¡¯t it a little early to come out with such declarations? Fuck it, she didn¡¯t even seem taken aback.


    ¡°Let yourself.¡±


    ¡°Let myself do what?¡±


    ¡°Go insane. What¡¯s the worst that could happen?¡±


    ¡°I...¡± I was just thinking about a way to use the time we¡¯ve had left. Her bowl of porridge was halfway full, marking that we have spent half of our time together in this meal.


    ¡°You¡¯re fighting for every second,¡± she said. ¡°Don¡¯t. We have time. Think about what I said for a second. Breath. Be free.¡±


    We stood in silence then, watched things happen. She took her bowl away from the dispenser, and we stepped forward. The old woman put her bowl under the dispenser, and when it was full, took it away. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you two? All silent so suddenly?¡±


    Keren laughed, and so did I.


    #


    We buy a house. She already stays at my place most nights, and it isn¡¯t large enough to be a home for two people, and definitely not for more.


    The first night in the house we celebrate by getting drunk, making love. I make stupid promises about the future, and she admonishes me for even talking about the future, and says that only the now exists, and I laugh. We¡¯re truly alive, not just because we¡¯re having a good time, but because we¡¯re making plans; because we have something to imagine. Because we have something to look forward to.


    ¡°Good morning, Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev,¡± the system announced, finding me awake this time, ¡°You are to be provided with three meals¡­¡± And by the time it finished, I knew that I¡¯d get to return to my bed and sleep again.

 Keren II

    As soon as she stepped into earshot, Keren asked me not about the people I met, but the lines they composed. I gave her the run down as quickly as I could, and she didn¡¯t interrupt. At least, not until I got to Ctesibius, and their insistence to avoid using the first person.


    ¡°Were they having a hard time?¡± She brushed her eyebrow with one delicate finger, her gaze boring through the floor, deep into the frozen rock of Ceres, all the way to the stars on the other side.


    ¡°Obviously, yes. What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps they were the most afraid of their persona falling apart.¡±


    ¡°Maybe.¡± I thought about the immense pressure former Ctesibius had put on them, and how angry I¡¯d been at them for fulfilling the wishes of dying people. ¡°Or maybe they were just under the habit of applying technical solutions to human issues.¡±


    She looked at me, suddenly, as if my face let something on. ¡°They¡¯ve hurt you, haven¡¯t they? Ctesibius.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t make sense, does it? To say that they¡¯ve hurt me. There is no Line Ctesibius, it¡¯s just a bunch of people pretending.¡±


    ¡°And yet you¡¯re angry at something they did. What was it?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s hard to imagine, but they must have waited for days with the plan at the ready-¡±


    She laughed.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°No one actually sat there and waited for days, did they, unless you consider those different people to be a single entity.¡±


    ¡°Yes, very clever.¡±


    ¡°And what were they waiting for?¡±


    ¡°For a chump like me to come over with a vessel they could hijack, and extort them in order to give it back.¡±


    She whistled, low and long. ¡°That¡¯s the kind of initiative I¡¯ve been thinking about.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re the reason I¡¯m here!¡± My voice rose, my anger only half restrained. ¡°I¡¯m going to die because of what they did to me.¡±


    ¡°So you do believe in the persona. The line. You see it as a person.¡±


    #


    I ate, I waited, I stared at the ceiling and thought about what she said, then walked back to the dining chamber. I wasn¡¯t angry at Ctesibius as an entity, only at the people who composed it. But which of them was I angry at? That Ctesibius that I never met, who set himself to explode with the fake detonation, just to make me think my skipper was gone? He could have spent those last moments in the comfort of the line, but he chose not to. Or Ctesibius¡¯s First, who¡¯d begged me for forgiveness? Second and Third, who¡¯d done their best to accomplish something, anything, while processing their shock at learning how little they have left?


    ¡°Tell me more about them,¡± she said as she went around the corner. ¡°What were they extorting you for?¡±


    ¡°They wanted to build a device that would keep a single person alive. There were some ingredients they had to bring from the inside. They wanted to take more of Anaxagoras¡¯s people ¨C¡°


    ¡°The ones that picked up trash?¡±


    ¡°Yes. But Ctesibius envied them for having more free time because of the technology Ctesibius created, and they wanted to put those hours back in their service, I didn¡¯t really understand exactly how, but they couldn¡¯t wage war with Diocletian in the way¨Cthat¡¯s the exact reason Diocletian exist in the first place.¡±


    ¡°So, a stalemate.¡±


    ¡°Until they found out that Diocletian were stealing oxygen from their own. The ¡®line¡¯ wasn¡¯t actually dying, they were initiating new residents as Diocletian just for appearances sake, and then taking the oxygen for themselves.¡±


    She seemed surprisingly unappalled. ¡°They didn¡¯t want to die.¡±


    ¡°Nobody does, and yet the others respected that the newcomers didn¡¯t want to die, either. Ctesibius found out about this, and tried extorting Diocletian to help them with Anaxagoras, but Diocletian refused.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I... Never actually found out.¡±


    ¡°Shame.¡±


    #


    ¡°Have you met them, though?¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°Diocletian? Did you understand who they were?¡±


    ¡°They were two people, trying not to die. They weren¡¯t really a line¡­¡±


    ¡°If they were pretending, honor their pretense like I¡¯m honoring yours.¡± I raised an eyebrow, but didn¡¯t stop her. She continued. ¡°Diocletian was a line that didn¡¯t want to let time change it. Why would they refuse Ctesibius¡¯s offer?¡±


    ¡°They must have thought they could get more out of Ctesibius?¡±


    ¡°Could they?¡±


    ¡°They killed Ctesibius, eventually, so that must stand for something.¡± I suddenly found it very important to add. ¡°But she promised me, when there was just one Diocletian left, that she would rebuild it as well. All of the lines.¡±


    ¡°But they couldn¡¯t, could they? Tell another resident all of the memories the old Ctesibius had? Once the memories are gone, you have to accept that Ctesibius is dead.¡±


    ¡°Ctesibius can¡¯t be dead, because it¡¯s not a person. It¡¯s a fictional character. A story.¡±


    She stomped her foot, surprisngly upset. ¡°But there is a memory, there are actions. Promises made and kept. Isn¡¯t that¡­¡± She had a look in her eyes that I¡¯d learned meant that she was contemplating whether or not she should say something, finally judging that it is still too soon, shaking her head, and moving to the next subject. ¡°You mentioned another name, Pythia. They did a lot of talking, right?¡±


    ¡°And listening. They confessed the dying, and remembered more than any of the lines. But right near the end, Pythia confessed that they knew about Diocletian, about their oxygen theft, and kept their silence. They knew what was happening and didn¡¯t tell anyone. I can¡¯t forgive them for that.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps they believed that if they did good, the others would follow their example.¡±


    ¡°A little na?ve, no?¡±


    ¡°Were they selfish in other respects? Were they assholes?¡±


    ¡°No. Pythia were nothing but kind to me. To anyone.¡±


    ¡°Just those people you happened to meet, then, happened to be na?ve?¡±


    I looked at her, saw that her lips curved like they did when she was trying to lead me to a point. ¡°I don¡¯t know who Pythia were before I met them. I can only tell you who they were while I was there.¡±


    ¡°See, you¡¯re starting to get it.¡±


    ¡°Starting to get what?¡±


    She let her head sway from side to side, smiling. ¡°I don¡¯t know who you were before you met them, but the Yossi that I saw preferred to get shocked himself than let someone else suffer.¡±


    #


    As soon as her belly swells, I fall in love with her even more than I did before. Just like it was with Ayelet - as soon as it became evident my baby was really inside of her body, my love for her grew more than I could have imagined. I worshiped her, served at the altar of her body, taking care of every single need, and making ones up when there were none.


    Funny, that for thousands of days Ayelet was my entire world, the first thing I saw in the morning and the last at night, but these days I barely think of her. It feels like I should have more to say about such a change, but I don¡¯t want to. I¡¯d rather be with Keren, pregnant, yelling at me, half angry and half delighted, to stop asking her what food she wants, to stop trying to arrange the pillows for her. She isn¡¯t sick, goddammit, and I¡¯m driving her crazy with my nagging.


    I apologize, and she forgives me easily. Curled up together, we quickly fall asleep.


    ¡°Good morning, Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev,¡± Peeps draws me into wakefulness, and I chant the words along with it. ¡°You are to be provided with three meals¡­¡±


    #


    ¡°Good morning,¡± I said.


    ¡°Morning. Do you want to know what happened when I landed on Ceres?¡±


    ¡°Desperately,¡± I said, and saw in her eyes that my honesty had earned me something in them.


    ¡°I was supposed to go back to my job here¡ªa meditation instructor. That was my profession, before, and I thought my mind would turn back to normal, that this madness, that this single-moment-ness would pass, and for a while it did. There was a tomorrow again. There was a ¡®next moment¡¯ again. But that only made things worse. As soon as I got situated it became clear that this world was also ending¨Cthings just getting worse and worse, the trust being eroded until Ceres, as an institution, collapsed. Without cooperation, almost everyone would die. Even the oxygen we breathe is dependent on a governmental intuition. And there was nothing I could do about it, and I don¡¯t know, maybe other people are better at denial but I just wasn¡¯t, I couldn¡¯t look away. I didn¡¯t care about teaching crooked cogs in the machine to breathe through their nose and feel the trauma as it presented itself as a physical sensation. The money, the struggle for survival, it just seemed so futile. For a while I thought about getting myself one of those Recluse Asteroids, you know, just a hollowed-out rock, some life support and a solar panel, like people do now. But I couldn¡¯t. I survived all of that journey, and for what? Just to be put in a box again? So there I was between two tigers¡ªEither I lived in the single moment and admitted that by the next second tick I would die, or I tried believing in a continuous self that was going to die along with this dwarf planet.¡±


    ¡°Which did you choose?¡±


    ¡°For a long time I didn¡¯t. I quit my job, burnt my savings. I didn¡¯t care if I would run out of money to pay for rent and oxygen, get thrown out to another planet or vacuum. I partied a lot, I did too much drugs and looked for affection in places I knew I shouldn¡¯t have.¡± She burst with laughter at that. ¡°Don¡¯t give me that face, you prude. I¡¯m not ashamed of that, but I¡¯m not proud either. I wasn¡¯t afraid of how shitty I would feel afterward. I didn¡¯t even feel bad for the girl that would wake up in the morning, not knowing where she was, feeling a certain shade of shit that she never even imagined on Mars. I realized that it really was her problem, not mine. And I stopped worrying about the world ending. It wasn¡¯t my problem anymore.¡±


    ¡°Whose problem was it, then?¡±


    ¡°Someone else, someone who looks like me, has my memories and name, but isn¡¯t me.¡±


    ¡°But she is you, no matter how you think about it.¡±


    ¡°I thought you wanted to understand who I am, and how I think is who I am, in the realest sense¡ªI think about Keren as a person in a future, and I can¡¯t control what she¡¯s going to do, I can¡¯t protect her. All of the world that I will ever see is here. All that I will be, all that I have ever been, is right now. These are the boundaries of my domain. This is who I am.¡±


    #


    ¡°Okay, so let¡¯s say I do agree with you,¡± I shouted out into the hallway before I could even hear her steps, timing it by how long I had to wait every day in the line before she entered the chamber. ¡°How does that make me stop being afraid?¡±


    She yelled back. ¡°What makes you not fear death is practicing. You¡¯d rather not think about it, and so when the end finally comes, you¡¯re new to dying.¡±


    ¡°How can I practice dying?¡± I yelled, not caring anymore who would hear. ¡°I only get to die once.¡±


    ¡°You never die at all,¡± she shook her head as she entered the room. ¡°When you think about it. You never get to think ¡®I am dead.¡¯ At worst you¡¯re certain that in a moment you won¡¯t think anything at all, that the future will go on and you won¡¯t get to see it or affect it. I can almost remember the horror of it, when it still used to scare me. What¡¯s horrible isn¡¯t what happens after you¡¯re gone, because nothing happens after you¡¯re gone: it¡¯s the moment before. The suffering doesn¡¯t come from being gone.¡±


    ¡°What the hell does it come from, then?¡±


    ¡°From the resistance. The thought that torments you is that the thing you resist the most is going to happen anyway. It¡¯s the helplessness that breaks a soul apart. Here¡¯s a story that¡¯ll break your heart¨CPavlov, the one with the bells, would house the dogs in cages in his basement, and when he wanted them to get out he would run an electrical current through the wire. One day there was a flooding and the dogs almost drowned. After the ones that survived recovered, they wouldn¡¯t come out of the cages even when Pavlov electrocuted them. As if they¡¯ve learned, when the water rose over their noses, that nothing they do lessens their suffering, and stopped trying. The worst thing you can do to yourself is resist something that cannot change. It will break your soul.¡±


    ¡°So I should just give up? Stop trying to change the world so it won¡¯t break me? That¡¯s your grand secret to overcoming the fear of death?¡± I could understand where she was coming from, but I could help getting angry over that kind defeatism.


    ¡°It¡¯s not just death: Any suffering you endure is caused by thinking about the future or holding on to the past.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not like the present¡¯s that great.¡± I gestured around the room we were in, the bare walls, the cold light.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it?¡± She rolled her shoulders, relishing the freedom of movement. ¡°The food¡¯s alright, the company¡¯s pleasant. What¡¯s not to like?¡±


    Why are we spending our last moments arguing about the most frustrating topic we could find? ¡°That I¡¯m not going to be alive by next week¡ªhow about that?¡±


    ¡°See, you¡¯re thinking about the future, and now you¡¯re suffering.¡±


    ¡°No one can just stop thinking about the future. That¡¯s just how people are!¡±


    ¡°Why are you so angry? I¡¯m not the one killing you.¡±


    My skin was hot and my voice was loud in my ears. Even the old woman was paying attention to me now. I shook my head.


    #


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry about before. I¡¯m just trying to understand. How do you expect me to stop being opposed to the idea of dying?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve already told you. You practice. Every single second.¡±


    ¡°How? It¡¯s not like every day I experience my last moment.¡±


    ¡°But it is! You and I will never meet again, because the next time we meet, you¡¯ll already be someone else, and so will I. All you truly have is the immediate now. Not even this day, not even this conversation. The breath you¡¯re taking now, someone else will exhale.¡±


    ¡°So every time I start a sentence-¡±


    ¡°Someone else will finish it.¡± She smiled proudly. ¡°You¡¯re so worried about what the judge will say, but no matter what they say, it will be someone else hearing it. There is no Yossi, it¡¯s just a bunch of people pretending.¡±


    I was silent for a long moment. It was nothing but a coping mechanism, I thought, albeit a sophisticated one. Pretending she had nothing to lament losing, and nothing to regret. There was no guilt, no one to blame for past grievances. How could there be, if they were all gone already, like wisps of smoke? I understood, then. ¡°I must seem crazy to you, then. Like the residents of Last Day Town seemed to me.¡±


    She winked, making a clicking sound, to show that I did finally get it, and something in me was fulfilled, if only for being on her side.


    ¡°So that¡¯s what practice is? I just think about it all of the time?¡±


    ¡°Imagine what it would be like to die, this very second. Like someone was about to cut your suit open right now. Really, close your eyes and imagine this was your last second. Let it wash over you, take you apart. But you don¡¯t have to do that, not really. Take a breath in, and let it out. That¡¯s all you can do. Try it now. Just listen to it, feel it in your nostrils, in the expansion of your abdomen. When you forget the pretenses of the future and past, free and safe.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the opposite of safe. It¡¯s the bleakest thing I can imagine. Wouldn¡¯t it be better to pretend?¡±


    Her eyes lit up as she turned to me. "Trust me, it wouldn¡¯t.¡±


    A comforting lie, and one that was tempting to believe¨Cif all that I am exists right now, then there¡¯s no future to fear from, no sense in feeling guilt over mistakes I¡¯ve made a decade ago, not any more than a Ctesibius¡¯s Third should feel guilty for the faults of First. But it also meant there was no hope to be had in the future, no comfort that things were going to improve, if I were gone as soon as this moment passed. And as soon as this moment passed. And this one as well. It meant that my entire life was this moment, breathing deeply, following a light square into my cell and looking back to see Keren¡¯s hair swinging behind her as she walked, the tapping of her sleepers.


    And then it was gone.


    #


    Our daughter has her mother¡¯s eyes, and her mother¡¯s hair, and her confidence, but she has some taken from me, too. Not the suicidal tendencies, or the disquiet¡ªshe¡¯s inquisitive and wordy, and she has my clever eyes, the way I look at things. Not as wild as her mother, not as fucking domesticated as her father.


    We give her everything we have. I get back to working on the haulers, busting my old back in shift after shift just so she can go to school. I come back on weekends and play chess with her, introduce her to poetry and literature, the craft of journalistic writing and critical thought. I promise never to let her fall into a pit without anyone seeing. It isn¡¯t easy, but it¡¯s worth the effort. What else can you ask for, but for the effort to be worth it?


    ¡°Good morning, Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev. You are to be provided with three meals¡­¡±


    #


    ¡°You said I should respect Diocletian¡¯s pretense like you¡¯re respecting mine,¡± I said, just as I¡¯d rehearsed. ¡°I¡¯ve been waiting for two days to ask you what that means.¡±


    ¡°Today we¡¯re supposed to talk about the lines, aren¡¯t we? Not about what I think.¡±


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    ¡°What does it matter? Why should we care, when there¡¯s so little¡­¡± It was my sixth day in the prison. As far as I knew, people rarely got more than a week.


    ¡°Here¡¯s your answer,¡± she said. ¡°When newcomers reach Last Day Town, they are burdened with a line¡¯s story, tasked with making sure today goes on as a smooth continuation of yesterday.¡±


    ¡°But why should they accept that burden? The lines aren¡¯t their responsibility, even if we pretend that they are real.¡±


    ¡°Do they have anything better to do? I mean that literally. They could keep tending to their own story, but their own story is ending.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t they deserve exactly that? To accept that their story is ending, instead of distracting themselves with a made up one?¡±


    ¡°For some reason it¡¯s very hard for people to think about their story as over. Do you know what Corpse Pose is?¡±


    ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a pose in yoga. You should try it sometime. You lie down on your back and let everything go loose. You imagine that you¡¯ve died and now you¡¯re floating aimlessly in space; that your life has already ended, and everything that seemed so important to you is gone, worn away by time, and doesn¡¯t matter anymore. It¡¯s very relaxing.¡±


    ¡°I saw a lot of people practicing corpse pose in Last Day Town,¡± I winked at her, trying to make her laugh again.


    ¡°Harr harr,¡± she said, wrinkling her nose in dismay but then snorted with laughter, despite herself. A warmth spread through my chest, something faint, delicate, but it was there. ¡°All stories are made up,¡± she continues. ¡°Even the real ones. But it would be more fun to make a new one, together, like you and I made here.¡±


    ¡°We didn¡¯t make anything up, though,¡± I said.


    #


    ¡°Didn¡¯t we?¡± She replied several hours later. ¡°With our little rules telling us when to speak about what, are we not the same? Waking up every day with yesterday¡¯s questions, trying to come up with better answers? Even when there¡¯s little time, the best thing for residents to do is find something you can do with other people, for other people.¡±


    ¡°In theory, maybe. But in practice, even when they worked together, they hardly seemed like they shared some camaraderie. They threatened each other with violence, they made it illegal to use their old name, or even just refer to their former lives on the inside, and scolded each other for thinking of themselves as individuals. And that¡¯s when things were going well, when there¡¯s no conflict with other lines. They pretended to be cohesive.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that exactly what you¡¯re for? If it means not sinking into despair; isn¡¯t pretending the right thing to do?¡±


    ¡°Not when it¡¯s thrust upon them.¡±


    ¡°Thrust on them by whom?¡±


    ¡°Those who came before them.¡±


    ¡°And who thrust that on them?¡±


    It was obvious what answer she was looking for ¨C Anaxagoras, Pythia, Ctesibius and Diocletian themselves. But it wasn¡¯t the correct one. ¡°There had to be some people at the start. Someone started the lines when there weren¡¯t any.¡±


    ¡°And why do you think they did that?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps they didn¡¯t want whatever flavor of madness they developed to die with them.¡±


    ¡°As do we all. But why didn¡¯t they want it to die?¡±


    ¡°Because they thought it would be better for the residents.¡±


    ¡°Ah, you see how it turns around? Poor lines, created just to serve the residents, poor residents, enslaved by the lines. That¡¯s what it must have been like when people still believed in gods. And who needs a god more than those who have no time left?¡±


    We were silent for a relatively long moment. ¡°Maybe you¡¯re right: no matter what they¡¯ve done before, they got to be away from it, to play a part of something greater. It¡¯s still unfair, but in the end, when death came closer, they chose to play along. No one could coerce them, and each generation chose to keep playing along.¡±


    She nodded slowly.


    ¡°Is that what you¡¯re doing? Just playing along?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s for tomorrow. We have rules here, you know.¡± She smiled that winning smile of hers, a sage. ¡°Bon appetit.¡±


    ¡°You too.¡±


    As soon as I entered my cell I lay in my bed and tried, for once in my life, to practice yoga. I let my arms fall to my sides, my body pressing into the hard mattress. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be dead, for my body to fly coldly in space, or thrown into the chasm with the rest.


    I didn¡¯t like it.


    #


    I disapprove of our little girl moving outwards, to Europa. It doesn¡¯t matter that she¡¯s all grown up now; I still don¡¯t want to see her go. Keren pretends to have no opinion on the matter.


    ¡°It¡¯s not what it used to be! Or would you rather I go down to Mars? I¡¯m a pretty good shot,¡± our daughter says, and winks, just like her mother.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even joke about that!¡±


    ¡°Earth, then?¡±


    ¡°Will you please take this seriously?¡±


    ¡°Mom, Dad¡¯s being hysterical again.¡± She rolls her eyes, and Keren tries, and fails, to hide a smile. Every time she smiles it accentuates the happy wrinkles on her face, from all of the times she¡¯s smiled before.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry that I don¡¯t want you to be a slave to some former Earth billionaire.¡±


    ¡°But I¡¯ll be alive! Garik and I were already approved as class B immigrants, so we get a permit to have one child. Don¡¯t you want your grandchild to know what an ocean looks like? It¡¯s a paradise compared to here.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ll grow up a slave, too.¡±


    ¡°But they¡¯ll live! Would you rather we die here? I want something of myself to survive, don¡¯t you?¡±


    Of course I do, I think. God, of course I do.


    ¡°Good morning, Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev. You are to be provided with three meals¡­ ¡°


    ¡°Yes, Peeps,¡± I muttered. ¡°I get it.¡±


    ¡°¡­Your court date has been appointed for today. You will be summoned to board a train after the third meal of the day.¡±


    There was a silence then, a ringing in my ears that drowned out the rest of the message the rest of the message, the threats and the countdown. Even as I stood in the square and walked, still that silence followed me. Isn¡¯t it strange that I was surprised when the moment actually came?


    #


    I couldn¡¯t think of a way to tell her our game would be over today. What would it matter if I told her, aside from darkening the mood? May as well not.


    ¡°So why do you do anything? Why even put that spoon in your mouth, if it¡¯s going to be someone else that gets to enjoy it?¡±


    ¡°Did you try¡­ just breathing?¡±


    ¡°I did.¡± I actually had. ¡°But my heart¡­ every time I tried to just sit down and breathe, my heart started going crazy, and I had to stop. I think the electrocution fucked with it.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with your heart. You¡¯re just afraid.¡± She let that hang in the air, just for a moment. ¡°I was too. When you first come to that conclusion, when you finally accept it, it¡¯s horrible news. The worst news that you can get¡ªyou¡¯re going to die very soon, and there is nothing you can do about it. You find yourself fearing death every second, facing that resistance every second. Knowing that you won¡¯t be here the next time the clock ticks, you can¡¯t breathe, and it doesn¡¯t matter that you can¡¯t breathe because you¡¯re going to die anyway. What can you do with that little time that you have? You can¡¯t save yourself. You can¡¯t enjoy yourself in that last moment, because any joy turns to ashes in your mouth. But because every moment is the last you have, it also becomes hallowed. Blasphemous to waste.¡± She laughed, the kind of laughter you can only have when everything is alright, and when I heard it, for an instant everything really was. ¡°Do you know what I ended up doing?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t even guess.¡±


    ¡°I started volunteering at a hospital. At first with terminal patients, but I ended up spending most of my time in the psychiatric ward. Do you know how real psychotics are? There¡¯s no bullshit. People who don¡¯t know how to pretend, or don¡¯t want to. If they did, they wouldn¡¯t be there. Like this one guy, who got into a mining accident and had a tear in his suit. It took his buddies an entire minute to seal him off, and the life support pumped as much oxygen as it could to keep some survivable pressure. He was in a comma for seven months, and when he wakes up he doesn¡¯t even remember anything, not even his own name, if that even makes sense to call it his name anymore. So he¡¯s figuring out how to be a person. A grown man, balding with a pot belly, trying out new personalities like a teenager. At first he doesn¡¯t answer when I ask him if he wants to play ping pong, or do yoga with the rest, and every day I try and ask him, because it¡¯s worth it, because he¡¯s really there, even if he doesn¡¯t answer. Until one day he looks at me and says¡ªWill I get to look at your ass while you bend? And I tell him, very frankly, that I want to slap him right in his face. And he¡¯s like, My face? Why? And I¡¯m like, Yeah, because you¡¯re being annoying. And he stops to think about it, very seriously, and says - Then do it. You see, he thinks that if that makes me happy, and that¡¯s the only thing he can give me, then he should endure it. And I realize that he had a beautiful side in him no one ever gave him a chance to show.¡± She started crying, beautiful diamond tears sticking to her lower eyelashes, and I thought to myself that she really is a little insane. ¡°You must think I¡¯m crazy.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking one of us must be, but I haven¡¯t decided whom.¡±


    She smiled, still crying, and it was so beautiful it shattered my heart into sharp, frozen little shards. ¡°We said no bullshit.¡±


    ¡°You are. Crazy, I mean. But you¡¯re not wrong.¡±


    #


    ¡°I learned a lot from people I thought were crazy; maybe you can too. Here¡¯s another teaching moment. The comma guy had a habit¡ªevery time he would practice a new position in yoga, and be shit at it, because that¡¯s what practice is, he would tell us about all of the space ships that he has, and all deals with Earth he made, and ships waiting to pick him up for a weekend in Europa. A guy who won¡¯t brush his teeth if you don¡¯t watch him, bragging about ships. And that¡¯s when I realized, even this guy is trying to solve it in a second.¡±


    ¡°Solve what?¡±


    ¡°You know what I¡¯m talking about. You¡¯re trying to solve it right now¨Chow imperfect it all is, how much better your life was meant to be, how pathetic you are in comparison to who you thought you would become. And just like you, he feels it, more or less intensely, and he wants that feeling gone right fucking now. He makes up these lies just so no one would see how confused he is, how little he understands of what the fuck is going on, and it¡¯s hilarious how obvious it is. The problem for the rest of us is that it¡¯s not so easy to see how ridiculous our lies are.¡±


    There was a sudden pressure, her accusation putting me on the backfoot. ¡°And what about you? Do you see through your own lies?¡±


    She shook her head, dismissive but not judgemental. ¡°Do you know how fun it is to be a meditation teacher? Not only do you pass on the most important tools humanity has ever invented, but you¡¯re meditating all day long. Before teaching, I would always fall back into caring about the mundane. But as a teacher, you have to go over the lessons all of the time. You know what really ruins people¡¯s lives? Shame and guilt, over the things they¡¯ve done. The memory that exists now, determines who you are. That¡¯s the only thing I have to teach¡ªwhen you look at your memories as the recorded actions of a familiar stranger, well-meaning but oh-so-confused, you can forgive them. The moment you accept that, you are free. And that¡¯s why it¡¯s so great teaching this stuff¡ªI have to learn them every day, myself.¡±


    I was not yet convinced, but there was something in what she said that rang as true. Did Pythia know this? Or whoever it was that started Pythia, did they know¡­ A pain pierced my chest, like icy water, like a cold wind. It felt like something was finally finding its place; something finally starting to heal. It hurt, yet somehow I was glad that it did.


    ¡°So, have you forgiven yourself for ending up here?¡± I asked.


    She smiled, proud. ¡°I didn¡¯t need to.¡±


    #


    ¡°Why? What did you do?¡±


    She cocked her head. ¡°Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Do you still want to know?¡±


    I nodded. ¡°Of course I do.¡±


    #


    It is by accident that Keren finds out another volunteer at the hospital, a kindergarten teacher by trade, is a part of a terrorist cell, and Keren asks to join on her own volition. Why wouldn¡¯t she? She has nothing to lose. Once they trust her, they tell her of their greatest finding - that the prime minister is getting direct shipments from Earth. Not Ceres, but the prime minister, personally. Packages of eighteen and a half kilos, once a year, dropped by an Earth probe high above Ceres, protected from direct sun-radiation by its shadow, and picked up by a tiny drone only hours later. If they weren¡¯t looking at the weight differences, they would never have found it. Still, they don¡¯t know what it means.


    It comes to Keren in a flash of inspiration, as she is watching a video of the prime minister doing push-ups in a rally, under a standard Earth G and at the advanced age of eighty-five, when most Ceresians crumble from the accumulated exhaustion of a life of being overworked. Perhaps because she is a scholar of the fear of death, the way it ruins people, she can see Earth¡¯s strategy¡ªtoppling the relatively stable Ceres by giving the prime minister immortality, but only as long as he keeps the position, and watching him risk destroying everything for a chance to stay in the position that keeps him alive.


    Buying a drone is relatively easy, but tampering with its safety controls, making it collide with another in orbit is extremely challenging. Her cell sacrifices a lot. Risks a lot.


    As far as anyone can follow its motives, they expect Earth won¡¯t send another one until next year, seeing it as a personal failing of the prime minister and punishing accordingly.


    It won¡¯t kill him. It would just stop him from being immortal, sentenced to live like the rest of us, and not more. As humble as that sounds, that little explosion, captured by a passing vessel, shown on a tiny screen in the cell¡¯s headquarters, is the most glorious thing Keren has ever seen.


    #


    I whistled appreciatively, but she waved her hand, still smiling, as if to shake my appreciation away¡ªwhy should she be proud of someone else¡¯s memories?


    ¡°Does it make sense to you, though? Do you understand why I bother to get out of bed?¡±


    ¡°Because when there is only the now, nothing stops you from doing what feels right. And it felt right to push Gil, even if it would hurt later.¡±


    She nodded, and smiled that warm smile of hers. ¡°I¡¯m glad you finally understand.¡±


    ¡°I do. Someone could, theoretically, live like that. But I can¡¯t, and I don¡¯t believe you do. I think you¡¯re so afraid of being afraid you¡¯ve annihilated all possibility of success. But there is a reason to get out of bed, even if you don¡¯t feel like it. There are people who need you. Future you is one of them. Will you just abandon them?¡±


    She looked into her slowly filling bowl, and frowned. ¡°I really want to convince you, you know. I really want you to see that it¡¯s not just philosophy.¡±


    ¡°Why? Why would you care what I think about your life?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care what you think about me, you idiot,¡± she said with a chuckle. ¡°I wanted to live in the here and now and fear nothing. I want you to become free.¡±


    ¡°Maybe I¡¯m an idiot, but I don¡¯t want to be free, if it means never trying. We are here to bind ourselves to things.¡±


    For the first time she looked at me with something that wasn¡¯t welcoming, and it startled me. ¡°How the hell are you going to bind yourself to anything? Don¡¯t you see that it''s all crumbling? The Solar system, this¡­¡± she touched her own face, her neck, and there was real terror in her eyes, unsedated. She shook her head, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. ¡°No. I can¡¯t let you drag me back.¡±


    I thought of Pythia¡¯s poem, of the blood that flows through many hearts, and I realized something, like a lightning flash, and started talking, trying to express the thought before it was fully formed.


    ¡°I¡¯ll show you, when you¡¯re in Last Day Town.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t we¡¯ll be there at the same time,¡± she said, confused.


    ¡°When you get there, I¡¯ll also be there.¡±


    ¡°How so?¡±


    I closed my eyes and saw a waterfall. The shape is constant, even though the water keeps changing, old replacing with new. Along the stream, falling from the edge of a cliff down to endless space, fish are swimming as hard as they can. The slower ones are carried away with the flow and thrown into space; the faster ones eat and shit and even breed, all while swimming. Surviving. The water changes, but the fish are the same. That image was a map of the world, I knew, but not one that I could explain, nor one that I could show to anyone who didn¡¯t already see it. I opened my eyes, and saw her looking at me, waiting. ¡°I will die long before you make it to Last Day Town, that¡¯s true, but as long as there are Residents, something remains. Whatever we say, whatever they hear¡­¡± My voice sounded as if coming from far away. ¡°¡­Is a part of the Town itself. I¡¯ve heard poems made up by people who had been there days before, recited by those who believed in their worth. Like fish swimming up the waterfall, welcoming the new water. If I do something worthy of remembering, if I write a poem beautiful enough for people to pass on, it might still reach you.¡±


    She shook her head. ¡°I¡¯m here now, wouldn¡¯t you rather stop dreaming for a second? Be with me this instant, when we¡¯re real?¡±


    I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but the speakers boomed before I could.


    ¡°Yossef Ben Ze¡¯ev: You have reached the termination of your detainment period. Follow your light square to your designated train on gate number three. You are reminded that if you leave the premises of your guided area, you will be neutralized. If you fail to board the train, you will be neutralized¡­¡± At the end of the corridor, the train howled.


    ¡°We still have time,¡± she said, and I turned back to her.


    ¡°For what?¡±


    She took one step towards me, then another. Her hands reached out for mine, slowly, and I watched without moving as she brought them closer; until her skin, soft and warm, was just close enough to warm mine without touching. Slowly, she stepped even closer, her almost not brushing against me, rose onto her toes, and before I understood what was happening, brought her mouth close to my cheek and mimicked a soft kiss. The smell of her hair stunned me as she put her head just above my shoulder, as if she had all the time in the world, and put her arms around me. The smell of real human hair, not citrus or flowers but sweat and oily skin, the smell of a live human being. The radiated warmth of her body against mine.


    How long has it been since I¡¯ve been touched? I thought, and also, does this count?No, don¡¯t think about that: be in the now. Be in this one moment¡ªit¡¯s all you have, and it¡¯s enough. It¡¯s really enough. I wrapped my arms around her, careful not to touch. A warmth flooded everything, and I drowned in it, unresisting.


    ¡°Well,¡± she whispered, her breath warm against my neck. ¡°This is nice.¡±


    This. This is the moment I¡¯d like to remember.


    #


    Not the slow walk towards the dock, the single train, the walking into the little booth from which I was supposed to witness my own process¡ªall of this I could afford to forget.


    I sat on a courtroom chair, and leaned against a wall, confined to a little transparent booth so narrow I couldn¡¯t fall from the chair, even if I was unconscious. I assumed it was an option they prepared for.


    The room was about as large as the dining chamber, but where that was made of bare rock and was vacant but for a single machine this one had walls painted in a nice, calming shade of blue, and decorative furniture, which already set it apart from the prison. Behind a wood-colored desk sat a judge, his eyes oscillating from the screen in front of him to the two attorneys standing and arguing, all in ceremonial gowns.


    No one seemed to regard that I entered the room. Judging by the fact that it was the defense currently speaking, the trial had been going on for a while already.


    The only thing that identified my defense as such was the fact that the man speaking referred to me as his client. Other than that, the content of his speech held no resemblance to a defense: He admitted that the video evidence of the murder of a fellow Ceresian, which took me a moment to realize referred to Pythia¡¯s First that Second and I had killed together, could be understood as nothing but ironclad proof of my guilt. As supportive proof of my corrupt nature, he brought up my former charge of libel, of which I had been found guilty eleven years ago.


    And not falsely. After a week of almost active repression, the story surfaced from the depths of my memories, presented to me like something new: I had spent a long time seducing a whistleblower, over a safety protocol breach in asteroid ice mining; cheap tethers that would often break and send people flying into space, then having them retroactively blamed for negligence. Contrary to our agreement on her staying anonymous, I ended up releasing her name, though I could no longer remember what it was, and the video of my interview with her that I had taken without her knowledge. Being one of the system¡¯s designers, essentially a murderer, I didn¡¯t feel like she deserved any mercy from me.


    Ayelet not only warned me against it, but vetoed it, which was her right. It wasn¡¯t just my own life I¡¯d been risking. I''d told her that I would delete the woman¡¯s name from the piece and delete the video, but every time that I¡¯d tried to I just¡­ Ended up leaving them there, for next time. At the end the time had come to send the article, and I¡¯d done so with hands shaking and eyes closed, knowing that the moment I released the video and name, there would be no taking it back, having taken that risk for both Ayelet and Tsur along with myself. Remembering the story, I couldn¡¯t understand how someone could do such a thing. It was me that had done it, and still.


    The whistleblower, (what was her name?) had been brought to court, fined and fired even before she was released from detainment. No one bigger was brought down. She was left to financially starve, the fine too heavy to recover from. So she¡¯d sued me for libel, and sent me a video message as she did. I remembered what her eyes had looked like, darker than dark, framed by sleepless-pale skin and hair the color of exposed copper wire, and dark as they were there had been a fiery hate in them. She¡¯d bitterly mocked that since I enjoyed her videos so much, I should enjoy that one as well. Dvora, that was her name. Dvora Ilan. She had sued me and, to my shock, won.


    The judge, another one, then, had claimed what I¡¯d done was a classic case of fraud, and to this day, I haven¡¯t figured out if the statement had been made earnestly, or in order to punish me for shoving my nose. The lawsuit had cost us more money than we had, a couple of years¡¯ worth of sleep, and what might have been a budding journalistic career.


    But Ayelet, God bless her heart, hadn¡¯t left, not then. It was a betrayal, and I could not understand how she forgave me for it any more than I could understand how I¡¯d committed it. It was only after Tsur was gone that she¡¯d left.


    How could I have not thought about that all of last week, all of those years? How good had I become at forgetting? The escapism artist, Ayelet had once called me. But my mastery of the art could stand to improve a fraction further, if I pretended these mistakes were someone else¡¯s, like Keren did. There was my last ounce of self-respect¡ªthis shame, this guilt, were mine. I might have distracted myself from the past, outright forget it when I could, but I will not pretend it was not my fault.


    Not that it mattered anymore. In its closing argument, the defense didn¡¯t request any sort of leniency, and in fact stated that I should receive the most severe punishment possible by law, which drew a bitter, barking laughter out of me. I didn¡¯t expect the defense strategy to get quite so creative.


    Why would they put on the charade of this being a real trial? For whom? There was no one here but us.


    There wasn¡¯t much longer left, but it didn¡¯t sadden me. I felt light. The judge struck his gavel, once. He didn¡¯t look like an evil man, nor like a just one; he looked like someone who knew exactly where he was, and what the demands on him were. He glanced at me, and in his eyes was the clear knowledge that he was the rubber stamp for a legal murder. If he¡¯d ever had an opinion on the matter, it had been worn smooth by a torrent of death sentences that had been given out, with or against his better judgment. Another cog caught in a rotting system, I wanted to believe, but it was hard to absolve someone who was about to sign your death sentence.


    He didn¡¯t look at me when he spoke. ¡°Before the verdict is decided, and having heard the proceedings, would the defendant like to address the court?¡±


    ¡°Pass-¡± I began to say, before suddenly recalling the promises I had made to Diocletian. ¡°Actually, yes. A woman with the identity number 486..¡± I paused only for a second, before Diocletian¡¯s mnemonics kicked into place. ¡±...513298, and a man with the ID of 197243265, asked me to protest on their behalf. They felt their sentences were unjust and asked me to submit an official appeal. I would like to use this opportunity to claim the closest thing I can to an official demand to reevaluate their verdicts.¡± I sounded so dignified, despite how meaningless it all seemed. It wouldn¡¯t matter, would it? If that information really is as volatile as Pythia¡¯s memories claim, the Shadow Man couldn¡¯t let Diocletian back in as it would be solid proof of exactly the thing they were trying to hide.


    The judge¡¯s brow furrowed, and he turned to his screen. He asked me to repeat the first number and I did, as the judge tapped the touch screen a couple of times, as if punching in the numbers. The prosecutor leaned familiarly on the desk, and casually told the judge that he had seen that part in the video, a woman and man killing someone to take their oxygen.


    I found that description lacking, as it didn¡¯t include that Third was entrusted to Diocletian, and trusted them. The word kill did not carry enough weight, but I chose not to waste any breath on that.


    The judge¡¯s eyes opened wide as his finger finally stopped, and he raised both of his eyebrows. The appalled expression his face contorted into as he understood where it was that he was sending people gave me a glint of hope, but that hope did not survive the judge¡¯s indignant exclamation of disbelief that a criminal would result to such inhuman measures against their fellow Ceresians.


    I proceeded. ¡°They¡¯ve been there for a while now, haven¡¯t they? I believe they¡¯ll still be there if you send someone to pick them up. People become very resourceful when they have to. That¡¯s all I have to say.¡±


    The judge claimed to have noted my remarks, but an appeal on the result of one trial cannot be submitted while another one is taking place, and that I am welcome to submit my appeal after this trial is concluded. He continued to the verdict, that I should be exiled to Earth, boarding the first available shuttle.


    ¡°What do you mean Earth?¡± I lost my composure, my voice rising. ¡°Nobody¡¯s getting off Ceres. We just watched the video. You can¡¯t even say that aloud, can you?¡±


    At that point the two attorneys started yelling about contempt, demanding that I respect the court and the Ceresian judicial system in general, furious that I¡¯d dared accuse them of throwing people to their death. They were more emotionally affected by the words than anything I¡¯ve done. The judge had, in contrast, turned pale in silence. A small victory, but it brought me no joy¨Ceven if he understood, the Shadow Man had him under his sight, pinning him into place. Keren would have pitied him, wouldn¡¯t she? I could imagine it, but I couldn¡¯t quite feel it myself.


    I closed my eyes, tried paying attention to my breathing. I needed to stay focused: I had quite a day ahead of me.

 Part Two - Prologue - Savages

    As for a single coin, so for a hundred.


    - Babylonian Talmud, Mask of Sanhedrin.


    #


    When Dov Katkop is thrown out of the airlock, he cannot think. He cannot breathe. When he does breathe, each breath brings even more terror with it. The sound of the pumps readjusting the pressure, the faint condensation on his visor - all evidence of his need to breathe.


    He looks up. The sky itself would have been enough to overwhelm him; he has never seen it before. He holds up his gloved hand, looks at it. It¡¯s dark, but he can see the outline of his fingers against the stars. Such a thin layer separating him, a chunk of warm life, from the eternal, nameless night, an entity the size of the entire universe. Infinitely patient, tireless, inescapable. It will find a way to reach him, sooner or later, and it is so very close.


    Death. If there ever was a time to accept it, it is now, but when Dov trawls the deep, dark pools of his mind for a source of solace, he finds nothing. Nothing that would bring him comfort, at least. There¡¯s terror, which hurts to look at directly, and there¡¯s immense, helpless sadness that threatens to crush everything under its weight.


    Thinking about it blurs his vision; makes his ears hot. The fury is a relief from being helpless in the darkness. It holds him firm. He decides against punching the rock, concluding that it would only serve to break his hand, and focuses on looking around.


    Someone¡¯s talking to him¡ªhardly audible over the ringing in his ears and the loud beating of his heart¡ªhas been talking for a while now, though he hasn¡¯t been listening. Some of the words he can make out.


    ¡°¡­Vempress, the first, to welcome and¡­¡±


    He can¡¯t see where the sound is coming from¡ªit goes straight to his helmet speaker¡ª and he can¡¯t choose whether to listen. He looks around and soon finds the source of the voice: a silhouette against the sky, at the edge of the crater. A woman, holding onto some metal structure, her feet dangling high above the rock.


    ¡°¡­Oxygen is hers; your suit is hers¡­¡±


    The climb out of the crater is confusing. Too dark to see what his boots are on , kicking off from odd, misshapen rocks that roll away as he goes for longer and longer leaps. He barely avoids tripping up into the rubble slide he is causing.


    He can¡¯t make sense of her words, but it doesn¡¯t matter. At the sight of another human being, his only desire is to get closer, to make alliance.


    An asteroid moves over the horizon, dark on one side but sunlit on the other, and the light is enough to illuminate the woman¡¯s large, brown eyes, crooked nose, and smooth skin, which is covered in a sheen of dried sweat. A middle-aged woman, short, strong, slightly overweight. Both of her hands are by her side, her neck vised between two metal rods, the gap too narrow for both her helmet or the rest of her body to go through. Someone put her there. Did she fight, or did she just let them?


    ¡°Stop,¡± she says. ¡°Come any closer and you¡¯ll end up like the rest.¡±


    ¡°What rest?¡± he says. It feels dream-like, to have a civil conversation, any conversation, in a place like this. Anything but screaming and crying seems absurd. He looks at his visor again, and feels grief rise in him and turn, in a split second, into more rage.


    She raises a hand and points back to the crater. He sees what he¡¯s been stepping on: bodies. Dozens and dozens of human bodies, frozen solid, with either their visors or limbs broken; their faces, whether dried or frozen, solidified in expressions of suffering.


    Hope he didn¡¯t know he had dies as this proof of imminent disaster is laid bare before him. He holds onto the fury like a lifeline. It always has been. Will he just fall to his knees and weep and die? No. Not Dov Katkop. He¡¯ll fight. If someone¡¯s going to try and do that to him, Dov¡¯s going to make sure they must work hard for it.


    ¡°Who,¡± he says. ¡°Did this?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯ve been trying to tell you. Now shut up and listen.¡±


    He tries to, but he can¡¯t focus on what she¡¯s saying. There¡¯s still oxygen on her back. He¡¯s going to run out of his own at some point, and should be prepared. His mind is running through the options he doesn¡¯t have ¨C even if he can screw off her oxygen tank without any tools, which he doubts, he can¡¯t replace the tank with the one on his back. He can¡¯t switch their suits without having to step out into space, and even if that doesn¡¯t kill him in a second, there¡¯s the problem of different sizes of suits. In conclusion, he¡¯s fucked.


    ¡°The crater surrounding the airlock, where we are now, is a haven¡­¡±


    She¡¯s trying to say he¡¯ll be safer staying put, and even in his confusion he recognizes that for a trick¡ªthat staying in the crater is the last thing he should do. Not waiting for her to finish, Dov starts running, as fast as he can. It¡¯s not a spectacular revenge, but it¡¯s a start.


    It doesn¡¯t take a lot of effort ¨C every couple of seconds the ground comes up to meet him, and he kicks it down again. He¡¯s grown fat and slow. Strong, too, but just enough to carry himself in one standard gee. Between kicks he floats in space, completely weightless, thinking about what he¡¯s missed by avoiding space all these years, sticking to the safety of the inside. What good was that safety, in the end?


    How did he get here, again? Behold, I have taught you laws and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, said Moses to his mob of renegade slaves in a desert Dov imagined was a lot like this one. The laws were intended to stop the brutal killing and stealing and coveting. But even with them the game has continued as before, and a man to a man is a wolf still, albeit a sophisticated one. It was never fair, but they pretended it was. They had to. Otherwise, how could anyone agree to play? But a game where the laws themselves were determined by the strongest players could never be anything but infuriatingly unfair.


    Knowing this, he still played to the best of his abilities, but not well enough to win. And that is the only true sin, above any other judgment. As Dov goes over his last moves, it seems, from the outside, like a needlessly elaborate tale. But life is not a concise storyteller. It tends to complicate.


    He had let the suspicions stew in him for a long time before doing something about it. One night, after putting Michal to sleep with three read-throughs of the same story, he went to talk to his wife. He told her that he knew, even though he didn¡¯t. That the girl¡¯s nose was neither his nor hers. That her eyes were too dark. That she acted nothing like him. He demanded they do a paternity test.


    She responded by yelling, and slapping him on the face six times, which he managed to take well, counting and gathering ammo for the argument that was bound to follow. She caught him in the eye on the seventh slap, though, and something in the surprising pain of it jolted a reaction out of him. He slapped her back. Just once, open handed, just to make her snap out of it, but as soon as his fingers touched her chin her body turned liquid and her head crashed into the corner of a wooden dresser. She lay there and didn¡¯t move. Michal hadn¡¯t even woken up.


    The police didn¡¯t help him dispose of the body, he had to do so himself, but they ignored the cameras and didn¡¯t interrogate the neighbors. They even explain how to file the missing person¡¯s report reliably. Dov had offered to pay them, but they refused. As a high ranking official in the Ministry of Life Support, a role he had climbed to with skills more technical than interpersonal, he got a visit from the Minister of Life Support herself, which used the opportunity to warn Dov that his ass will not be covered the next time he fucks up like that. The minister would rather avoid a scandal, but not at all costs. Dov never thanked the woman. She had her own game to play, and she played it to the best of her own abilities.


    He had not allowed himself to fall apart. Not even at the bitterness of lying to the person he loves most in the world, because he still did love her, and it hurt to tell her that mommy has gone on a trip and it¡¯s not certain when she will come back.


    A couple of days later, another player joined the game.


    The kindergarten teacher sent him a video of Michal crying, said that she was worried about how the girl was handling her mother¡¯s absence. Apparently, the teacher said, the girl had come up with a story about how mommy was not missing at all, but in fact dead, because daddy killed her. The teacher sent him a video of Michal telling that story, and expressed wonder over how bad it could become for him if it came out.


    He offered money. She declined. Instead, to his surprise, she demanded the keys to the air purification plant. He knew it couldn¡¯t be for anything less than terrorist action, some activist cell aiming to either cripple Ceres¡¯s air supply or poison it, but he couldn¡¯t say no, nor ask the police for help. So he got the keys and left them where she told him, hoping to buy time, then contacted the mafia. It wasn¡¯t a good play, but it was the only one he had left.


    Hiring a contract killer was even easier than he thought, filling out an online form and providing secure payment in advance. He paid extra for the express option, three days or less, and hoped they would get her in time. When the police knocked on his door, three nerve wrecking days later, he knew for certain they had not.


    He spent seven days in prison, terrified to find out what the terrorists had done with the keys he had given them. At the trial, he was surprised to find that was tried for the murder of his wife. Did the judge know what it was really about? Dov doesn¡¯t know.


    The verdict is obvious. Dov was deep enough in the ministry to know that Earth had long stopped accepting Ceresians. It used to pay well for that, usually in the form of heavy metals of the kind that didn¡¯t explode. That in itself bore worrying implications, that Earth, which could grow humans naturally, paid so much for new ones. Whatever the reason, the fact that it had stopped was a bad sign for Ceres, a harbinger of the day Earth started sending heavy metals of the kind that did explode.


    With nowhere to send him to, he expected to be thrown out. He did not however, expect to be given twenty-four hours of oxygen. It was confusing. He didn¡¯t know what he was supposed to do with that time. Still doesn¡¯t.


    How will the game go on without him? There is only one player that he cares about. His daughter still, despite everything. Michal will be thrown in some orphanage, and hopefully the bastards will leave some of his money to her. Even if they did, she will grow up an orphan, just like he did, and he hopes that she will grow fast enough, smart enough to leave Ceres before it collapses.


    He spots a piece of construction rebar, glad to have something concrete bring him back from his pointless musings. He struggles to bring himself to a stop, and picks it up. The cold hurts his hand, even through the glove, but he feels safer with it. He acknowledges how crazy that thought is. He keeps moving.


    After a time, he hears desperate sobbing and begging. In the faint light of an asteroid shower, he sees two figures running up and out of a crater. One can be recognized as a man by the thin, sharp features Dov can see thanks to the thin, tight suit. The other¡¯s form is hidden beneath layers of material, and their helmet under a hood.


    Is that Vempress, taking away the last of someone¡¯s oxygen? Perhaps he could get the drop on her while she¡¯s focused on her victim. Dov jolts farther ahead, faster than before, slipping on patches of dust but pushing himself quickly up with his free hand, swinging the weapon for balance. Before he can reach them the one covered in the overlarge suit seizes the man running away, and strikes at him with a long pole. The awful sound of metal landing on flesh comes through his helmet speaker, as well as a scream as the victim is thrown forward into space. The pursuer strikes again, smashing the pole down so hard that it lifts them into space. They pull a lasso from their belt, skillfully loop it around a rock, and haul themself back down and towards their victim. The man¡¯s begging stops as they strike him across the helmet once, twice. When he bounces off the rocky ground, his head lolling, they strike one last time at the exposed neck.


    Dov forgets to breathe, but his legs keep moving. He roars his rage and intent, hardly hearing it himself


    The darkness under the hood turns to him, takes in Dov¡¯s size, and runs away. Even out here, some rules are the same. Dov takes the greatest leap, so quick and low that he¡¯d have feared his suit being torn open, if there were anything to fear for.


    The instant he commits to a leap, the figure lets loose a lasso from the suit to snag on a nearby rock, and comes a stop even quicker than they began. The ground running far below the reach of his boots, he is locked in the trajectory, right towards his enemy. Even as he flies, his eyes keep searching for any weakness. The attacker¡¯s armor seems to be made of an inner suit of bundled cloth and cylinders, covered with an outer suit, sewn of the same material. As he flies towards them, the weapon already in place to swing, he feels their glare on him even though their eyes are hidden. He sees in the body language neither fear nor determination, but boredom. He strikes anyway.


    But the figure reaches him first, leaning against the loop like a tether, jousting him right at the thigh, twisting him around. The world around him turns into a kaleidoscope of stars, but even lost Dov still catches a glimpse of a helmet visor and swings for it.


    The figure blocks with one arm, and instead of it breaking like he expected the arm absorbs the impact as if it were steel. Harder than steel, in fact, because Dov¡¯s weapon is what shatters.


    He loses sight of the figure again, rolling around in space, and when he stops he is held overhead by his life support on his back, the hands out of his reach. There is nothing in front of him but stars, and he is completely exposed.


    ¡°Hey!¡± a female voice shouts through comm. ¡°Are you out there? I have one body with twenty-plus hours of oxygen and another live one. They¡¯re yours if you want them. Come on! Please!¡±


    Dov swings his legs around, trying to generate enough rotation to force himself out of her grip and almost succeeds. The hands carrying him, perhaps in response, pull him down and drive him into the rock, right unto his back.


    The impact drives the air out of his lungs, but thankfully not out of his suit. He coils into a ball, the pains so sharp he thinks something may have broken. A scapular blade, or maybe a vertebra. He checks if he can still feel his legs and is relieved that they hurt just as much as the rest of him. Breathing through clenched teeth, he brings an arm up to protect his exposed neck. The attack should be coming any second.


    He looks up and watches a hand pull back the hood, exposing two large, blue eyes, a delicate nose, thin, pink lips on a wide face. ¡°You done?¡± she asks, looking down, and when he doesn¡¯t answer she picks up the weapon he¡¯d dropped and throws it out of sight with a flick of the wrist. ¡°I¡¯m not going to kill you. Not right now, at least. What¡¯s your name?¡±


    Dov coughs up two words.


    ¡°Nice to meet you, Dov. My name is Lea, but you can call me Lev. That¡¯s what my friends call me, and I¡¯d like us to be that, in the little¡­¡± Her eyes dart sideways to the oxygen gauge, and she winces. ¡°Time I have left. ¡°


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Dov looks at her, then at the body lying next to her. ¡°Fuck you, Vempress.¡±


    ¡°Vempress?¡± She asks. ¡°Did I give you a concussion? The first clue that I¡¯m not her is that we¡¯re still talking¡ª or more accurately that you are. The second should be that, as I said, my time here is limited. Hers isn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Why kill him?¡± Dov spits.


    She shakes her head. ¡°Here¡¯s what¡¯s going to happen. I¡¯ll tell you a story, and once I¡¯m done you can ask me anything you want. If Vempress doesn¡¯t show up soon¡­¡± She pauses, only for a second. ¡°¡­ You can take my weapon and armor, the body in case you meet her and, if you¡¯re feeling generous, stab me in the heart and spare me the discomfort of choking to death. How does that sound?¡±


    Dov stands up slowly, confused and hurt, but he hears the key concepts. To understand a little more about what¡¯s going on, to kill her, to have her armor. What is that armor?


    As if she heard his thoughts, Lea throws down her outer robe and exposes her smaller form¡ªsmaller, but still large for a woman; tall, with wide hips and shoulders, and breasts pressed flat against the tight space suit. She¡¯s got cylinders of some hard material strapped to each arm, wrapped in torn suit-matter; each leg¡¯s got a couple of them. As long as a forearm and about as thick. What kind of raw material did she find that¡¯s harder than steel? By her right shin, one of the wrappings is torn off, exposing grayish pink rods, with fingertips at the end.


    Her armor, Dov realizes, is made of human limbs. ¡°Not interested,¡± he says.


    She points the weapon at him with a swift motion, and he notices a glint of a sharpened edge at the end. She could have pierced his suit easily. ¡°Sit down and listen,¡± she says quietly.


    He sighs, the way men always do when accepting that someone else decides how they spend their time, and lets his weight drop.


    Keeping the edge of her weapon only a jab away from piercing his suit open, she sits on the rock beside him. ¡°Good,¡± she says. ¡°How do I start? My dad always used to say that there¡¯s no God. Not as a theological statement, but a practical one. It¡¯s not like any of us thought that there was a god, and needed convincing. We¡¯d play chess, and I¡¯d ask him if I could make a particular move, and he¡¯d say, ¡®there¡¯s no god here, you can do whatever you want¡¯. Should I put more pepper in the sauce? ¡®There¡¯s no god¡¯. And I never got his point, not really. Not until I got here. You¡¯ve seen the airlock, and you¡¯ve probably seen it empty, except for corpses. When I got there, it was frighteningly full of people, living people, circling around the outside of it. I¡¯d just gotten out, and I didn¡¯t understand who those people were and why they were there and when was I going to die, and someone placed a piece of rebar in my hands, just like you had a moment ago, and pointed at another guy, with a similar weapon. He said to me ¨C if you want to live long enough to use all that oxygen in your tank, you better kill him, because he sure is going to try and kill you. But don¡¯t open his bag, they warned me ¨C because if he leaks, you¡¯ll get killed, too. I wasn¡¯t sure I was capable of attacking another human being, but he sure was. There was no hesitation in him when he tried to kill me. He failed, though,¡± she says, and her chin rises only the smallest bit as she does, ¡°and afterwards they all cheered. It was exactly how I imagined it would be. Not the scenery, obviously, but the chill it brought, that¡­ specific silence.¡± She looks at her own fingers gripping a weapon.


    Dov¡¯s eyes dart between his own oxygen timer and the man, dead or dying, with his face down against the rock.


    ¡°Hey, are you listening to me? I¡¯m not talking to the rocks here.¡±


    He raises his eyes to her, surprised to find a real need in them. ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Then be comforting. Say ¨C that must have been very hard for you.¡±


    ¡°That must have been very hard for you.¡±


    ¡°Mean it,¡± she says, shaking the edge of her spear at him.


    Dov sighs and repeats the words, trying to sound supportive. How quickly he has adapted to this madness.


    She sighs, perhaps unsatisfied with his performance. ¡°Anyway,¡± she continues, her voice steady, ¡°there was a sort of tiered system. After winning a duel you rose through the ranks, got a while to rest, and had to participate in another, against someone of the same tier as you. An endless tournament.¡±


    ¡°What for?¡± Dov asks.


    It¡¯s not exactly the kind of participation she is after, but she accepts it. ¡°I did it because I thought, at the time, that killing was better than dying. But in hindsight¡­ He who lives by the sword dies by the sword, you know? We don¡¯t talk enough about how acting changes us more than anything else. But it¡¯s not like I had a choice. If you refused to fight, you were killed by the person in your own tier. If you tried to run anyone was allowed to kill you, and it¡¯s important to note that higher standing brought better gear.¡± She taps her fingers against the knuckles of a petrified hand that acts as a shield for her own. ¡°I had to earn these.¡±


    ¡°What did the highest tier get?¡±


    ¡°Oxygen.¡± She scowls when she says the word, but her eyes shine with an awful hunger.


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°Vempress would only come every couple of hours, and even then, she would stay high above us. She¡¯d take the bodies of the lowest tier, tier zero, the freshest oxygen tanks for herself. The rest, those who got killed later, would have their oxygen given to the regent, usually tier seven or eight. The second-highest tier would have been offered oxygen too, if they chose to be hauled up into space where Vempress could make sure they weren¡¯t any danger to her, and unplug their oxygen to give them a new supply. I had that done to me more than once, adding more than ten hours to my natural time.¡±


    ¡°Natural?¡±


    ¡°A figure of speech. The twenty-four hours you came with.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a way to live longer,¡± Dov concludes. ¡°A tool.¡±


    ¡°There is, but the rest of us don¡¯t have access. It lets her unplug the oxygen cleanly. The rest of us have to make do with hunting for her ¨C hoping that she gives us some of her oxygen if she finds our sacrifice worthy.¡±


    ¡°Is there another?¡±


    ¡°Maybe. I heard rumors, when I was a part of the tournament¡ªstories whispered between gladiators that if you go to the southmost edge of the crater, you can find a statue that some people built, on top of a crashed spacecraft. Proof of their cooperation¡ªsomething so large and intricate no one could make it in one day, even if they had the luxury of no one interfering with them. Perhaps there was a time when people did something else besides killing each other, here.¡± She taps the dead man¡¯s helmet with the tip of her weapon, and Dov swallows a grimace.


    ¡°Times pass.¡±


    ¡°I bet they held as long as the ability to take each other¡¯s oxygen wasn¡¯t available. But they must have developed it, somehow, and as soon as one of them had such immense power over the others¡­ what other way could things have gone?¡±


    ¡°You could have taken it.¡±


    ¡°If we all tried together, yes. But that¡¯s a big if. We couldn¡¯t coordinate¡ªif you said anything about mutiny, the tier above you had to put you down. If they didn¡¯t, the tier above them had to put them down, and so on, all the way up to the regent.¡±


    There¡¯s no need to explain further. At the top of the tournament stood the most hardened gladiator, with the biggest incentive to take Vempress¡¯s side. And the freshest gladiator? They probably figured that they¡¯d have a better chance climbing the pyramid than toppling it alone.


    ¡°Play by her rules, and pray for mercy. Don¡¯t think of fighting her, unless you¡¯ve given up.¡± She looks at the stars for a second. ¡°God, I wanted off of this rock so bad. And now all I want is to be back in the office, drinking tea in front of a screen.¡±


    Dov¡¯s grimace softens by a single degree. ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t talk much, do you?¡±


    ¡°One hundred words a day, they say. Used to.¡±


    ¡°Not a bad number. My friends used to call me The Jellyfish, because I more or less floated where life took me. It seems so weird now, how I assumed that no matter what I did, nothing would change, so I didn¡¯t even try. They tried so hard to convince me otherwise. I wonder what they¡¯d say if they saw me now.¡±


    Dov¡¯s couldn¡¯t care less what his ¡°friends¡± would think if the saw him here. But what would Michal? What Does she think? He is too distracted by the sudden ache in him to think. The great alchemist within him turns that ache into more fury, more aggression.


    ¡°At my dad¡¯s memorial service,¡± she continues, ¡°one year after he died, I started crying in front of one of his pictures, because I realized I didn¡¯t remember him as clearly anymore, that he was beginning to fade. My brothers, in a rare display of not being total shitheads, sat me down and resurrected every memory they could ¨C how he used to say that there¡¯s no god, and reminisced about the pet cats he had as a child, Gustave and Pushkin; how he used to replace the words in old songs one word at a time until not a single word was left of the original. And for a moment, I felt like he was alive again. As long as we remembered him, he wasn¡¯t really dead. And I felt that when I died, as long as somebody remembered, I wouldn¡¯t really be dead. Hey, look at me; I¡¯m not keeping you alive to stargaze. This is the part I need you to understand. Even if someone remembers, they remember the person I was inside. The person I am become out here... This Shiva¡­ None of my friends have ever met this Lea that threatens to kill a man just to make sure he¡¯s listening. So, what happens when she, meaning I, dies? The people we are here are shadows of what we were, shadows that no one will get to see but other shadows. But even shadows want to be remembered.¡±


    It''s not worth Dov¡¯s time. He wants to be out there, jury-rig a way to survive, but if he gets up and walks, she would just kill him. There¡¯s a pool of acid at the bottom of Dov¡¯s chest, and when he speaks, it bubbles out through his mouth. ¡°You didn¡¯t change.¡±


    The words hurt, he can see in her eyes that they do, but still she smiles, shrugging. ¡°You¡¯re right, you know. Inside-Lea was a coward who was being told what to do, and outside-Lea is in many ways the same. I thought that if I kept cooperating, if I kept killing, Vempress would let me live. But she stopped coming. It was time for her to come and take the sacrifices, redistribute the oxygen, but she just didn¡¯t show up. You should have seen the regent, growing more and more restless, holding the sacrifice above his head and crying like a child who¡¯d lost his mother. When it became clear there was no one to wait for, the fucking dam broke. I didn¡¯t know who swung first, but we went from a tense wait to an all-out knife party in less than a second. I managed to escape mostly by luck. The next time she saw me, flying above me as fast as a long-range shuttle, I survived only by offering her a sacrifice, like this one.¡± She taps the helmet again, and Dov makes sure not to let her see how his teeth clench.


    ¡°Did she give you oxygen?¡±


    ¡°She did. But not from sacrifice - she gave me another balloon, one with only seven hours and seventeen minutes in it. And if she won¡¯t come back soon, that time will run out.¡±


    ¡°OK. I listened to your story. Do you want me to kill you now?¡±


    ¡°I want you to try. I want you to remember me; even if all you remember is how to fight, my purpose when I can¡¯t carry it anymore.¡±


    Dov rises, mostly because his ass is freezing but also because he¡¯s angry. ¡°What purpose?¡±


    She stands up. ¡°To keep fighting. When you kill, when you hunt and get hunted, you can endure. Don¡¯t fight this madness, ride it. It¡¯s better to spend your life chasing and swinging than to sit alone on a rock and watch the digits counting down your hours. Not just for yourself, but for them.¡± She looks at the body beside her as if she forgot it was there, forgetting it was her who killed him, and strikes the helmet with enough force that the head bounces off the rock and the entire body rises. ¡°Would he have been better off if he never met me?¡±


    ¡°Stop that,¡± Dov says through his teeth.


    ¡°Why?¡± She strikes again, as if to convince herself of something. ¡°There is no god. No watching eye. Nothing¡¯s stopping you from doing whatever you want.¡±


    ¡°Stop.¡± Dov hates himself for considering using the word ¡®please¡¯.


    She throws the weapon to him, and he grabs it. ¡°Make me,¡± she says, leering, and Dov glimpses who she was before: one of those girls, just attractive enough to try to seduce a high ranking official but not enough to have true confidence, who could spend half a night at a bar subtly berating him for his receding hairline and age and weight only to end up in a tiny box for hourly rent, begging him to choke her harder so she could forget who she is for ten minutes. Not anymore, though. Now she¡¯s beautiful in the same way a nocturnal predator or a planet-shattering asteroid is. He was wrong. She did change.


    He attacks, and she counters him easily, sweeping his leg and sending him flying, sprawled. ¡°Come on,¡± she howls, ¡°what¡¯s the point of getting into my range if you¡¯re useless while you¡¯re there?¡± He gets up, attacks a second time, and she steps forward to catch his arm, pivoting effortlessly, and slams him into the rock. It knocks the wind out of him, though not as devastatingly as the first time. ¡°Do you expect me to just stand there?¡± She taunts as he waits for his breath to return. He gets up again and attacks a third time, noting not only to stay out of her range but also prepare for her counterattack, but she leaps above the swinging weapon, letting him pass beneath her, and he looks up just in time to see her boot coming down on him. He tries to block the strike but he¡¯s too slow, and for an instant the world disappears, and all he sees is pitch blackness divided in the middle by crooked, white lightning. He¡¯s still floating when his vision returns, so he knows he was out for only a second. There are tears in his eyes now, that somehow slipped out when he wasn¡¯t there to maintain control.


    She looks at him as she floats down, and laughs. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I tricked you. I let you think you had an advantage. But the weapon doesn¡¯t help much if you don¡¯t know how to use it, does it? Now: It¡¯s going to be time soon. Go to that statue, after you kill me. You owe me that much.¡±


    ¡°I owe nothing,¡± he says, humiliated but not yielding.


    ¡°Fair enough. Then I¡¯ll die in your debt. Will you do the honors? I won¡¯t resist, this time,¡± she says, and pulls from a hidden pocket a piece of shattered steel, wrapped in nylon. She throws it over to him and he grabs it, notices that the metal looks like it was broken from a longer, more useful blade. He shakes away the aching by the previous impact, wills it away. The rock feels more reliable against his soles; he trusts his own movements a little more, now. He crouches, leaning forward, ready to plunge the knife into her heart. It won¡¯t be as satisfying as taking it by force, but he¡¯ll take what he can get.


    ¡°Goodbye, Dov Katkop. Thank you. For remembering me, that is. Let this be your final lesson.¡±


    He says nothing. What would it matter, when there will soon be no one to remember the words?


    She stands there, her arms spread, looking into his eyes without fear. He takes one lunging step forward, then another, and another, faster and faster, until finally he is close enough to her to stab, here it comes ¨C


    Dov feels the pain in his wrist before he understands what¡¯s going on. His fingers spasm open and he is thrown into space, upside down once more. The knife is no longer in his hands. She laughs, a horrible, shrill sound as he floats above her; as she brandishes the weapon she¡¯s just taken from him. ¡°Never stop fighting, until your very last breath,¡± she declares, bringing the knife to her throat with both hands, frozen. Her teeth clench and her eyes widen with excruciating effort. Something in her visor flashes red. She screams when her hands finally move.


    Dov lands heavily. He walks back to where she cut her suit open, takes the knife from her dead hands and the armor off her stiff body, and goes south.


    #


    The first sign of the statue is a glint of reflected starlight against the backdrop of dark, rocky cliffs. Dov uses the lasso to stop his momentum. With each floating step, more details are revealed ¨C the pseudo helmet, made of broken visors; the seams where many suits were glued or sewn to create the illusion of one large one; the beams of the skeleton beneath the suit rests on.


    After a frustratingly challenging climb, he comes to a stop under the statue and tries to estimate how many hours had been wasted on the work. One of the statue¡¯s feet rests on top of a crashed shuttle. Besides its open hatch, a fat, bearded man lies on his back in an undamaged suit, his face frozen, literally, in the middle of choking. His stiff hands are holding on to those of two other bodies, one at each side: One is a young man, his expression stern and resolute as if he was ready to die in great pain. His suit is cut from groin to helmet. The other, a woman, is holding both hands against a gash just under her neck. Only suit was cut, not skin, but it''s obvious from her expression that she didn¡¯t agree to have the cut made. Her hands are clawing ¨C but the fat man¡¯s fingers are wrapped around one anyway.


    Dov is even angrier at Lea now, though he can¡¯t say why. He¡¯s angry at the statue for being put there as a message of delusional hope, a misleading lie that only a fool would believe, in a place like this. The decision almost makes itself. If nothing else, he¡¯ll make sure that no one else sees it.


    He puts himself on a collision course with the statue, compensating with the inaccurateness of his movements with raw fury. For a second, he¡¯s floating in space; like Lea, he¡¯s a shattering asteroid, unrestrained.


    The armor makes first contact with the metal, and one of the straps slips and winds around his leg. His shin bone meets a piece of angled, frozen metal, and his leg erupts in pain. He falls slowly down, curled up into a ball¡ªthough the pain doesn¡¯t bother him as much as he expected.


    The statue and shuttle pitch, still in one piece, but not enough to topple. By the time he reaches the start of the runway the pain is forgotten completely as Dov is overtaken by thoughts of momentum and torque and leverage arms. He collides with the head of the statue once, twice, until he finally succeeds in hitting it with his boots, kicking away, delivering enough energy to tip it over. Still in space, he watches as the shuttle rolls over; watches the statue above it careen until it crashes against the rock and reverts to fractured, lonely pieces of steel.


    He feels clearer now. He manipulates his own body to make sure he lands on his feet, and wonders how these people managed to weld the metal together in the first place.


    After a moment, he goes to the corpses and searches through their capes. He finds no welding torch, no long-range weapons¡ªonly a short knife. He doesn¡¯t have any pockets, so he puts it aside. When he looks at the bodies again it sets a motion in him and without knowing why he separates them and tosses them one by one into the crater. No one gets to escape.


    Dov picks up the knife and finds himself compelled to admire the work: the shaping of the metal; the precise wrapping of the handle in suit material. It¡¯s far superior to what Lea gave him. He cannot imagine how someone could spend hours on such delicate, useless work. He hides the weapon in his armor and looks over the edge, into the hole in the ground from which he came.

 Vempress I

    The Master does nothing,


    yet he leaves nothing undone.


    The ordinary man is always doing things,


    yet many more are left to be done.


    [...]


    The moral man does something,


    and when no one responds


    He rolls up his sleeves and uses force.


    -Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu, from a translation by S. Mitchell


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 24:01:03


    I stood in the airlock, waiting. The smell of plastic was strong inside the suit made me feel like I was wrapped in nylon. I got why the residents of Last Day Town called them bags.


    The sound of my own breathing loud in my ears, I looked at my visor display. The airlock wouldn¡¯t have opened if I had even one second less than twenty-four hours, so they had to give me some extra, and though I had no more anger in me for being thrown out, for being murdered, that extra minute somehow managed to infuriate me. Why one and not five? Why not an hour? My nose was itching already.


    The airlock operator sat behind a reinforced pane of glass. He seemed sick: his skin was oddly colored, his neck so thin the hinges of his jaw were protruding. His grey beard, though, was neatly trimmed. He didn¡¯t look at me at all, just stared at the screen while I stared at him, daring him to look back. I had a feeling he wouldn¡¯t look, no matter what I did. Would I have, in his place?


    He sighed deeply, his shoulders sinking, and made a motion I couldn¡¯t see, on some control panel¡ªpressing a button, maybe, or flicking a safety switch. The doors opened, and I felt a gentle push from below¡ªthe thrust of the wisp of air left in the airlock, leaving¡ªthat sent me up and away. I found myself anticipating the welcoming committee, wondering how they would react after I told them I already knew. Already understood. There wasn¡¯t much I could do for these people. To surprise, to amuse, even if it was something so inconsequential; it suddenly seemed very important.


    I was out again, floating in the darkness. My eyes hadn¡¯t yet adjusted, or perhaps I¡¯d just forgotten how little light there was out here. As if in response to my thoughts, a large asteroid rose slowly above the horizon, reflecting sunlight over the rocky cliffs like a faint sunrise.


    ¡°Diocletian?¡± I called, as I floated one, two, three meters above the rocky terrain. No one answered. When I finally rotated to look at the rock beneath me, I saw no welcoming committee. There were, however, dozens of bodies in the crater, helmets and limbs broken, suits slashed open.


    Had I been in shock this entire time? Repressing what was obvious: that the lines were dead, and Last Day Town with them? I¡¯d somehow managed not to think about how I was going to die here¡ªa delicate suspension of disbelief, now broken


    "Is anyone here?¡± I asked the darkness, and then, quieter, ¡°Pythia?¡±


    I floated down. Just as my boots touched the rock, I heard a voice on comm.


    ¡°What the fuck are you talking about?¡± A female voice, tired and angry.


    I turned around. A suited figure was suspended in space high above the bodies, her legs dangling under her, her neck viced between two parallel rods of metal, the gap between them too narrow for her helmet to slip through. The rods connected on each side to poles coming out from the rock. Somebody had to weld that improvised binding into place, while her neck was inside, probably under threat. Somebody had the power to do that.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± I asked, my mouth suddenly dry. I looked around at the small crater of the airlock. The airlock itself had closed already, the strobing lights blinking obediently, illuminating the dozens of bodies that piled here. The crater was still the same size that it had been, about a hundred meters across or so, but it seemed larger now, like there were so many more bodies it could hold.


    ¡°The one telling you what¡¯s going on,¡± she said. The asteroid was behind her, so I couldn¡¯t see her face clearly, but her voice was distinct, as if it had once been melodious and deep, but had since been crushed flat by defeat. ¡°Now listen to me.¡±


    ¡°You know who I am?¡± I felt a weird sense of pride that they¡¯d known I¡¯d return.


    ¡°I don¡¯t give a shit who you are. Let me say what I have to say, then leave me alone.¡±


    ¡°Hm. Go ahead.¡±


    ¡°I was put here by Vempress, the first resident, to welcome and inform those who enter. She wants you to know that this side of Ceres is her hunting grounds, and everything in it is hers. Your oxygen is hers, your suit is hers, and your body, if she finds use for it, is hers. Do you understand?¡±


    Repetition wasn¡¯t common in Last Day Town, for obvious reasons. Someone had written this script for her. A chill spread in me, starting at my guts and blooming into the veins of my arms and neck. Something that wasn¡¯t just fear. ¡°Yes,¡± I said.


    ¡°If fortune shines on you, you will have the honor of meeting her. She may take your oxygen, or you might die naturally at the end of your twenty-four hours, as she chooses.¡±


    Despite myself, I chuckled when she said ¡®naturally¡¯, a frightened little exhalation. ¡°Can I talk to this¡­ Vempress?¡±


    ¡°Shut up and let me finish. The crater surrounding the airlock, where we are now, is a haven for you, and anyone who wishes to stay safe from her. Outside the airlock you¡¯re safe only if you carry a corpse with you, and that corpse has more than twenty hours of oxygen. These defenses, however, are nullified if anyone tries to hurt her or me. If any such attempt is made, she will kill every single person she finds here, regardless of where they stand.¡±


    The asteroid was in the center of the sky now, illuminating the crater, which was about fifty meters across and ten meters deep, with the airlock at the lowest point. I looked at the mounds of corpses and knew I¡¯d have to stay here until I figured out what was going on. ¡°Why doesn¡¯t everyone just stay here, then?¡±


    ¡°However,¡± she continued, ¡°the valley does not protect you from the others. If anyone wishes to attack you here, or you wish to attack anyone else but Vempress and myself, that is your right. That is all. Now go. Or stay.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean, ¡®the others¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Whoever¡¯s looking for a skull to crack,¡± she snapped.


    I looked around again, but still saw no one. No one alive, at least. ¡°Tell me more about her. This ¡®Vempress¡¯: what¡¯s her deal?¡±


    ¡°I told you to leave, didn¡¯t I?¡± She sounded genuinely unsure.


    ¡°You must have talked to her when she put you here.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t talk about this.¡±


    I stepped closer. She had deep-brown eyes, even half-closed with exhaustion. Her features were handsome, regal somehow. I could see how she must have looked as a young woman.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±


    She looked confused for a moment. ¡°Nina.¡±


    ¡°Nina, listen: I was here before. Things were very different. No one had their neck in a vise, and though people still died here, they had more options for how to spend their time. I¡¯d really like to understand what happened here, and I¡¯d like to talk to this Vempress, preferably without her killing me. Do you know how I could do that?¡±


    Her face contorted in some inner struggle. ¡°She said not to give any information about her. She hears everything, you understand? She listens to everything we do here. I¡¯ve already told you too much, and if I tell you anything more, she¡¯ll have me breathing vacuum, or worse.¡±


    I tried another angle. ¡°How long do you have left?¡±


    ¡°One hour and fifty-seven minutes.¡± I heard her swallow through the radio. Another asteroid entered the sky, underlit by direct sunlight. I saw tears accumulating under and around her eyes as she looked at the corner of her visor, little blobs of water, not heavy enough to streak her cheeks.


    ¡°Two hours? Is that what you¡¯re afraid to lose?¡±


    ¡°One fifty-seven! Fifty-six, now. And fuck you,¡± she spat. ¡°I¡¯m dying here, and you¡¯re judging me?¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°You¡¯re going to die, and worse yet, someone stole your last hours of freedom and turned you into a tool. Are you going to do the one thing you can to give her some shit in return, or are you going to be a good little slave?¡±


    She paused, her expression hardening. ¡°Are you any better?¡±


    In an instant, like a lightning strike, I understood what I had to do.


    Making sure she saw, I pressed a finger into the control panel of my suit, killing my radio. I took a step towards her, ducking under the metal rods. She looked at me warily, but she must have glimpsed something of my intention, because she said nothing, and didn¡¯t fight as I pressed a finger against the control panel on her chest. I swung myself over the contraption, careful not to throw my weight too far up. Even though my hands held the metal for only an instant, I felt the chill of it sipping through the suit. I placed my boots on the bars, squatting so my helmet touched hers, just like Anaxagoras had done when they¡¯d mugged me.


    ¡°Can you understand what I¡¯m saying?¡± I asked.


    She reached around the bars, placed her hands on my helmet and pulled me in, harder. I saw each fold on her face, each shimmer and tick under the light coming from her visor¡¯s display. ¡°Yes,¡± she said, her voice distant, distorted by the two layers of glass. ¡°I don¡¯t want to die a coward,¡± she simply added. ¡°She¡¯s afraid. She needs others to fear her so desperately, even more than she needs oxygen. And if she¡¯s been here for a very long time. I can¡¯t even imagine how she survived. Whatever you want to do with your last day, don¡¯t fuck with her. Do you understand? Don¡¯t let your last hours go to waste.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t. I promise.¡±


    Nina sighed. ¡°You¡¯re the first person that¡¯s asked for my name. What¡¯s yours?¡±


    ¡°Yossi.¡±


    Her eyes suddenly alight with out-of-place mischief, she sang:


    I¡¯ll buy me a parrot,


    And his name will be Yossi,


    To him I will confide,


    What no one will hear¡­


    ¡°God, please. I hate that song so much.¡±


    ¡°You hate it? I¡¯m the one that¡¯s about to die locked up,¡± she said, and somehow, she managed to inject humor into her voice.


    ¡°Fair enough.¡± We didn¡¯t laugh, but something between us¡­ eased.


    ¡°Yossi,¡± she abruptly said.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want anyone else to go through this. My time is over, but I don¡¯t want anyone else to suffer what I¡¯ve suffered.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll stop her. I promise.¡±


    ¡°No offense, but I wouldn¡¯t go around making that kind of promise if I were you.¡±


    ¡°Give me something. A weakness?¡±


    ¡°No weakness. If she decides to kill you, you¡¯re dead.¡±


    ¡°What the hell am I supposed to do with that?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve been silent for too long,¡± she said suddenly, her eyes wide. ¡°She¡¯ll notice.¡± She pushed me back, and we both turned our comms back on. I remained standing on the metal rods, not wanting to get far from her yet.


    ¡°Why are you standing there all quiet?¡± she said aloud, acting for Vempress¡¯s sake.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    ¡°Why not? Am I not safe here?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re safe from her. Not from the others.¡± She didn¡¯t seem to be acting anymore.


    ¡°There isn¡¯t anyone out here. Right?¡±


    ¡°Usually they wait until I finish talking, but this is taking longer than usual, and they won¡¯t wait forever.¡±


    I turned around, crouching, like a wild animal hearing something moving in the bushes. ¡°You didn¡¯t think to tell me sooner?¡±


    The look in her eyes told me what I could have guessed - in her exhaustion, she simply forgot.


    As if in response, like birds of prey attuned to the scuttle of rodents, two of the bodies started moving. I noticed only now that none of them had any noticeable injuries, and that one of them, a bulky mass, had bundles strapped against his suit, like makeshift armor made of frozen body parts. He pulled a metal pole from under a pile of bodies. The other one, bony and long-limbed, picked up a lasso, reinforced with a chain loop. I stared at them as they found their footing.


    ¡°Go!¡± Nina yelled.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 23:58:11


    I jumped off the contraption to the rock, quickly over the bodies and to the rocky plane beyond the crater, where movement would be easier. I leaped from rock to rock in shallow arcs, quickly recalling what I¡¯d learned as a visitor, turning my head to catch quick glimpses of my pursuers mid-leap. They didn¡¯t chase me from behind; like experienced hunters, they ran parallel, one on either side, forcing me forward in a straight line. They were closer each time I looked; either by practice or by some Darwinian process, they were much faster than me, and the closer they got, the clearer I could see them. The one that carried the pole furiously propelled his massive body, assaulting the ground with every kick. I caught a glimpse of the other as he flailed his long legs like an ostrich, the lasso swinging behind him. He was already more at my side than behind me. When he threw it, I thought he¡¯d missed¡ªthe chain was in front of me, not above me. I was on the verge of blessing my luck when he yanked the loop backwards. I raised my arms and knees for protection at the last possible moment, feeling the metal collide with muscle and bone.


    The lasso wrapped around me as it hit, and pulled, not getting a real hold but slowing me enough for them to get closer. I floated above the rock, struggling desperately to get the thing off me. The one with the pole was heading straight for me, the flash-frozen human parts he used as armor shining through the slashes in the outer cloth, as the weak gravity refused to bring me back to the rock that I could push from. His crude mace gleamed blue-grey in the reflected sunlight as it came towards me with deadly speed.


    There was no weapon at my disposal but words, I realized, and cried, ¡°Wait! I¡¯ve been here before!¡±


    No hint he even heard me. I could see his face, now, through the visor: teeth clenched and exposed in a pained grin; green eyes alight with a fire that left no room for anything else, a complete disregard for my desire not to be beaten to death.


    We¡¯ve gone so far, conquered space, built cities in the sky. Yet here we are, beating each other to death with sticks.


    But they¡¯d messed up the timing¡ªI was going to land on the rock before he could get the chance to swing at me. The moment my boots touched the ground I shot straight up, every muscle and nerve in my body firing as hard as they could.


    The pole swung through the empty space where my torso had just been, passing just under me as I floated upward. The first time I¡¯d stepped on Ceres¡¯s surface, as a young miner, I¡¯d managed seventy-two seconds of space time in one jump. I hoped this leap was as successful. Not much compared to twenty-four hours, but I cherished every second of it. I felt like my day was being stolen from me, and worse¡ªthere was also the matter of the cause of death. Doesn¡¯t get much lonelier than having your pain serve as someone else¡¯s amusement.


    I watched from above as my pursuer tumbled, his armor protecting him from the sharp rocks, and finally found his grip on the surface. The other, lean and graceful, took his center of gravity so low he lay almost flat on the surface, then stopped against a protruding rock. ¡°Should I tag him?¡± he asked nonchalantly.


    I was about seven meters high, still slowly climbing, well within their range.


    ¡°No, Yahushua,¡± said the one with the pole, picking himself up. ¡°No need. We¡¯ll wait.¡±


    ¡°Did you hear me say that I was in this place before? I can help you,¡± I said, my voice surprisingly confident. ¡°If you let me.¡±


    ¡°Not interested,¡± said the one with the armor.


    ¡°Why are you doing this?¡±


    He looked around theatrically. ¡°Did nobody tell you where you are?¡± He turned his face to me and smiled, as if this was all very funny.


    ¡°Dov, come on¡ªcan I have the first hit this time?¡± Yahushua, asked, swinging his chain. ¡°You always take the first one.¡±


    ¡°I take the first, you take the rest. That¡¯s the deal.¡±


    ¡°Can you at least not finish him off with the first blow? I didn¡¯t get to do anything last time.¡±


    ¡°No promises,¡± Dov said, and grinned.


    It felt rude to interrupt, even while they were talking about killing me for fun. ¡°Um, excuse me¡ªDov, was it?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± he grunted.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think you understand. I was here before, and I managed to survive. Don¡¯t you want to know how?¡± I wasn¡¯t technically lying.


    Dov laughed. ¡°We¡¯ve heard that one before,¡± he commented. ¡°Didn¡¯t take you for a storyteller. I thought you¡¯d just beg.¡±


    Yahushua joined the laughter. ¡°Yeah, if you were here before, why are you so surprised that we¡¯re going to kill you?¡±


    I was slowly reaching the peak of my ascent, about fifteen meters above them. How I would¡¯ve loved to have one of Ctesibius¡¯ rockets now, and fly away to a place where I could be safe for the rest of the day; or a blade to nick my suit and propel myself away, if only for a couple of hours; or even just a rock to throw at them. Anything. I was floating at the apex, helpless, unable to stop myself from falling again.


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t like this here, before,¡± I called. ¡°That¡¯s the thing. Everyone that was thrown out acted like a community. We didn¡¯t have to kill each other, and we still don¡¯t. I don¡¯t know what changed in Last Day Town, but please, at least consider it.¡±


    ¡°Wait a second,¡± Yahushua said, turning to Dov. ¡°Do you remember that woman we caught by the cliffs? She said she¡¯d heard about a great battle, and she used that name, Last Day Town.¡± He squinted at me. ¡°How would you know that?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s bullshitting,¡± Dov scolded him, disappointed.


    ¡°Because I was here a week ago. I¡¯ve seen Last Day Town. I think I may have seen the battle, or at least the start of it.¡±


    ¡°My dick you did!¡± Dov snapped.


    ¡°Hold on,¡± Yahushua said, his voice carrying a note of honest, scientific curiosity. ¡°We might actually have something interesting here. How could he know they called it Last Day Town unless he was here before?¡±


    Meanwhile, slowly but surely, gravity was pulling me down.


    ¡°Not falling for that,¡± Dov growled, turning to Yahushua. ¡°I¡¯m going to kill him as soon as he lands, and I¡¯ll fuck you up too, if you get in the way.¡±


    ¡°Try it, you moody bitch,¡± Yahushua voice was low, suddenly resolute. ¡°It was only a matter of time.¡± He swung the chain in a tight, swift motion, wrapping it around his arm like a shield, and crouched. Dov turned to him, holding the pole in both hands, one of his boots finding grip under an angled rock. I found myself feeling something not entirely unlike hope.


    They stood frozen, for a long moment. A fourth voice came through the comm. A woman¡¯s voice, sniggering, hoarse like she hadn¡¯t slept in a very long time.


    Dov raised his head and scoped the sky, trying perhaps to see where the threat came from, while Yahushua still crouching, looked back at the crater we¡¯d come from.


    Dov looked up at me, making eye contact for the first time. ¡°A sacrifice,¡± he said to Yahushua. ¡°She won¡¯t kill us if we give her something. Pull him down.¡±


    Yahushua looked at me, then at Dov, then at back at the crater. One moment he was still; the next he was gone, crossing the rocky distance even faster than before.


    Dov snarled and took a couple of steps back, estimating the jump it would take to get to me.


    On comm, the laughter grew steadily louder, as if the source of transmission was getting closer. Dov dug his boots into the rock and jumped, his weapon ready.


    A memory flashed: Eight year old Yossi Ben Ze¡¯ev, alone among strangers on a rocket to Ceres, shaking so hard the screen almost falls out of his hands. He¡¯s flicking through pictures of ospreys in flight, trying to distract himself, but quickly comes to accept that this is how he¡¯ll die. Here and now. He closes the screen, feeling surprised that death feels more like a relief than a misfortune. After a long, solemn moment the rocket stops shaking, and Yossi realizes his time hasn¡¯t come yet.


    Now I squinted at Dov and hoped that he¡¯d stay true to his threats and finish me in one blow, that I¡¯d never get to learn that I had been hit¡ªone moment I will be here, and the next, well, there won¡¯t be a next. I couldn¡¯t close my eyes, though I wanted to; instead I watched him close the distance, and swing the metal tube with enough force to break my ribs into my lungs. Close now, I saw his expression, lit by the timer of his own helmet, and registered, despite everything, how pained he looked.


    His momentum changed, as if something very heavy or very fast had hit him. I saw only a blur, something small and black, like an asteroid¡ªand then he wasn¡¯t there anymore.


    Slowly, I landed, shocked, and watched as the object changed direction mid-flight and landed against a vertical rock face. It was a small person in a jetpack, with equipment tied to it; a blade, perhaps, and something else that I didn¡¯t recognize. I gazed at the silhouette against stars; the shoulders and waist looked like a woman¡¯s, though so emaciated it was hard to tell. Her suit was dark, unlike the bright gray bags that residents wore; that I wore. Her body was so small and thin compared to Dov¡¯s, which was still flying in a low arc, that I couldn¡¯t believe it was her who threw him off.


    She retrieved something rifle-like and my eyes followed the pointing weapon to Yahushua, who¡¯d made significant headway towards the airlock. She pulled a trigger, and though I didn¡¯t see anything coming out of the barrel, I saw the recoil nudging her backwards.


    Yahushua contorted suddenly, missed a landing and fell into a long tumble, a thin, sharp-looking rod protruding from his thigh. He squealed so hard the helmet speakers distorted the sound, but underneath those screams I heard someone laugh¡ªthat same hoarse, tired voice. She put the gun back into her belt, and drew the blade that dangled at her other side, a movement so natural and smooth that by itself it was a sort of threat.


    Dov didn¡¯t see it, though. He was still rolling from the first impact, holding his shielded arms up to protect his head and chest from the sharp rock. She jousted for him again before he managed to find his footing and I watched, frozen solid, as she slashed the blade against him.


    But the blade, seeking warm flesh, only found the frost-hardened limbs of his armor.


    She stopped a few meters up, on his other side, using the jets to direct herself. My jets, I realized numbly, as I saw her working the controls with one hand..


    Dov managed to find his footing then, gripping a rock with his hands, ready to jolt, looking around for her without realizing she was above. All this time, he hadn¡¯t made a single sound.


    She dove for him, one hand at the controls, letting a loop of fabric drag behind her with the other. It snagged him just as he started to move.


    Against the backdrop of the stars, I saw the single band of suit fabric pull Dov far above the rock. He gasped a drawn-out, terrified, ¡°Fuck!¡± as he went up, then around, going in a circle as she maneuvered around him, keeping the lasso tight between them. They were about ten or twenty meters high, moving faster with each revolution, until finally she let the lasso go slack, sending herself upwards and Dov straight into the ground. The impact was so loud it silenced Yahushua on comm for a moment. Or was it that Yahushua, hearing the crash, forgot his pain and looked on, confused and covered in sweat, to witness the fate of his companion? I couldn¡¯t tell.


    Dov had curled into a ball before going down, hiding behind his cannibalized armor as well as he could, but when he bounced from that crash his body was limp. The pole had shattered into dozens of fragments.


    She pulled on the lasso, shortening the distance between them, both still floating high above, until she landed on Dov¡¯s back like a T4 Virus placing delicate legs on the thin membrane before penetrating a host cell.


    Yahushua¡¯s screams returned, but they¡¯d crystallized into words. He yelled at Dov to kill that bitch, to fight, to do something. If Dov heard and understood, his only answer was a low, weak grunt. He did try to reach her with his hands, having dropped his weapon at some point, but she sat comfortably at the back of his neck, beyond his reach. The screech of metal sliding against metal sounded on comm, like someone unscrewing a large bolt. Dov cursed again but didn¡¯t scream. She detached his oxygen tank and clipped it to a compartment welded into the jetpack.


    Vaguely, I noticed that my legs were taking me forward. If she was going to kill me too, I didn¡¯t see how there was anything I could do about it. My plan to live out my last day peacefully evaporated into the vacuum of space, along with the dream of taking comfort in the nobility of the human spirit or whatever lofty nonsense I¡¯d told Keren.


    Keren, I thought with viscous horror, as I watched the woman jump off Dov¡¯s body, leaving him with nothing but the oxygen in his lungs and whatever was left between his skin and suit. He sank like a body in the ocean.


    Yahushua crawled, trying to drag himself over the line. Somehow aware that she had turned her attention to him, he started yelling. "We were going to give you a sacrifice! We were just about to kill him for you! It¡¯s not fair!"


    This is the Last Day Town that¡¯s waiting for Keren.


    "But you didn''t. And rules are rules," she said as she landed softly beside him, her voice vaguely familiar as she pinned him in place with one knee.


    This is what she¡¯s going to see when she gets here.


    "You don''t need my oxygen. You already took Dov''s. Isn''t that enough?"


    That is how she¡¯s going to spend the last minutes of her life.


    ¡°It is,¡± she said as she wrapped her fingers around the metal jutting out of his thigh ¡°But I want my spear back.¡±


    I wanted to turn off my comm receiver as she pulled the spear out, but my hand didn¡¯t move. Black blood sprayed from the wound as she pulled the spear out, her visor turned away. It burst up into space and onto her suit, though it didn¡¯t make it any darker. He made a sound I wouldn¡¯t know how to describe in words, and as if in response to that sound, something inside me turned cold and hard, and it didn¡¯t seem to matter anymore whether I¡¯d die later or right then.


    She pulled a roll of duct tape from another strap¡ªthe same space-proof kind that Diocletian used to carry around. Yahushua grunted weakly when she flipped him over and taped the exit hole in his leg shut.


    Each of her movements was efficient, effortless. She loaded the spear, blackened with dried blood, back into her spear gun and holstered it, then picked Yahushua up and jumped into the center of the crater. On comm, someone sounded like they were choking down a coughing fit.


    My legs brought me close enough to the airlock that I could see her land beside Nina and let Yahushua drop beside them. She took something out of one of her sewed-on pockets, and a blazing blue-white light flared up between her silhouette and the metal bindings. Nina fell slowly, stiff. With the torch off, the crater sank back into darkness, hidden behind the afterimage of the light.


    ¡°Go,¡± the woman in the dark suit commanded, and Nina glanced up at her. She rose, trembling, her face hidden in shadow, and began climbing out of the crater, her movements uncertain. I wanted her to look at me, to know that I was there; that I saw. My legs didn¡¯t move any faster, though, and when I opened my mouth, no sound came out.


    The woman grabbed Yahushua¡¯s neck with one hand and put it between the bars. The airlock lights blinked, illuminating both captive and captor. I looked away, not letting the flame blind me again.


    By the time it was dark again, Yahushua¡¯s neck was trapped, just like Nina¡¯s had been. She tapped his helmet twice with her torch. ¡°I¡¯m sure you know the words by heart, by now,¡± she said, and now her voice was definitely familiar.


    Nina reached the edge of the crater and stopped, looking out to the empty plane ahead of her. As the women watched her hand hovered above the speargun, deliberating, but before she had reached a decision Nina broke into an uneven run, her destination unknown.


    The woman turned and jumped towards me, her silhouette dark against the backdrop of twinkling stars, one arm at her side, clipping the torch back into place, and the other at the controls of the jet. She descended at the end of her arc, graceful like a ballerina even in stillness, as her jet stirred clouds of dust up and away, stopping her momentum only a hairbreadth above the surface and falling the rest of the way down, letting one booted toe take careful hold as if it were the bottom of an ancient ocean she was standing on.


    Closer now, I could see that her suit wasn¡¯t black but dark red, flaking at her elbows and knees, as if she had sprayed blood, marked herself as Diocletian, so many times it covered all of her.


    Her eyes were big and blue, but her smile¡­ it wasn¡¯t the same smile it had been, before. ¡°It¡¯s you, isn¡¯t it?¡± she said, her voice mocking. ¡°Welcome back.¡±


    The cold inside me turned into something resolute and hard. I took a deep breath. ¡°Peace, Diocletian.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± she purred. ¡°Nobody calls me that anymore.¡±

 Vempress II

    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 23:35:31


    She drew the blade and took a step towards me, like a vulture inspecting wounded, helpless prey. She¡¯d used to move like a martial artist, disciplined and careful, but now her movements flowed unconsciously, as naturally as an actual predator. ¡°All that trouble, and you didn¡¯t even manage to escape,¡± she judged, her voice a little less hoarse. ¡°In the end.¡±


    Behind her, a shadow moved slowly in the darkness¡ªa hulking form, lumbering, pained. On comm, I heard Dov panting through his teeth¡ªbut not begging.


    I need to face her as an equal, some calculating voice inside me said. I need to create a distinction between me and the others, if I don¡¯t want Keren, or myself, to end like that. The thing about talking to a killer, a real killer, is that something deep and ancient inside of you advises strongly to shut up and piss your pants. ¡°Did you do have it any better?¡± I said, struggling to keep my tone casual.


    She eyed me. ¡°You¡¯ve changed. Death row was good for you. Toughened you up. You¡¯ll need that to survive, here.¡±


    I took the friendly tone as a good sign. ¡°What happened here, Diocletian? Where are the lines?¡±


    Her eyes turned dark. ¡°The name¡¯s Vempress now. Say it.¡±


    ¡°What happened here, Vempress?¡± I spoke slowly, as if calming a wild animal.


    ¡°War. You should know - you started it.¡±


    Something lit the rock, and I saw Dov, staring at us from a hiding place among the rocks, collapsed on his knees and one hand. His face was tinted blue, and his bloodshot eyes were focused, determined. He was still fighting, somehow, refusing to let go. I didn¡¯t know how much oxygen a suit could hold, but it couldn¡¯t be much. It was the death that everyone in the old Last Day Town feared. It made having your suit opened seem like a great kindness. Shouldn¡¯t I feel bad for this guy? It didn¡¯t matter. All I felt was quiet and cold. ¡°I don¡¯t remember starting any of this,¡± I said.


    She looked at him for a moment and turned back to me, smiling. ¡°Once I killed the lines, I didn¡¯t see a reason to bring them back. I didn¡¯t need any of them: Not greedy Ctesibius, whiny Pythia, or stubborn Anaxagoras. I am enough to keep this place in order, and I don¡¯t need to hide or lie. This is better than Last Day Town ever was.¡±


    Behind her, Dov pulled something from within his armor - a short, straight knife. He lifted it above his head, as if preparing to strike himself, but instead flicked it forward. In the microgravity, it flew in an almost straight line, right towards Vempress. She must have seen something reflected in my visor, or my eyes, because she jumped, straight up¡ªand the knife slit the bag around her calve.


    ¡°Fuck!¡± she yelled, far above, and placed a hand against the tear, rolling in space. Still rising, she pulled the duct tape from a pocket and spread it over the tear with one hand, quickly, while pinching the tear shut with the other. She was done before she even reached the apex of her jump, ten meters above me, and thrust herself back down. When she landed, still graceful, her eyes were on the violet letters at the bottom right corner of her visor, her mouth forming silent curses.


    Dov looked at us, still on his knees, a smile on his blue face. Vempress turned to look at him, and I couldn¡¯t see her face. For a moment they stood frozen, forgetting their urgent situation, then he collapsed forward.


    Vempress untangled her lasso, and threw it at me. ¡°Grab on,¡± she said, and I did. ¡°Let go, and I¡¯ll noose you by the neck,¡± she added, her voice steady.


    Good. She hadn¡¯t decided to kill me yet.


    I wrapped the fabric around my arm twice. She hurled herself up with surprising force, pumping the jets before the line tightened and pulled me after her. We built up speed and once again I got to watch Last Day Town from above, albeit much lower and faster this time. I spotted three people, scattered, moving along the rock face, foraging like wild animals for who knows what.


    ¡°Why did you let Yahushua live?¡± I asked, regaining some measure of control. ¡°What¡¯s the purpose of leaving someone there?¡±


    She was silent for so long that I¡¯d have suspected she¡¯d turned off her comm, if I hadn¡¯t heard the sound of her breathing next to mine. ¡°If I kill all of them, how will they remember?¡± she said finally, not looking back at me. ¡°Somebody needs to remember.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t see the airlock anymore¡ªand when I saw the chasm, I realized we were heading west, toward Diocletian¡¯s old cave.


    She didn¡¯t use the thrusters to stop our descent ¨C in fact, she used them to send us down into the mouth of the chasm, which put her below me. She turned herself feet-first and slipped into the narrow, sloping entrance of the cave. I, unable to turn around, collided with the wall with an arm and a leg. I fell down into the abyss, trying to reach for the wall, but I had already bounced too far off.


    Vempress sat comfortably in the cave entrance, the tether that was connected to me coiled around her fist. She watched me fall to her level and lower, but didn¡¯t move, as if to see what I would do. When I¡¯d fallen as low as I could, I felt the tug of band as she flung me up, with one powerful motion, just high enough for me to grab hold of the entrance and lift myself in.


    She slid down into the narrow, dark tunnel. By the faint light of her visor, I could see her tending to something, a wall made of bags glued together. She opened a long zipper in the middle of it, exposing a second layer of patched bags. She looked up at me, and I saw her face lit violet behind her visor, looking impatient. She moved aside, just giving me enough room to pass, but still held the blade in her hand, ready to slice me open by the thigh. ¡°Airlock¡¯s not big enough for both of us, so you get in first. At this point you might come up with the idea to ruin the airlock itself in hope I choke, but I assure you I never leave this cave without enough oxygen to fix a new one if I need to, so don¡¯t waste our time. Once you get in zip up behind you, then open up the inner door. Close the inner door, then let me know by comm, and don¡¯t move¡± she said flatly. ¡°Touch anything, and I¡¯ll have you breathing vacuum,¡± she added. I recognized that threat.


    I crawled down, in the even narrower space that she left with her body, as warry of the blade in her hand as I was of touching her body, in this strange, forced intimacy, and folded myself between the layers of fabric. The space between the layers was clearly tailored for dimensions smaller than mine, and when she zipped up behind me, I found myself wedged, almost unable to maneuver. I fumbled for the other zipper in the faint light of my own visor, while trying to ignore the numerals. I was careful not to tear anything; I was now messing with her home, with her oxygen. I didn¡¯t want to breathe vacuum.


    I opened the second zipper into pitch blackness, and felt a gentle push of gas against my suit as the gas from the inside rushed to fill up the empty airlock. Is that air? Does she really have that much oxygen just lying around?


    I crawled through and closed the zipper carefully behind me. ¡°I¡¯m done,¡± I announced, as I floated the darkness I succumbed to the temptation to look at the timer. How did forty minutes pass so quickly?


    I landed, crookedly, and by the time I had managed to stabilize myself, she had already passed the airlock, her face lit by her own visor, appearing in the darkness, looking for something, and suddenly everything was illuminated red.


    I blinked at the light. There was no light bulb ¨C the light came from a row of detached helmets, the visors all displaying oxygen timers showing zero hours and zero minutes in bright, red digits. The cave was the same large, spherical hall that I remembered, with the pile of discarded bags where Diocletian had once hidden their only rocket, where they had kept their bubble. Now it was all one big bubble. And there was more - various forms of equipment, some of which may have been as weapons or batteries, oxygen tanks, arranged in neat rows.


    Someone was taking pained, shallow breaths on comm. A man, perhaps injured? But I didn¡¯t see anyone.


    ¡°Turn around and stand in the center of the cave,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m going to be changing, but I¡¯ll still have a gun on you. Turn around, even slightly, even just your head, and you¡¯re getting impaled.¡± Her voice had a doubled quality to it, and I realized it was carried through air as well as radio. ¡°And don¡¯t even think about taking off your helmet.¡±


    I swallowed a lump, thinking about Diocletian¡¯s Third, and obeyed, floating slowly towards what seemed like the center of the room, stopping at a spot that was empty of any equipment, just bare rock.


    I considered putting my hands above my head, but I had no weapon, nor even a place to hide one. I studied the floor beneath me, instead. It was covered with a thin layer of ice: the humidity from her breath freezing on the rock at minus fifty degrees centigrade. On comm, the panting sound stopped, as the man cursed¡ªand I recognized the voice. It was Yahushua, bleeding slowly in his suit, back at the airlock. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the devices Ctesibius had used to eavesdrop from afar¡ªpicking up radio signals from wherever it was, transmitting them over here and broadcasting again, as if the original transmission had been sent from this room.


    ¡°What did I say about turning your head?¡± She said, and I immediately turned my gaze forward, like a scolded child.


    ¡°What happened to them?¡± I asked. What have you done to them?


    ¡°I didn¡¯t tell you this,¡± she sounded distant, and not just because it was air carrying her voice instead of radio, ¡°When I found Ctesibius, he was by the airlock. Screaming at it. He was blind¡ªsome idiot had just tried crawling back into the airlock, and Ctesibius looked directly at the blast. He knew I was coming, and still he tried sending a message instead of saving himself. Can you guess what he was screaming?¡±


    I could. Of course I could.


    ¡°Yossi Ben Ze¡¯ev!¡± she yelled, her impersonation of Ctesibius¡¯s Second so accurate that I could imagine the thin man kneeling by the airlock, exacting the only revenge he could. ¡°Yossi Ben Ze¡¯ev was here! Please, somebody! Shadow Man!¡± She mimicked his voice breaking, the sound of a man drowning in fury and desperation. Then, just as suddenly, she laughed with her own voice. ¡°I hit him like a fucking rocket. Slash!¡± I fought the urge to turn and look at her, to see what movement she had performed to accompany that sound, as if it could give me anything information that I didn¡¯t already have. ¡°But I was a couple of seconds late, and here you are,¡± she said with what sounded like a shrug. ¡°And here I am.¡±


    Here we are. ¡°What about Anaxagoras?¡±


    ¡°They blew their cave up. There were only two of them, so we easily pushed them back into their tunnel. Diocletian, the other one, was inside when they activated their safeguards. I always thought they were bluffing about the explosives,¡± she said, a note of bitter appreciation in her voice. ¡°Good for them. I caught the third one later, mourning by the entrance the cave. He didn¡¯t even put up a fight.¡±


    He was late. He took the rocket, went as fast as he could, but he was still late.


    ¡°And Pythia?¡±


    She sounded amused. ¡°That stubborn bitch. She put on quite a show, didn¡¯t she? But she was no help. I didn¡¯t find the other one, but I guess he managed to get word out, considering how someone¡¯s always talking about the culture that once was and the battle that ended it. But that¡¯s for the best, honestly. It adds spice to my character, that I not only rule here, but crushed the former order to do so.¡±


    I stared at the walls of the cave and listened to her laughter echoing through the air that I wasn¡¯t allowed to breathe. A heat rose in me, like a fever, but it was faint. Distant.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you like it better as it is now?¡± she said. ¡°The old Last Day Town was so¡­ confining. So strict. Here, everyone is free, without label.¡±


    ¡°Nina seemed pretty confined.¡±


    ¡°Freedom has a price,¡± she said with a tone that, to my surprise, was free of irony. As if it was a matter of necessity, nothing more. ¡°And somebody has to pay it.¡±


    She wasn¡¯t trying to get me mentally off balance, not like last time. Ironically, she was better at it now. ¡°Why am I here, Vempress?¡±


    ¡°Why do you think, hmm?¡± Somehow her voice told me that her hands were busy. If there was a time to try something, it was now.


    I stayed still. ¡°I think you¡¯re sadistic, and you enjoy holding people by threads, and cutting those threads,¡± I said, my voice still firm.


    ¡°That again? You still think I¡¯m evil?¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t deny what you¡¯ve done here.¡±


    She sighed, disappointed. ¡°You can¡¯t kill someone who¡¯s already dead. Do you still not understand that? Nothing we do here matters. If killing a baby is the worst kind of murder because you take years away from their life, killing a resident is no crime at all.¡±


    ¡°And yet, every hour you spend here is an hour you took from someone. All of the oxygen in this room could have been spent keeping people alive.¡± I waved a hand at the abundance we were submerged in.


    ¡°You know what? Why don¡¯t you take off your helmet for a moment? A show of trust, me sharing some of my oxygen with you.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t familiar with the helmet on the bag, and the latches took a bit of negotiation before the little computers were convinced it was safe for me to expose my head. I wished numbly that those computers would take some more subtle factors into account, aside from air pressure, like the chance of getting my head split open by a blade. As I took off my helmet, it felt as if I put my head in freezing water. I sucked in a painfully cold breath and immediately felt refreshed. Not just because of the temperature - this air had to have a very high oxygen ratio. It would have been very hard for someone to fall asleep here.


    Latches clicked shut behind me, and when she spoke, I heard it more through radio than through air. ¡°Now turn around.¡±


    She was back in her suit, helmet screwed on, standing by the airlock, the inner layer open. She had one hand on the zipper to the outer layer, and the other resting on the handle of her blade. One quick motion and I¡¯d be standing in hard vacuum.


    My helmet was in my hands, which now seemed very far away. Even if I put it on as fast as I could, she would be faster. If I were lucky, the pressure would only burst my eardrums.


    Her eyes were on me, glazed over; her expression blank, like she was looking at the timer at the corner of her visor, not a person.


    I made myself take in a lungful of cold air, unsure whether I was smelling the stench of human waste or just imagining it, and stared back at that icy ferociousness of her eyes. She hadn¡¯t stabbed me from behind¨C she¡¯d gone to the effort of putting on a spectacle. I found myself gripping at that shred of hope.


    ¡°Why am I here, Vempress, you ask me.¡± Her voice was strained, tight. She shook her head, and the blade tied at her side swung. ¡°You are here¡­ To tell me if the appeal went through.¡±


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    How could I forget about that? How had that not been the first thing I¡¯d said to her? I spoke very slowly. ¡°I passed on the message, using the only channel available to me.¡±


    ¡°That¡­¡± She drew the words on, painfully. ¡°Sounds like a no.¡± The hand holding the zipper trembled. She seemed so small, suddenly. So fragile.


    I swallowed. I was certain that I wouldn¡¯t live to see the minute turn if I showed any weakness. If I stuttered, or made excuses, or begged, she would kill me out of spite. ¡°I was arrested at the airlock,¡± I enunciated. ¡°The first lawyer I met was at my trial. I told the judge and my defense attorney everything you told me to. But,¡± I forced myself to stop talking and inhale, ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll follow through on the procedure. Legally speaking ¨C ¡±


    Her hand rose from the blade handle, one finger pointing upwards, silencing. Her face was an expressionless mask, and her body was folded slightly forward, rigid, as if she was choking down something bitter. ¡°Unfortunate,¡± she said after a long moment, ¡°that you could not bring me more reassuring news. But I might still have a use for you.¡±


    I wondered if she was only waiting for me to start speaking to open the hatch mid-sentence. I was useless to her now, aside from whatever pleasure she might gain from seeing me bleeding from my lungs. I remembered Anaxagoras asking her second to tear her suit open. I¡¯d be lucky to go so quickly. ¡°What use?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I suspect these living conditions could start impacting my mental state. Having some small talk might be beneficial.¡± She seemed serious. ¡°For my health.¡±


    ¡°Do you have time to worry about that stuff?¡± Some instinct guided me to disagree. ¡°I thought you only cared about survival.¡±


    ¡°This is survival. Unfortunately, my needs go beyond breathing, drinking, and eating. I haven¡¯t talked to anyone in a week, and I feel fine, but even I couldn¡¯t keep this up forever.¡±


    ¡°Last Day Town is full of people, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but they¡¯re too busy being deathly afraid of me to have any kind of conversation. And here you are, accusing me of being evil!¡± She chuckled. ¡°You don¡¯t give a shit anymore, do you?¡±


    It was my turn to laugh. ¡°So, what, you want me to stay here with you? Like a caged bird to entertain you in exchange for oxygen?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t flatter yourself, princess. The need for company comes after the need for oxygen. Speaking of which, put your helmet back on.¡±


    I raised it slowly and closed the latches around my neck. ¡°You¡¯re still sharing your oxygen just by not killing me.¡± I pushed further. ¡°All of the oxygen in Last Day Town is yours, if I heard correctly.¡±


    She smiled as she closed the inner layer of the airlock and screwed her helmet off again. I saw her hair for the first time. Black and shine-less, aside for the strands of silver that I wasn¡¯t sure had been while she was Diocletian. It probably would have reached her shoulders in a standard gee, but here static fought the gravity and gave it volume, floating around her head like another helmet. She passed a gloved hand through it. ¡°Of course. As much as you were given is as much I will spare for you.¡± Had she bounced back from the bad news I had given her, or just regained her composure? From one of the suit pockets she brought something that looked like beef jerky and brought it to her mouth. She chewed slowly.


    Where had she gotten food from - oh. Oh. I kept the horror from my face, from my voice, but I couldn¡¯t take my eyes away from her mouth. ¡°Then, one day?¡±


    She swallowed. ¡°You still have more than twenty-three hours in there, don¡¯t you?¡± She rubbed her brow with the back of the hand that was holding the meat, and I realized that I¡¯d missed my chance to scratch my nose. That I¡¯d probably never get such a chance again; never again breathe without seeing the humidity condense right in front of my face. The itch returned in full force.


    Twenty-three hours and twenty-two minutes, the clock at the corner of my visor glared. ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Then there¡¯s plenty of time. I¡¯ll keep you here as a guest, and who knows: if you¡¯re good, I might grow soft enough to share some of my wealth.¡±


    ¡°And if I¡¯m bad?¡± I said, trying to force a hint of humor into my voice.


    She pointed the spear gun at my visor, her hand as steady as hyper-cooled steel. ¡°Bang!¡± she barked, and tore at another piece of meat with her teeth.


    I exhaled. She was back at her game. Whatever it was underneath, whatever I saw at that moment was hidden again, and that was good enough for me. ¡°So you¡¯re not afraid that I¡¯ll try anything?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been doing this for a while now, and it turns out I have quite an eye for who¡¯s into fights and who¡¯s into compromises. I think we both know which one you are. Listen,¡± she said, still chewing, ¡°You don¡¯t get it. I¡¯ll do anything to stay alive. Do you think I¡¯m just chatting with you? You realize this time could have been used for hunting, cleaning my guns, doing some maintenance. The thing you don¡¯t get is, this is maintenance.¡± She swallowed with a gulp.


    ¡°So, what happens after my day ends? What will you do next week?¡± I was genuinely curious.


    She turned away, as if to check on her stock of helmets. ¡°I¡¯ll figure something out. I always have.¡±


    Oh Pythia, if you could see me now. ¡°I refuse.¡±


    Vempress looked at me with surprise, then at her gun, as if to make sure that it was still there, then back at me. ¡°Are you under the impression I¡¯m giving you a choice?¡±


    ¡°You could keep me here if you wanted¡ªbut I have a better offer for you,¡± I said, still not sure what it was.


    ¡°Yeah?¡± The indignation in her eyes was tinged with curiosity, but more importantly, amusement. This is exactly why I let him live, she might as well have said aloud.


    ¡°Let me back into Last Day Town.¡±


    ¡°What for, exactly?¡±


    ¡°To rebuild the Line Pythia.¡±


    The silence hung for a long moment, by Last Day Town¡¯s standards. Then, as if speaking of her childhood, she said, ¡°I never visited Pythia. I¡¯m not one for confessions. I don¡¯t waste time on guilt.¡± She hadn¡¯t said no, I noted.


    ¡°The line never provided absolution,¡± I explained. ¡°Just the simple comfort of a listening ear. You¡¯d be the line¡¯s patron. You could come every day, speak to someone who won¡¯t be afraid of you, because you¡¯ll have made an agreement.¡±


    ¡°Why should I believe you? I have no reason to trust you won¡¯t just waste oxygen bashing skulls with the others, or looking for someone to put you out of your misery.¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°Like you said, I¡¯m more about compromises than fights, and if I wanted to die I would try to mess with your stuff. What I want is to make things different around here. More like the old Town.¡±


    ¡°And talking to people about their memories is what will change it back?¡±


    ¡°Maybe not, but it will be better for some, and you could still take oxygen from everyone else.¡± I hated myself for condoning this, but I had to start somewhere.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need you. If I wanted to, I could have rebuilt the lines myself,¡± she spat. A blob of water left her mouth, flew in a straight line and froze the instant it touched the rock. ¡°Remember?¡±


    ¡°I remember you promised me you would, a week ago. Tell me, Vempress, did you break your promise or¡­¡± I mirrored her trademark smile. ¡°Did you fail?¡±


    Her smile was pained, though still somehow absent. She nodded encouragingly and took a big bite of the jerky. No, not jerky, I forced myself to acknowledge. I wondered what was the name of the piece of meat she was eating had been. How they¡¯d died; what they¡¯d been thrown out for. She swallowed and cleared her throat. ¡°You¡¯ll see for yourself. One person can¡¯t build a line. People become a part of something only after they see someone else making the sacrifice they¡¯re expected to make. Otherwise¡­ they feel cheated. Used. They don¡¯t think it¡¯s worth their time. And as soon as they understand that I have no intention of dying, at the end of the day, they snap.¡±


    ¡°So the only other option was¡­ that?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised, but I actually formed a type of culture that was stable. You should have seen how beautiful The Tournament was. No matter how many people have come and how many have gone, every time I got there, they all got on their toes, weapons on the floor and hands over their heads, looking up at me with a perfect obedience that didn¡¯t change, no matter how many generations passed.¡± Never, in my short acquaintance with that woman, had I seen such delight.


    ¡°It kept going? This tournament?¡±


    ¡°As long as I kept providing the winners oxygen. It would have kept going forever.¡±


    She didn¡¯t have to explain any further. I didn¡¯t need to know the details to imagine what it would have been like for those poor souls, fighting over oxygen. ¡°Why did it end?¡±


    ¡°I got tired of it,¡± she said and paused. ¡°I fell asleep!¡± She laughed, a sound hollow and loud.


    This is what insanity looks like, I reminded myself. When we say that anyone would go insane in a place like this, barely sleeping for more than seven days, killing to survive, we speak in abstracts. But there it is, in the flesh.


    ¡°By the time I woke up, they¡¯d all killed each other. Not for anything specific, mind you; there was nothing to gain. They just wanted to, I guess. Maybe that¡¯s just how people are.¡± She shrugged.


    ¡°How long did it hold?¡±


    ¡°Oh, a couple of days, at least. I didn¡¯t even have to be there for the newcomers ¨C The Tournament did that for me.¡±


    ¡°So, you still managed to build a line, in your own way. But that line wasn¡¯t free, so it couldn¡¯t have been a friend to you. There was no one to hold your hand.¡± I thought about Anaxagoras¡¯s First again.


    Her lips tightened into a fine line. ¡°Survival doesn¡¯t require anyone hold my hand. Certainly not you.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I agreed, ¡°It doesn¡¯t.¡± But it was too late. I¡¯d already crossed the line.


    ¡°Fuck it. I¡¯ll keep you in a cage. You think I give a shit about what you want?¡± She spat again, swinging the spear gun. ¡°I can bring anyone here and cut them out of their suit. I gave you a chance.¡±


    I didn¡¯t move as she stepped towards me, and touched the speargun to my chest, right under the hard control panel. Up close, her eyes were two pools of icy anger, confused, power hungry, but most of all, exhausted.


    ¡°Do it,¡± I said, not knowing myself if it was a bluff. ¡°You¡¯re right. You were right all along. The only thing that matters is survival, and I¡¯ve already lost that, so why not spare me the bullshit and end it now?¡±


    The anger washed off her face, as suddenly as it appeared. ¡°You¡¯re starting to get it.¡± She still held the gun to my chest as she tapped my visor with the knuckles of her other hand.


    ¡°But I¡¯d like to propose a wager.¡±


    She raised an amused eyebrow. ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Let me try. See if I can rebuild the first line. If Line Pythia becomes stable, sustained even without me, let it live.¡±


    ¡°And if you can¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°Kill me, torture me¡ªdo whatever you want.¡± I realized that I really didn¡¯t care that much.


    ¡°So, nothing that I couldn¡¯t do anyway.¡±


    ¡°Like you said, everything here is yours. If you let me do this, it¡¯s for your own amusement and gain.¡±


    ¡°Right again. I can bleed you, vacuum you, starve you even, if I don¡¯t get bored. But none of those would be as sweet as actually watching you waste your last breathing hours on a wager, and fail. A real game.¡± This was her true smile shining on her face now, not the facade Diocletian had worn, and so much more terrifying for it .


    ¡°But it only counts as real if it¡¯s fair. If you keep killing people while I try to build the first line, I could say that you interrupted the process, and¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ha! That¡¯s precious. I¡¯ll think about it. Also,¡± she added, ¡°Diocletian were the first line, not Pythia.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t hold up my end of this wager if I don¡¯t have a guarantee you¡¯ll cooperate.¡±


    ¡°Tough luck. You won¡¯t survive out here if you think like you would on the inside. I won¡¯t make you any promises, because you know what? I just don¡¯t have to keep them.¡± She turned and pumped the jets away to bring herself to the corner of the room, to another pile of equipment I¡¯d had no time to inspect. ¡°But I accept the wager, and not only that: I¡¯ll give you the protection you need.¡±


    ¡°You will?¡± A note of hope escaped my mouth before I managed to repress it. If I left something for Keren, that would be one thing I managed to do right.


    ¡°Yeah, they¡¯d eat you alive without it,¡± she said, no hint of irony in her voice, as she picked up a blade that had rested against the rock wall and tossed it towards me, much too quickly for comfort. I moved my body out of its way and caught it very carefully. My fingers tightened around the straps of bag wrapped around the metal ¨C the grip was far less comfortable than I¡¯d imagined it would be.


    She coughed formally, and recited:


    This blade that you are given,


    Has struck down many times


    It drew the air of villains,


    As it will yours and mine.


    Strike first, if you have to strike,


    But never strike too hard,


    Because the blade you sink in bone,


    You may as well discard.


    She finished with an exhalation, then chuckled, as if fondly reminiscing.


    I didn¡¯t intend to use the blade, but I did my best to memorize the poem. Like any other poem that originated here, it was, in a way, sacred. How many times has it been passed on? How many different mouths and ears has it been through, and how has it evolved, over the days? It was lunacy to pay such attention to such things, when much larger ones were coming to an end. Perhaps I too had gone a little insane.


    She threw an oxygen tank and I caught it with both hands, feeling the weight of the heavy, precious liquid sloshing inside. Welded to the pipe that was supposed to connect to the suit, was a complex nozzle with a small valve.


    ¡°I built it in case my jets ever break down.¡± My jets. The bulk of the contraption was an oxygen balloon, the standard kind each newcomer came with. She had killed someone for it. Just in case. ¡°You¡¯re going to have to move around a lot,¡± she said, perhaps reading my expression. ¡°Let¡¯s go to the surface, I¡¯ll teach you how to use it.¡±


    I went through the soft airlock, exceedingly careful not to let the blade clasped at my hip touch the bags, and climbed out of the tunnel. I crouched at the edge of the entrance and jumped out of the fault. With no assisting device, I floated above the endless chasm, trusting that I had launched myself correctly, which I luckily did ¨C I hit the top of the wall with my chest, and pulled myself up to flat, safe grounds. Vempress was there only an instant later, her accurate jet-bursts landing her softly.


    She stood at the edge of the fissure. ¡°Come, there¡¯s something I want you to see.¡±


    I followed, stopping on the edge. ¡°This is the canister. You use it by pointing it to the side you don¡¯t to be in and turning the valve. Use the strap to secure it, in case you lose grip.¡± No poem was recited, because no one ever expected to teach this to anyone else. Last Day Town could never have supported such a blatant misuse of oxygen. "If it does after you¡¯ve gained speed, smile.¡±


    ¡°Why smile?¡±


    ¡°Because crying is for losers.¡± She smiled humorlessly, and let the canister drop into the cavern.


    ¡°Why would you do that?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you can still get it back,¡± she gestured with her chin toward the pit.


    Cautious not to tilt forward I looked after the canister. It fell, beyond my reach. Who was I supposed t- Then she kicked my ass. A nudge, just hard enough for me to lose balance, and I fell forward.


    ¡°Why? Why are you doing this?¡± There was no calmness in my voice now, nor in my head. The abyss was in front of me, slowly swallowing me whole, the canister falling out of my reach. ¡°Vempress?¡±


    ¡°Punishment.¡±


    I tried turning myself around, to look at her. ¡°For what? What am I being punished for?¡±


    ¡°Refusal.¡±


    ¡°It was a mistake. I apologize. I¡¯m sorry, I truly am. Please, Vempress, there¡¯s no need for this.¡± Falling all the way down is obviously going to hurt, but more than that, it will cost me time. A lot of time.


    ¡°Evidently, there is. You can make it out in an hour, if you¡¯re lucky. I will not be as lenient next time.¡±


    ¡°Please, I¡¯m begging you.¡±


    Finally I managed to twist myself around. There wasn¡¯t repulsion in her eyes, nor contempt. I could have endured those, but as she looked at me, all I saw was embarrassment. ¡°Never beg,¡± she said.


    I started crying, instead.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 22:42:57


    All throughout the fall, I tried keeping my eyes on the canister. If I could push myself towards it, if I remembered where it was when I landed, I might not have to spend as much as time down there. And still, I would lose a lot of my remaining time in this pit, and I hated her for it, perhaps more than I hated her for killing the lines and the people they were made of.


    The narrow band of stars above me grew narrower until it was nothing but a single hairline-fracture of light in a world made of absence. You never quite remember how terrifying real darkness is, especially when falling. Despite myself, a terrified ¡°Vempress! Please!¡± escaped my lips. Never beg, I reminded myself, and crashed into the bottom like a load of bird shit, sprawling on to my side. It hurt, but nothing was broken, and no leaks were heard.


    ¡°Ok, you idiot. Stop whining, and think.¡± I would have slapped myself across the face, if I could, but instead I compromised on clapping my hands together hard enough for it to hurt. ¡°How do we get out of here? We get the canister. How do you we get the canister? We scan over the bodies.¡± I stood up, trying to keep myself away from the bodies. ¡°But we have to be methodical.¡± I panted. ¡°If you miss it, we¡¯ll never know whether or not to turn back.¡±


    I stumbled to one wall, and put a stiff, naked body leaning against it, looking away, but unable to ignore the cold taking hold of my fingers. Then, orienting myself with the line of light above, I started towards the other wall. I crawled over the bodies, putting my visor close to them as it was the only source of illumination. The faces were the worst, solidified in pain, but the hands were also bad, fingers clenched or contorting in that final pain; layers upon layers of them, the true bottom couldn¡¯t be seen beyond them, nor the ends of the pile . I knew that many people had reached Last Day Town only to be thrown down here by Diocletian, but knowing wasn¡¯t the same as seeing them. I found myself apologizing to them, especially after touching a shriveled eye or genital. ¡°Come on you baby, don¡¯t lose your mind yet. Keren is counting on you. You got this.¡±


    I made it to the other wall, and brought another body to a stand. That way I could know how far I was advancing, and whether or not I was biased to one side. Now all that I had to do was keep going.


    ¡°Come on buddy, walk it off. Keep moving, and we¡¯ll be back in the light in no time.¡±

 Pythia III

    Estimated oxygen time: 22:08:38


    My fingers closed around the perfectly cylindrical form of the canister, and I burst with elation that cannot be described, hugging it close to my chest. ¡°Yes! Thank you, God Almighty! Fuck yes!¡± A tiny part of me noted how manic my hoarse laughter sounded, but that wasn¡¯t important anymore. What was is that the punishment was finally over, that I was free to use my own natural time as I saw fit. What was that she had said? I secured the strap around my wrist and pointed the nozzle where I didn¡¯t want to be, which was down, and turned the valve.


    I left the corpses I was standing on, too fast, twisting around as I soared. A wall slammed into me, reminding me that I still had no talent for rocketry, but I still climbed upwards, towards the light.


    I struggled to control the little, powerful tool. Even with the strap twisted around my wrist, I felt constantly on the verge of a slip that would condemn me to spend the rest of my day here, waiting for Vempress to get bored and come get me.


    There was an echo of Vempress¡¯s mind resonating in that contraption ¨C a willingness to leap into danger, with the minimum amount of precaution needed to survive. An extreme confidence in her own skill, one that I sadly did not share.


    The gap between the walls widened and widened until finally the entirety of the star lit sky was above me, and I was flying, free.


    Looking down I was reminded that it was from this very fault that I¡¯d taken off after my first visit in Diocletian¡¯s cave, with the rocket they¡¯d given me after killing Third. Ironically, the canister had a much stronger kick than the rocket, and could probably take me all the way to the airlock. There was nowhere to go, now. All I could do, all I could change, was here.


    I directed the exhaust to the opposite direction of the airlock, and flew high above the crater¡¯s pocked terrain, twisting it shut once I got enough speed. When I passed over the airlock, less than a minute later, I directed the jet the other way, turning the valve just enough to fire a correcting burst of thin oxygen-mist¡ªfirst too weakly, then too hard and moving the other way, then correcting again. I finally managed to land at the edge of the valley.


    The light blinked, and I saw Yahushua, hanging by his helmet between the two metal rods. He was completely motionless. My comm picked up the sound of shallow, quick breathing, which meant he wasn¡¯t quite dead yet. The light blinked again, and I saw his closed eyes, his slightly open mouth. I considered waking him up, but what for? Better that he slept, if that was sleep at all.


    I looked away; I didn¡¯t want to watch him die. I wasn¡¯t much better off, and even if I were¡­ It didn¡¯t matter. I had work to do. I needed to focus. Why had Vempress placed an unconscious Yahushua in the post, quite literally, of the welcoming committee? Was it a deliberate decision, or the absent-minded mistake of someone who had hardly slept for a week? Any clue to her mental state may be the difference between success and failure.


    I threw myself in a shallow arc over the valley and scouted the bodies for someone hiding in ambush, going over the faces to see if any were still puffy and pinkish. Some¡ªlucky to have avoided the worst of the day¡ªhad dried, mummified faces beneath broken visors. Most of the others were blue and frozen but untouched by vacuum, left to choke in their own gasses, either at the end of their natural time or, more likely, after having their oxygen plugged out.


    At the apex of my flight, I looked over the horizon, looking to see if there was anyone around. Nothing but stars and rocks.


    I hoped Nina was alright. Stupid. I hoped she wasn¡¯t dead yet. Why had Vempress let her live, despite breaking her deliberate word? A whim? I wasn¡¯t sure her insanity was something that I could even understand or predict.


    A hoarse voice, screaming in fear and confusion, pulled me from my thoughts. I didn¡¯t recognize the voice, but I recognized the helplessness, like a newborn¡¯s. I turned around, watching the mouth of the airlock close, after having spit someone out.


    I stood there, waiting for him to stop rolling and land; watching as the mental process unfolded. He was looking at Yahushua, even before he landed, transfixed by the silhouette, lit by a couple of asteroids that were shooting past the horizon. He crashed to his knees, and in the light I saw bloodshot blue eyes set in a clean shaven, soft face.


    ¡°Peace,¡± I said, from above.


    He turned quickly around, to one side and then the other, until his eyes found me. ¡°Oh god. Oh god. Please don¡¯t kill me,¡± he shrieked. ¡°I don¡¯t want to die, please,¡± his pleas turned into a soft murmur, leaving the safety of patterned speech on breaking free into a torrent of unfiltered helplessness.


    I walked closer, slowly. ¡°Relax. I¡¯m not going to kill you. It¡¯s going to be fine.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± His eyes lit up. ¡°Can you get us back inside?¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s impossible.¡± Vaguely, I noted I was still somewhat affected by the time I spent in the fissure.


    ¡°Then how the fuck is it going to be fine?¡± There was anger in his voice, but a sheepish, somehow unthreatening type of anger.


    ¡°I meant that I¡¯m not going to hurt you. And if you¡¯re lucky, no one else will.¡±


    He breathed quick, shallow breaths, and I realized that I wasn¡¯t hearing Yahushua any more. ¡°So, I¡¯ll die when the oxygen runs out? In¡­¡± he looked at the side of his visor, shook his head violently. ¡°Twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes? I don¡¯t understand what¡¯s going on. Who the hell are you?¡±


    ¡°My name is Yossi. I got thrown out too.¡± As I spoke, I saw his eyes lose focus, turn again to Yahushua. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°David,¡± he said, distracted. ¡°Fuck, so this was done to him deliberately, but all of those people,¡± he looked at the valley around us, and the bodies that filled it, ¡°died with time?¡±


    ¡°Some, perhaps, died at the end of their natural term, but most were killed violently.¡±


    ¡°Who are you? Did you do this?¡± His eyes darted towards the blade clipped at my side.


    ¡°My name is Yossi,¡± I repeated. ¡°And most of these people were dead before I got here. I didn¡¯t kill anyone.¡±


    ¡°Most?¡±


    ¡°One guy was killed in front of my eyes. His body is over there. And he tried to kill me first.¡± This was probably the worst day of his life, a situation supposedly easy to emphasize with, but all I felt was cold. Was it like that before Vempress threw me into the chasm? I didn¡¯t know.


    ¡°Then who killed him?¡±


    ¡°The same person who did this.¡± I pointed at Yahushua.


    ¡°Eh, ok. Shouldn¡¯t we run the hell away from here?¡±


    ¡°No. I talked to her, and she¡¯s not going to harm us for the time being. She even gave me this blade.¡± A powerful gesture, wasn¡¯t it?


    ¡°Are you going to kill me with it?¡±


    I looked at the man¡¯s eyes, blue, but opposite from Vempress¡¯s in any other way. Even shocked, there was something in them that spoke of an inability to do harm. Was I reading him correctly, or would he turn against me the moment he got his grip? I wasn¡¯t going to beat Vempress without taking chances.


    I unclasped the blade from my waist and handed it to David, handle first. He looked at it as if he couldn¡¯t fathom its purpose or meaning.


    ¡°Take it,¡± I said.


    ¡°Oh, sorry.¡± He stood up and reached for the bag-wrapped handle, grazing it with the tips of his fingers, then closed his fingers around it. For a moment, he held it in front of his eyes, so close that it almost scratched his visor. He turned from the blade to me, his bushy eyebrows almost touching. ¡°This is a sword,¡± he said, finally. ¡°Ok, listen, I¡¯m gonna be straight with you: I don¡¯t understand what the hell¡¯s going on.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s ok. We really are safe, for now. Just take deep breaths.¡±


    ¡°Deep breaths? Won¡¯t that make my air run out sooner?¡±


    I recalled Ctesibius¡¯s explanation about how life support works. ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s true.¡±


    He stood on legs shaky, even with almost no weight to support, and looked at Yahushua one more time, then at me. I hoped he wouldn¡¯t throw up.


    ¡°Ok,¡± he said. ¡°Why are you here?¡±


    ¡°I got thrown out too, like I said. I¡¯m just spending my day in Last Day Town.¡±


    ¡°No, I mean here, here. Why are you waiting by the airlock? Why did you give me a sword?¡±


    What¡¯s the shortest way to put it? ¡°When people get here, when I got here, there was no aid, no camaraderie. Everything was frightening. I gave you the blade so you could protect yourself, but also so you¡¯ll know that there¡¯s at least one person that actually cares about your wellbeing. I want to better this place.¡±


    He gave me a careful look. ¡°You¡¯re aware that the place you¡¯re trying to better is a hole where people are thrown out to die?¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m already here. I guess I might as well try.¡±


    ¡°Ok, ok. I think I can wrap my head around this,¡± he said. ¡°Though it is a little much.¡±


    ¡°Well, take your time. It¡¯s not like we¡¯re in a hurry,¡± I said. He didn¡¯t quite laugh, but something in his eyes changed, as if he acknowledged that a joke was something that could still exist.


    An oval asteroid, revolving slowly around its own axis, crossed the sky slowly, at an angle perpendicular to the rest of the belt, peculiar and beautiful. David turned to follow my gaze. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it too much,¡± I said. ¡°I think I¡¯m still in shock, too. It takes a while.¡±


    ¡°Are you ok?¡± he asked, and I found myself taken aback by that.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t about me. How are you dealing?¡±


    ¡°This is just¡­ so far from what I expected. I expected to be dead already, naked in space. I didn¡¯t even know you got a suit; I thought the bodies just floated out to space. So instead of being dead right now, I¡¯m trying to find the words to talk to another throw-out...¡± He brought a hand to his face, but it bumped against the glass of his visor. He shook his head, a small, frustrated motion.


    ¡°Resident. We call the people in Last Day Town residents. It¡¯s a lot to process, I know.¡±


    ¡°So, ok, what do the residents do here?¡±


    ¡°Something useful, I hope.¡± I shrugged. ¡°What do you want to do?¡±


    ¡°Well, I used to be a therap -¡±


    My hand rose on its own, a confident motion, and to my surprise he turned silent. I fumbled for the words. ¡°One of the traditions people used to have here, was not talking about yesterday, about the inside. I suspect they had a reason for that, and I¡¯d like to honor that tradition. Let¡¯s not speak of the inside, not here. Tell me what you want to do, today.¡±


    He gave me an odd look. ¡°I like helping people with talking, so talking to people sounds natural, but, you know, I¡¯m going to, you know, well, and I feel like that¡¯s something that requires attention. This feels like a weird dream, more than anything else. I don¡¯t really feel like working. I¡¯d ask what you did in real life, but you say you¡¯re against that.¡±


    Real life. I didn¡¯t like that distinction, but I wasn¡¯t sure whether it was true or false. A journalist? A blogger would have been more accurate.


    ¡°People who were here before us found it detrimental, and I¡¯m inclined to believe them. We should go, though, if we want to do something useful with our talents. Do you feel well enough to walk?¡±


    ¡°I think so. Where are we going?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to offer you a new job, at a new clinic.¡±


    He laughed, for the first time. ¡°That¡¯s absolutely insane.¡±


    ¡°Probably. Come on,¡± I said, and found comfort in tradition. ¡°We haven¡¯t got all day.¡±


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 21:51:31


    Had David been alone, he probably would have opted for something like a crawl, a horizontal climb. The poor guy could have used some more time to adjust, but time was the only thing we didn¡¯t have. He was reluctant at first, making every leap very carefully, as if safety mattered. As if he still had a life to lose.


    ¡°Just¡­ try to flow with it, ok? Try only tapping the ground, not really landing on it.¡±


    ¡°Give me a second, will you? I just need to get the hang of this,¡± the pitch of his tone went up, as well as his shoulders. I felt a pinch of guilt. This guy had so little time left ¨C he shouldn¡¯t spend it being scolded by some asshole. ¡°Why don¡¯t you tell me what you know about this place?¡±


    I told him the history of Last Day Town while he practiced. It was good. It helped me keep things fixed in my mind, made them feel real. I told him about the lines and the places where they had spent their time. I told him why Vempress had let me live.


    The sky was empty when we reached the edge of Last Day Town¡¯s crater, illuminated by faint starlight. He didn¡¯t have it in him to climb up the near sheer wall of the crater and we agreed that I should use the canister to bring both of us up. After some deliberation, we decided that I¡¯d carry him on my back. The canister needed both of my hands, which meant that he still held the blade with one hand while hugging my neck in the other. It would have been terrifying with anyone else, but this man was so timid that I was more worried he¡¯d drop the blade than slash my suit open.


    We flew up, a little unstable, until the plane above the crater came into view. We spent more time than I would have liked falling down, finishing the arc, pushing each other mid fall and landing on our own legs.


    Even though I¡¯d aimed to climb the wall at the same spot as last time, I must have gotten something wrong, because the statue was nowhere to be seen. I recognized the spot in which we had risen out of the crater, and turned to see Ctesibius¡¯s cliff at the same angle it had been when I¡¯d last been there.


    ¡°What is it?¡± David asked.


    ¡°Something¡¯s changed. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    I walked to where the statue should have been. The shuttle was still there, but there was something wrong with it ¨C a side panel was sticking up in a way that didn¡¯t make sense, and instead of the wall that had the door in it, the flat side was towards us, revealing what had to be landing gear.


    I left David and pushed myself forward and over the shuttle. I stopped myself with the jet, landed on top of it, and saw that the opening was now pointed upwards.


    ¡°Is that how you get in?¡± he asked behind me. I didn¡¯t answer.


    Below me, the statue lay on its back, broken in two, the top half shattered on the ground, the bottom still welded to the shuttle. The fabricated bag had somehow held together, strengthening the impression that the statue wasn¡¯t a heap of metal, but a broken person. The helmet, with its visor made of glass shard glued together, was flattened like a deflated balloon. The joints of the limbs had been broken too, the weak welding giving in to the stresses as the shuttle leaned on it.


    An asteroid would have broken the statue to pieces, spread the pieces far and wide. This was no asteroid hit.


    David was beside me. His footfalls were so soft I hadn¡¯t felt the vibration through the metal. ¡°You okay?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Why would anyone do this?¡±


    He looked down at the broken statue. ¡°Build such a thing?¡±


    ¡°No, that I understand. It was beautiful, when it still stood. What I don¡¯t understand is why someone would tear it down. And I don¡¯t think one man could have done it.¡±


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t it comfort you? That people still managed to cooperate? It would be even easier to get people to cooperate for a good cause.¡±


    ¡°Seems like we have a good cause in front of us, right now.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°To set this thing right.¡±


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 21:10:59


    David got himself under the statue again, and I followed. We held on to the its legs to lift the whole structure up, bending our backs at weird angles to push at the uncomfortable, bent surface. The top of the statue lay in our way, and the fold of bag that hung between the shuttle and the ground made the approach more difficult. We prepared to push up, and I counted to three. But when the time came to push, the shuttle only rose on my side, as if David wasn¡¯t pushing at all. I let it drop back.


    The shuttle bumped against the rock with an impact I felt throughout my body. I stepped away, painfully straightening my back. ¡°What happen- ¡± I begun to ask, but stopped when I saw him. Bent forward, hands on his knees, panting.


    He looked up at me, his mouth open at a weird angle. ¡°It¡¯s too weird. I didn¡¯t expect any of this. I expected to be naked in an airlock, I expected to choke inside of my own suit or get killed for my oxygen. I didn¡¯t expect...¡± he took a deep, sudden breath, ¡°to be here,¡± and another, ¡°working construction,¡± and another, shallower one, ¡°and making plans.¡±


    Does he have anyone like Keren, who¡¯s to be thrown out here? If he does, it would probably be easier for him. If he didn¡¯t have anyone like Keren¡ªsomeone to worry about in the future, to plan for, it would be harder for him. But she wouldn¡¯t have wanted me to be in the future, I realized, she wouldn¡¯t have wanted me to think about her. She would have wanted me to be here, now.


    I went over to him. His hands were on his knees, so I couldn¡¯t hold one, so I put a hand on his shoulder. ¡°Hey, it¡¯s going to be alright.¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡± The pitch of his voice climbed on that one word. ¡°You know something that I don¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have long, it¡¯s true. But before we go, we still have time to do something useful. To help somebody.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m all for that, really, but there are some things I¡¯d like to process, first, like that fact that I won¡¯t fucking exist tomorrow. That all of this,¡± he waved a hand, ¡°is over.¡±


    ¡°Of course. And that¡¯s exactly what we¡¯re re-founding Pythia for: so we¡¯ll have a place to process that. But not here.¡±


    ¡°So what the fuck am I supposed to do now? Just keep it in?¡±


    ¡°Focus on the task at hand. The statue will have to be fixed at some point, but first let¡¯s roll the shuttle over. When people get here for the first time, we can make them feel like something¡¯s actually under control, even a little thing like the shuttle being on its correct side.¡±


    ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll give it a shot.¡±


    We got under it again and pushed with all our strength, so hard I thought the thing would topple over onto its other side. It rocked once, twice, then settled into place. We looked at it for a moment. The statue was bent in such a way that it didn¡¯t seem like a person anymore, only a pair of trunkless legs and a crumpled flag laying behind them.


    David¡¯s expression had changed to a pale grimace. I¡¯d managed to distract him for a while, but he remembered again.


    ¡°So,¡± he said, ¡°I just sit here and wait for people to come, and when they do I offer to talk to them?¡±


    ¡°Well, you might need to move around a bit, to find people, and perhaps they won¡¯t be so reluctant to get into the cave when you¡¯re holding tha - ¡±


    David¡¯s gaze had left me to track something moving above us; his eyes widened in horror. Vempress zoomed past us, landed on a rock and bounced back and up, using her thrusters to turn her jump into a complex, looping curve. In the face of her virtuoso flight, we seemed even more feeble and helpless than before, leaning on the shuttle.


    She finished a corkscrew motion, her appendages spinning around her, and landed only a couple of paces from us. I stretched to the tips of my toes, bowing my head and avoiding eye contact. There was no thought in the action, I just really didn¡¯t want to spend any more time in the fissure. ¡°Peace, Vempress.¡±


    ¡°I wanted to see how my new investment¡¯s getting along,¡± she said. David stared at her, eyes wide and mouth agape.


    ¡°This is David.¡± I said. ¡°David, this is Vempress.¡±


    She snorted. ¡°Pythia. His name is Pythia now. If you want the line built, you need to act as if it¡¯s already functioning.¡± She turned to David. ¡°Say it. What is your name?¡±


    ¡°Pythia.¡±


    ¡°My name is Pythia, Vempress.¡± She corrected him.


    ¡°My name is Pythia, Vempress.¡±


    ¡°Better. Have you had any confessions yet?¡±


    ¡°We just got here. I was going to look around and see if I could find some people to come over.¡±


    ¡°I see. In that case, let me be a visitor. As the guardian of the line, I would like to exercise my right to confess.¡± It was reassuring to see her play along like that; to see some of her old Diocletian demeanor returning.


    ¡°Pythia,¡± I said to David, whose shock had barely abated. ¡°Will you please go into the shuttle, and hear Vempress¡¯s confession.¡± It¡¯s going to be fine, I wanted to say, when he turned to look at me, his eyes even wider.


    He opened his mouth, but Vempress spoke before he did. ¡°Not him, Yossi, you. Didn¡¯t I say that you should lead by example? I want you to hear my confession.¡±


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 20:55:46


    She entered the shuttle first. I followed, closing the door behind us. The background noise on comm went silent as the faraday cage blocked all radio signals that from outside of the chamber. She sat by the far wall, facing me, and I sat down with my back to the door.


    I realized that I had never been in a real confession, and didn¡¯t what one should look like. Whatever happened in this very shuttle, between Pythia and me, was unorthodox. But there was no reason or time to let Vempress see that uncertainty. I recited:


    In the name of line Pythia, I am your confessor. You may speak freely.


    ¡°Sure I may,¡± she said.


    ¡°What would you like to talk about?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t see her shoulders in the darkness, but she made the same face she did when shrugging, then sank deeper into the corner between the wall and floor, as far as the jetpack would allow. ¡°I don¡¯t have much to say. Things are what they are. Fortunately, there¡¯s no need to analyze anything.¡± She sounded comfortable, though the walls of the shuttle were as cold as the rock, minus 50 degrees. The bags weren¡¯t designed to isolate from contact, not like the boots. It had to hurt. She seemed relaxed, but she still made sure she wouldn¡¯t fall asleep.


    ¡°Do you feel fortunate?¡± I said.


    ¡°No, no no,¡± she clicked her tongue with the dismissive tone only a native Russian speaker could muster, though I¡¯ve never heard a trace of accent from her. ¡°Just a manner of speaking. I earned it. I learned and I practiced and I planned; everything I have, I took. I picked up the leftover lives and quilted them into a continuous one. There¡¯s nothing lucky about it.¡±


    I had nothing to say to that.


    ¡°Still, I feel bad for you. Not because you¡¯re going to die, but because you¡¯ll never know what it feels like to...¡± She composed herself. ¡°Have you ever had that dream when you¡¯re small and unable to speak or move? Do you remember that horrible feeling? Being an immortal in the land of the dying, having everyone fear for their life because of you, is the exact opposite of that feeling.¡± She smiled the smile of a predator then, drunk on blood. Her bright eyes shone, reflecting the violet light.


    ¡°Then why did you choose me as your confessor? I don¡¯t fear you. I¡¯ll do what needs to be done to get the most of the time I have, and because you¡¯re in power, that means obey you. But I am not afraid.¡±


    ¡°Oh, aren¡¯t you?¡± Her blue, cold gaze pinned me in place. ¡°Maybe, if you and I were the last to be thrown out, you could be what you pretend to be. But because there¡¯s a future to care about beyond the hours you have left, I can take that future hostage.¡±


    ¡°Nothing to pretend. You can still kill me and it won¡¯t matter much.¡± The words, spoken aloud, didn¡¯t ring as true as they had before.


    ¡°It just wouldn¡¯t feel right if you died and Last Day Town was the same, would it?¡±


    There was no need to confirm or deny this. We both knew she was right. ¡°Any difference I¡¯m going to make here is only going to be because you allowed it. The question is only what you¡¯re going to allow.¡±


    She tilted her head. ¡°I was thinking about tomorrow. Shouldn¡¯t surprise me that you weren¡¯t. At the end of the day, after you have reestablished your favorite line, Pythia will be safe from me. But the others won¡¯t be. I still need to breathe, and that oxygen has to come from somewhere. Pythia will have to comfort others not just for dying at the end of the day, but for being hunted. Help them ease the terror caused by looking up at the black sky and wondering if I¡¯m there.¡± Her voice was dreamy, as if she was someplace warm and safe. ¡°But that wouldn¡¯t work either, now would it? You¡¯ve seen what animals the Residents can become when left alone, and they will resent Pythia for not having to endure what they do, for being safe, and there won¡¯t be a structure of lines to facilitate who gets to confess when. So either I expose Line Pythia to constant danger, or I keep Pythia hidden in some cave and safe from the others, which means they will have hardly have any work and would probably go insane by themselves, and they might rebel out of the same spite as the residents. Was that a part of your vision?¡±


    She enjoyed this, letting me have hope and then taking it away. My heart pounded in my chest, a slow, heavy beat. Whatever I did, I couldn¡¯t beg. ¡°You raise good points. I can¡¯t convince you this is a good idea, but perhaps I can offer an even better one,¡± I said, not knowing yet what that idea might be.


    Her smile stretched with greed. ¡°Like what? You keep surprising me.¡±


    For some reason, this normal phrase illuminated the situation I was in. I was in a small, dark chamber with a murderer, a coiled snake, and I was afraid of her, even though I was dying. The oxygen display at the side of my visor reminded me that I couldn¡¯t keep wasting time. An urge rose in me, to breathe as many breaths as I could, but I forced myself to take deep, slow ones. I couldn¡¯t allow myself to sink into a panic¡ªI couldn¡¯t let Keren find Last Day Town in this state, and I couldn¡¯t change anything if I lost my nerve. But what did it matter, if I lost it? We were both fucked anyway, perfectly doomed.


    ¡°Shock finally sunk in, huh?¡± she said. ¡°Some people take a couple of hours. Snap out of it, ok? This is finally getting interesting. What¡¯s your offer?¡±


    I shook my head. Pretend to keep it together. Buy time. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you¡ªbut first, confess, truly. Use Line Pythia while it still exists. Get everything off of your chest.¡±


    Her expression hardened for a moment, but ultimately she chose to indulge me. ¡°What is there to say?¡±


    ¡°Anything you want. The confession isn¡¯t for me.¡± I tried to make it sound like Pythia had¡ªlike this was a real institution, with real traditions, instead of something I¡¯d just made up.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need to cry on your shoulder. I don¡¯t need to tell you about my hardships for you to tell me that they are indeed hard. I already survived longer than any human being managed to survive out here. Except for King, perhaps, if he even existed. You remember? Here lies King of Hellhole, I see him as he dies¡­ Pythia told me about him after you left. Turns he had something similar going on before the lines, or the first people to make the lines, killed him. They didn¡¯t just kill him ¨C they tortured him, too: I hear the O2 whistling, meaning, that they¡¯d made a cut to his suit, then closed and opened it to make his dying longer. I¡¯ve had a lot of time to think about that, that first punishment given for taking oxygen. I¡¯ve had a lot of time, in general, and I discovered two things in that time, as I wrestled immortality out of the jaws of Last Day Town. One: I don¡¯t need sleep, and in fact I function better without it. Two: Despite what everyone told me, I don¡¯t need anyone¡¯s help.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t argue with that,¡± I said. ¡°And yet, Line Pythia existed even before Last Day Town, and Ctesibius and Anaxagoras deemed their services worthy up until the end.¡±


    ¡°Maybe, but what emotions did they have to confess? They used Pythia to come to terms with their death, but I don¡¯t intend to die. That is my confession: I will not die. Do you want me to talk about my feelings? The only emotion I feel is determination.¡±


    ¡°Nothing else?¡±


    She let her hand swing from side to side for a second, pondering. ¡°There¡¯s a thrill when hunting, especially when someone really puts in the effort to survive.¡±


    The undertones hidden in her leering smile; how could I describe them? If you¡¯d never seen the smile of a killer, looked into the eyes of a cannibal, words could not convey the horror. If you had, you¡¯d know there¡¯s no use trying to describe it. ¡°And there¡¯s beauty, when I¡¯m high enough above the crater to see everything clearly. But I hardly notice it behind the constant drone of this determination.¡± She took a deep breath, and let it slowly out. That leering smile was gone, now. ¡°This is a waste of time.¡±


    ¡°Maybe, but you have so much of it. Why are you in a hurry?¡±


    ¡°Your flattery is becoming obvious, and even if it wasn¡¯t, it¡¯s pretty clear what you stand to gain from getting me to open up. The time of the hunt draws near¡ªha, no: that¡¯s too dramatic, even for me. But still, it does. It always does.¡± I had expected her to get up and leave, but instead she only became more invested, looking directly at me. ¡°My life is harder than yours,¡± she continued. ¡°We both worry about the future, but I actually have to live in it. You¡¯re weak enough to do this one thing and let go. You won¡¯t know what it¡¯s like to stay awake for so long. You won¡¯t know what it¡¯s like to hold on, to plan everything out so failure isn¡¯t an option.¡± Sure seemed like failure was an option when Dov threw that knife. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t understand,¡± she concluded, her voice bitter.


    ¡°I might,¡± I said in my softest, most sympathetic tone, but I could already feel her slipping back into her armor.


    ¡°No,¡± she said as she rose to a crouch, absentmindedly wrapping a hand around the handle of her weapon. Something hard settled in the corners of her mouth. ¡°That¡¯s enough of this exercise. I¡¯m done talking. Let¡¯s hear your suggestion, then.¡±


    I sighed. ¡°Are you sure?¡±


    ¡°Ask me that again if you want another visit to the chasm, without the canister this time. Answer the question.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m proposing a new structure to the new society,¡± I said. ¡°Instead of staying foreign to Last Day Down, let yourself become a part of it.¡±


    She raised an eyebrow. ¡°Meaning?¡±


    ¡°Reclaim Line Diocletian, but let it rise to the glory that the name carries, that of an emperor. Let the other lines live, but rule them with all this power that you have now that Diocletian never had. Three newcomers per day will be allotted to your oxygen supply, much more than is needed for breathing, supplying the jet pack and your pressured room. The rest of the newcomers will be initiated into the lines, just like before.¡±


    ¡°And I¡¯ll just live with them? Why?¡±


    ¡°Because they would all be working for you ¨C Anaxagoras collecting trash so Ctesibius could invent whatever you tell them to, and Pythia there for the occasional vent. Doesn¡¯t it make sense that the one that had been here the longest will be the one giving the orders?¡±


    ¡°And you really think Residents in lines could live in the shadow of my blade?¡±


    No, but it will be an improvement. ¡°They didn¡¯t like living under the blade of Diocletian, but they knew it kept the balance.¡±


    She laughed. ¡°Until you came.¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°Until I came.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re asking me to assume the role of Diocletian again, and take the oxygen from newcomers. But I¡¯ve done something very similar to that already, and it didn¡¯t work so well.¡±


    ¡°It might work differently ¨C ¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want it to work differently. Having to negotiate with the other lines, keeping track of what they know and what they don¡¯t¡­ it was¡­ Tedious. Things are much better the way they are now.¡± Her tone softened just enough that I wasn¡¯t sure if she was joking, but I didn¡¯t interrupt. ¡°You¡¯ve really convinced yourself on this idea, haven¡¯t you? That the lines are the correct solution to the Last Day Town problem. You¡¯ve never been through it, so you don¡¯t understand the pressure. Each and every individual in the old Town was constantly on the verge of losing their mind. Even Pythia started their life cycle under the threat of Diocletian. I sliced enough Pythia bags to know they wouldn¡¯t give up a second of their life if they had any alternative aside for a more painful death.¡±


    ¡°What if you put a reward in front of their eyes? Give one of the Firsts an oxygen balloon once every twenty-four hours, as a reward for good behavior. Make sure everyone knows that they just might get lucky if they stick to the straight and narrow.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re learning, aren¡¯t you? But you haven¡¯t understood the key principles. The Residents agreed to take part in lines when they knew no one else was better off. They cooperated, knowing that everyone else is going to die just the same as them, but once they find out I¡¯m the only one who gets to breathe tomorrow, they will not rest until either they are immortal like me, or I¡¯m dead like them. And I¡¯m certainly not going to spend my time hiding my immortality again. Fuck that. Why the hell would I choose to surround myself with something as volatile as dying people? That¡¯s the stupidest thing I¡¯ve ever heard.¡±


    I winced. ¡°So the only options we have are the tournament, or this chaos?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll credit you this much ¨C your idiocy inspired me to come up with a better plan. Here¡¯s what we¡¯re going to do: Four people, sticking to the old duties. No more First, Second, and Third, but only one. A single Pythia for taking care of mental health, an Anaxagoras to find useful trash. How long do you think it would take a single Ctesibius to build an alarm clock, or a shower? They¡¯ll do what they¡¯ve always done, but instead of dying, they¡¯ll each get their oxygen replenished at the end of each day. A Diocletian will be placed to handle the newcomers, but instead of giving them a rundown, they¡¯ll unplug their oxygen, and I, in return, will give them immortality. You wanted people to suffer less, right? Now the newcomers won¡¯t have to spend their last day in fear.¡± Because they won¡¯t spend it at all.


    The thing was, that this plan could actually work for her. With her weapons, with her experience in killing, no one will be eager to try her. Especially when she kept the wrench to herself, making sure it was only through her they could get oxygen. And food¡­ I didn¡¯t want to think about that.


    Keren in a spacesuit, floating out of the airlock, expecting to meet Diocletian or Anaxagoras and instead getting pinned down and having her oxygen taken, left to choke in her suit like Dov.


    Vempress seemed satisfied as she scanned my face. ¡°You were right¡ªthis really has been useful.¡±


    I didn¡¯t answer, fearing she would easily hear the bitterness in my voice.


    ¡°Meet me at the airlock in four hours, just before the ore hauler passes, and bring as many residents as you can. I want them to see the light show, for old times¡¯ sake. If you can make it happen, you¡¯ll be rewarded by making this place much better than it was before.¡±


    I managed a nod. It was a gross hybrid between my vision and Vempress¡¯s, but at the very least, I was still allowed to go out, to be with the people. And I was coming up with a plan, already. Don¡¯t think about it or she¡¯ll read you. Keep playing. ¡°One more request.¡±


    She rolled her eyes, like a mother indulging a child asking for one more story to be read. ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d rather not tell them about the oxygen. I want tell them about the lines, and the roles. To show that it¡¯s enough to unite them. If they agree, you will be the one to tell them about the oxygen.¡±


    She lifted her eyebrows, but her expression was still one of amused interest. ¡°Why, for God¡¯s sake? It would be so much easier to get them to cooperate if you offered them a lifeline first.¡±


    ¡°Because then I won¡¯t get a chance to prove it to you.¡±


    ¡°Prove what?¡±


    ¡°That the lines could still be remade, like they were.¡±


    She squinted at that, as if trying to see if I meant it or just taunting her. ¡°Did you not hear what I said? People submit themselves to lines only when they have nothing better to do. Without oxygen, they won¡¯t listen to you.¡±


    ¡°The lines didn¡¯t do it out of fear before, but because they wanted to leave something after they were gone. I can prove it.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t succeed,¡± she said.


    ¡°I barely had an hour with this guy, and he¡¯s already willing to take the role of Pythia.¡±


    ¡°Seriously? You were lucky to come across the only person ever to come to Last Day Town who¡¯s more spineless than you are. Improbable that you¡¯d be this lucky again.¡±


    Insults were a good sign. ¡°Maybe. And maybe people want to be a part of something bigger.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t convince me to keep the lines.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t even try. Tell them that you¡¯re going to give them oxygen, and if you¡¯re right, I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll be relieved. But I¡¯ll still assemble them into lines, just to show you that it can be done.¡±


    For a moment she seemed as if she was about to grind her teeth, but then she smiled, instead. ¡°Another wager, then? What a devil you must take me for, that I cannot refuse them. But fine. You say that people will help strangers that they¡¯ve never met, and I say they will only act to survive. But our last wager was boring ¨C let¡¯s make this one more exciting ¨C if you manage to bring me four residents who agree to serve as a line without knowing that I will give them oxygen, you get another twenty-four hours of oxygen. On the house.¡±


    ¡°Really? You would let me live another day?¡±


    ¡°See how excited you are? All it took was an offer, and all of your pretense evaporated. But don¡¯t get too excited - I¡¯ll interrogate them, making sure that they¡¯re actually convinced.¡±


    ¡°And if they aren¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°You die, having made no difference. Do you accept?¡±


    ¡°What if there aren¡¯t four residents left?¡±


    ¡°There are. Trust me.¡± A manner of speaking, no more.


    ¡°I accept, of course.¡± I said.


    ¡°Good. But you got your condition, so I¡¯m going to demand something in return. Meet me here in two hours, on the timer.¡±


    ¡°To report?¡±


    ¡°No¡­ this was interesting to me. Let¡¯s meet here and talk some more. Who knows: maybe I¡¯ll actually feel like confessing.¡±

 Anaxagoras III

    Estimated oxygen timer: 20:42:28


    When I opened the door, David was waiting on a rock, gazing up at the stars. His eyes were glinting in the light, lonely, and I understood why the old Pythia had worn robes with hoods.


    He turned to me slowly, and froze when he saw Vempress emerging from the corpse of the shuttle in her blackened suit. She looked at him for a long moment, then descended into a crouch and burst dozens of meters into the air in one leap and jetted away, leaving us behind and below.


    His gaze followed her up. ¡°You OK?¡±


    I took a moment before responding. I remembered a video I¡¯d once watched of a little egret devouring a chubby lizard, tossing it upwards and catching it in her beak again, repeating the process until it stops fighting. It seems like the bird takes real pleasure in playing with her pray, but in fact, the narrator announces, she isn¡¯t doing it for fun: if she lets go of the lizard, it would run, but without opening her beak she can¡¯t put it in a position to slide into her gullet. The best thing the lizard can do is buy time, hoping that in one those throws the bird will fail to catch. It could figure out what to do after that.


    There was no gravity out here, but Vempress used another force in her attempt to control my trajectory ¨C my desire to survive. I hadn¡¯t given myself the time to even acknowledge that I¡¯d been pretending to be excited about Vempress¡¯s offer. That¡¯s what good liars do, reacting naturally, ignoring the one detail that makes the pretense false in the first place ¨C that there was nothing I wanted less than spending another day out here, least of all as Vempress¡¯s pet. And that lie bought me some time, some trust. I had to utilize those as soon as possible. ¡°Yeah. She agreed to a wager,¡± I told David. ¡°If we managed to convince four people, including you, to take the roles of the old lines, she would let that hold.¡±


    ¡°And what if we don¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°The Town remains as it is, and she gets to laugh at me for trying.¡±


    ¡°So, what are you going to do?¡± There was softness in his voice, as if he was more interested in my process than inquiring for himself.


    ¡°I want to go check up on Anaxagoras¡¯s cave, see what happened there.¡± I looked over the crater, trying to assess how long it would take to fly all the way to the airlock, and then the same distance again. ¡°Are you okay to stay here and wait for somebody to show up?¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think I am.¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t easy being alone here, was it? I could be back as soon as -.¡±


    He shook his head. The look in his blue eyes was stern, his jaws clenched. ¡°That¡¯s not it. I don¡¯t think anyone will come out here. It¡¯s too remote.¡±


    Wouldn¡¯t they? I¡¯d thought that because of the statue, those wondering could see it from a far, but perhaps I was too reliant on my own memory, and needed to see this with new eyes. ¡°What are you thinking?¡±


    ¡°I want to wait by the airlock. Maybe no one will come around here until the end of the day, but no one can avoid visiting the airlock, at least once.¡±


    It seemed obvious, now. I must not have been as clear minded as I thought, to miss that. If we waited by the airlock, we could catch people earlier in their day, like I caught David. I looked at my timer. It had been about fifty-three minutes since I met him. ¡°It¡¯ll be an hour or so before anyone else comes out.¡±


    ¡°So there¡¯s more than enough time to walk back, this time.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but there are a lot of things I need to do with this time, so - ¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, actually. I think I want to be alone for a while. I got the rest of the day ahead of me, and I wanna use this time to clear my head, first.¡± He seemed solemn somehow, but determined, in his own non-threatening way. ¡°Is there anything else that I should know about it? Someone else like Vempress that might be waiting along the way?¡±


    ¡°Not that I know of. But you might encounter other residents, and most have seen nothing but violence since they got here. They might be dangerous.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine. Meeting them here or there doesn¡¯t make much of a difference.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t want me to just give you a ride to the airlock?¡± As if that was somehow safer.


    He nodded.


    ¡°Ok, then, I¡¯ll meet you there. Be careful, ok?¡±


    He placed a hand on the blade at his side. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯ll see you later.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Good luck.¡±


    I watched him walk away. Something had gotten to him. What had Vempress said? It takes time for the shock to reach you.


    He walked over to the edge and let himself drop slowly into the crater.


    I set off in the same direction, but faster, and higher ¨C straight to the other side, to Anaxagoras. I launched myself high above the crater, the little canister struggling to escape my grip. The little craters within Last Day Town, and the sharp edges left from old excavations, were much more beautiful when you didn¡¯t have to worry about crashing into them, a hundred meters up. Vertigo hit me, and the surface didn¡¯t seem to be beneath me so much as in front of me; Anaxagoras not in front, but above. I looked at the crater floor, to see if I could spot David, but he was already hidden in the shadow of the crater wall. I wondered what changes were going on inside of him. What impression I had left on him.


    Far from him, and from Vempress, A sense of submersion, sudden and offensive, struck me. An empty silence. Submersion in the night itself, the loneliness and cold of it, a beauty so sharp it threatened to paralyze me. This was what Anaxagoras had to deal with, every single day. What they chose to endure.


    What had happened to them, in the end? Vempress had said that they¡¯d killed the Second Diocletian out of spite. But I knew them, and they weren¡¯t killers. Maybe they¡¯d thought it was worth it to prevent Last Day Town from becoming exactly what Vempress had made it. And here I was, trying to deal with her, trying to entertain and placate her. What would it even matter if I won this wager? She wouldn¡¯t weaken herself. At best, I could hope for some oxygen. But why the hell would I want to spend another day as a pet?


    Against the rock of the crater floor, I saw a body shattered, their helmet nowhere to be seen. A pool of metal shards where something had broken, perhaps one of Ctesibius¡¯s old rockets. In one rock, flat and filed smooth, I thought I saw an etching of letters. And I saw the airlock, with its strobing light, and its bowl full of human corpses. Yahushua was too far away for me to hear whether he was still breathing. Nina should have still been there somewhere, hiding out of sight. No deal could be made with someone who was right with that kind of horror. The only way to save Last Day Town, I had slowly allowed myself to realize, is to kill Vempress.


    The airlock slowly disappeared behind and beneath me, and the lip of the crater grew nearer. An asteroid was slicing the sky from north to south, first throwing the rise of the crater into shadow, and then, as it passed above, illuminating the wall itself.


    Someone was on the wall, climbing slowly out of the crater: taking a step, pausing, and then taking another one. I remembered how hard it had been to climb out of the crater on Pythia¡¯s side; how I¡¯d had to push through hard sprints and grab with my hands. I pumped the jet to slow me down, to take a closer look at the guy and whatever contraption he¡¯d found to help him climb so naturally. But the closer I got, the clearer it became that there was no contraption. He was just walking up the hill on his own, taking his time, his long arms at his side, stepping delicately from one foothold to another. Perhaps it was easier than I realized, and I just hadn¡¯t approached it correctly.


    I killed the jet and landed on the crater¡¯s wall, above him and to his side. I immediately started sliding down, not finding any hold on the rock. I scraped against the rock until I finally found a hold and placed a hand in it, gripping the jet in the other. It took me a moment to find him again, still walking up that hill. Either he hadn¡¯t noticed me, or he¡¯d chosen to ignore my presence. I could throw myself up, even with just one hand, but I wouldn¡¯t, as I couldn¡¯t see the next foothold. I kicked off the wall anyway, hoping to find the next hold mid-leap, but instead of throwing myself upwards I found that I¡¯d kicked myself away, setting myself in a trajectory to tumble further down.


    I fumbled for the little jet and thrust myself back towards the wall. I had to kill the thrust using two hands, which meant that by the time I reached the wall, I didn¡¯t have a free one. I bumped into the wall, closed the valve, and clung to the jagged rock. My legs dangled beneath me.


    ¡°You¡¯re trying too hard,¡± a pleasant baritone said, into the quiet.


    ¡°Excuse me?¡± I asked, looking up at the man. He had bright brown eyes, almost green, and curls of light brown hair, almost blond, sticking to his forehead and stubble of the same color. He reminded me of Tsur, if he¡¯d let himself age to early forties, or perhaps tired mid-thirties. But there was something unique about the way his eyes moved, a sort of deliberate slowness.


    ¡°Walk lighter, not harder,¡± he said, his voice lazy and vaguely sympathetic.


    ¡°I expected this to be easier, because of the low gee and everything,¡± I said as I tried to find a foothold so I could stand properly.


    ¡°No reason it would. Gravity is on the both side of the equation.¡±


    I only half-remembered what he meant, certainly not enough for it to be useful. I pulled my body up, contorting so I could put both of my feet where my hand had been, both legs tight together. I looked up at him again. While he stood naturally on two legs, I had my belly against the rock, afraid to make any motion that would make me slip down again.


    ¡°Peace,¡± I said. He just looked at me, amused but also impassive. ¡°I don¡¯t mean you any harm,¡± I added awkwardly.


    ¡°I imagine that I wouldn¡¯t have seen you, if you had.¡± I heard a half-smile in his voice.


    ¡°True. Where are you headed?¡±


    ¡°Outside of this crater.¡±


    ¡°Do you want me to give you a lift to the top?¡± I tilted the canister.


    ¡°Not really. I¡¯m almost enjoying this.¡±


    ¡°What are you going to do, after you reach the top?¡±


    He shrugged, and looked up the hill. ¡°I thought I¡¯d jump down, see how far into the crater I could make it.¡±


    ¡°That would definitely kill you.¡±


    He looked at me again, smirking in surprise. ¡°Yes, I am well aware.¡±


    I swallowed a lump. There was something about that quiet, unflinching determination, that had me frozen, confused. ¡°Would you rather I leave? Let you have this peace¡­¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mind the company, just don¡¯t try to slow me down.¡± He returned to his climb, balancing on a protruding rock-tooth with one foot and placing the other on the next hold.


    I tried to follow, but slipped, and again found myself relying on the jet, pushing myself up and against just to keep traction. ¡°You make it look easy,¡± I said.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°It is,¡± he said, his tone just a bit impatient.


    For a moment we were quiet, climbing slowly. Was this man even worth my time? I had work to do, and I didn¡¯t know if I could even convince this man to stay alive. At least this time I got a warning, I thought bitterly.


    ¡°Come on, out with it. Whatever it is,¡± he said. ¡°You don¡¯t have time to be shy.¡±


    I still didn¡¯t know where to start. Above us, the edge of the wall slowly descended.


    He gave me a long look, and decided to talk, anyway. ¡°You struggle just to keep up. And you find that you¡¯ve committed yourself to a race, and that stresses you out. But one day you¡¯re taken out of that race, and find that only when you have nothing to lose can you finally relax. Somehow, losing the race isn¡¯t half as bad as being in it. Funny, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°I know what you mean,¡± I said,


    ¡°Perhaps you do.¡±


    I let the silence stretch over a couple of steps ¨C cycles of reaching, gripping, and pulling ¨C before admitting that I¡¯m not going to come up with something good to say. ¡°I¡¯m not going to slow you down. But what could I say to stop you from jumping?¡±


    ¡°No one¡¯s going to tell me what to do today. Whatever I please, I will do,¡± he said, and something in his tone told me that it was a quote, a reference.


    ¡°How can you be so calm? Out of all of the residents I met today, nobody seemed so... free.¡±


    ¡°Residents?¡± he said. He looked down, saw how far behind I was, and with even greater grace than before took a couple of steps down the wall, pushing the countdown back, if only a little. ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°This place is a town,¡± I said, stopping for a moment to focus as I flung myself up to the next hold. ¡°It¡¯s called Last Day Town, and though its residents don¡¯t know it, they may soon become a cohesive community again.¡±


    ¡°You ask me I can be so calm, but how can you still care about something? here you are, at the edge of the death, still making plans and worrying about them,¡± he said with a chuckle. ¡°How can you stay so anxious, even here, even now? These words will change nothing. Our actions change nothing. We have nothing to do but relax and let go!¡± He sighed. ¡°I feel like I¡¯m on the last day of a job I hate.¡± He raised his hands to the stars, still keeping his balance. ¡°Why would you even stop me from jumping off?¡±


    ¡°Because I need your help.¡±


    That had him pause. He gave me a long, hard look. ¡°I¡¯m sorry my friend, but I won¡¯t stay alive just to keep you company.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not that. There¡¯s a specific job I need you to agree to do.¡±


    He burst into a long laugh. ¡°How incredible. Here I thought I¡¯d figured what your deal was, and you surprise me again. What would I want a job for? What job could you even offer me? How would you pay me?¡±


    ¡°Your job will be to do more or less what you do now: to wander this part of the asteroid, and bring back anything that will be of value. For now, it¡¯s people, but at some point it¡¯s going to be materials. The reward will be time with a listening ear, and protection.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d imagine I could take one day without venting. And besides, you¡¯re listening to me right now.¡±


    ¡°I am, but I have my own job to do, and I¡¯ll leave soon. The hardest thing to find in Last Day Town is someone to tell your story to. Everybody wants to talk, but nobody wants to listen.¡±


    ¡°And you expect me to work and bring something just to have someone sit and listen to me, because it¡¯s their job, and you devised a system where you get something out of it?¡± The ease in his face was gone, and his nose crinkled with disgust.


    I stopped, grabbed another handhold, then looked at him. ¡°Hey, I didn¡¯t devise this system. It worked before.¡±


    ¡°I see,¡± he said as he watched me struggle to flatten myself against the wall. When he spoke again, there was sadness in his tone. ¡°Trying to change the world rarely ever does anyone any good. The world is what it is. Let it happen.¡±


    ¡°And what are you doing, by telling me this?¡±


    He took a step closer, placing his boot on a rock-tooth I had determined earlier as impossible to stand on, not conveying threat, but a sense of intimacy. ¡°I¡¯m doing whatever I feel like. Tell me ¨C right now, are you doing what you actually want, or do you imagine some outcome that will make it all worth it? Some reward?¡± A cluster of asteroids passed above us, lighting the wheat-colored stubble on his face, exposing an expression that was surprisingly kind.


    ¡°We can¡¯t all just jump off a cliff.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t we?¡± He took two steps upwards, light as a feather. We must have climbed half of the way up. ¡°If we were all to drop dead, what would happen? Would the stars care? Would the rock?¡± He turned around, gesturing towards the dark horizons of the dwarf planet.


    ¡°You¡¯re just being selfish,¡± I said.


    He chuckled. ¡°Maybe I am. I don¡¯t know if you noticed, but I¡¯m having a bit of a difficult day.¡±


    ¡°Who doesn¡¯t? But people are suffering here, and we can change that.¡±


    ¡°By listening to their stories?¡±


    ¡°By building something. By making Last Day Town a place where you can do things other than getting murdered and squabbling for air. Are you fine with the way things are? To just wander out here in silence?¡±


    ¡°Every single day of my life, I wondered if I should do this or that; thinking that this thing was thing was right and another was wrong, and somehow it never came out right. I¡¯m done. Whatever I do with this day, I¡¯m not going to waste it on the things I supposedly ¡®must¡¯ do. I warmly suggest you do the same.¡±


    I took a deep breath, getting a hold of the sudden feeling of frustration. ¡°There¡¯s a woman called Vempress, who¡¯s flying around here and taking people¡¯s oxygen.¡±


    ¡°So I¡¯ve heard.¡±


    ¡°You met Nina?¡±


    He shrugged. ¡°Didn¡¯t ask her name. Two gentlemen started chasing me, and by the time I lost them I wasn¡¯t interested in coming back.¡±


    ¡°So you already know that she¡¯s out here, taking people¡¯s oxygen.¡±


    ¡°If she¡¯s so slick, why let people know she¡¯s coming? She obviously planned this out. I won¡¯t say it¡¯s the reason I decided to make the climb, but it certainly didn¡¯t dissuade me. Sitting around and waiting for her to kill me or scare others into killing me didn¡¯t sound like a very nice way to spend the day. And I bet you¡¯re about to tell me that if we set up the ordered system, I¡¯d somehow be safe from her...What is it? You look worried.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m wondering if she¡¯s listening to us. She has radio relays that let her hear what¡¯s going on from her cave. But I don¡¯t think she¡¯d put the resources to put this place in her range.¡± If I were Vempress, where would I listen? The airlock, obviously, Pythia¡¯s Shuttle, because the statue might draw in people that would be very easy to snatch from above, and perhaps Ctesibius and Anaxagoras, in case someone was arming themselves.


    ¡°Why do you mind so much if she listens or not? Who cares?¡±


    ¡°Because,¡± I whispered. ¡°I want you to help me kill her.¡±


    He shook his head, as if hearing some bitter joke, and turned to look at the sky. The dense swarm of rocks was passing above us now. Each rock twisted in space separately, revealing different faces, illuminating others near it in constantly shifting ways.


    ¡°Why would I? If she¡¯s so good at killing people, I¡¯d be safer if I kept going as far away from the airlock as I could, and safer still if I were dead.¡±


    If you knew what to listen for, you could hear the fear in that statement, the hidden need for security. ¡°She gave me this,¡± I said, presenting the modified canister. ¡°As well as a blade like hers, which I lent to a friend. A proof of a modicum of trust. We set up a meeting in,¡± I paused for a moment, looking at my visor¡¯s display and quickly subtracting the times, ¡°one hundred and forty-three minutes.¡± The plan emerged fully formed. With the time and tools I had, there was only one way to approach this.


    ¡°There¡¯s a lot we could do before then. If you accepted a role,¡± I said, ¡°you¡¯d be as safe as I am with her. Safer, because there¡¯d be more of us.¡±


    ¡°Until we went along and tried killing her,¡± he countered, his voice not as lowered as I would have liked.


    ¡°We¡¯ll have surprise on our side.¡±


    He laughed again. ¡°Sounds like a complicated plan. A lot of things could go wrong.¡±


    ¡°Yes, but a lot of things could go right, and this effort might just be enough to shape us into something resembling a group.¡± Just like the lines united while dethroning King. ¡°I don¡¯t have as much time as I would have liked. I need to move this thing along.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s as if you don¡¯t have enough on your plate already; you have to make up more problems to solve.¡±


    His friendliness was more irritating than his indifference. ¡°Can you take a break from the Buddhism lecture for one second and tell me if you¡¯re going to help me or not?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not Buddhism,¡± he said, gentle frustration showing in his face for the first time. ¡°It¡¯s common sense. From what you¡¯re telling me, you¡¯re playing this game with someone with more experience and drive than you, relying on allies you¡¯ve known for hours at best. Seems like you¡¯re setting yourself up for failure.¡±


    I clenched the hand that wasn¡¯t leaning against the wall into a fist, but kept my tone level. ¡°What do you have to lose?¡±


    He was unmoved by my anger. ¡°A single peaceful moment in the quiet¡ªwhatever quiet I can hope to hold at the edge of the world. It¡¯s more precious than it sounds like, and you want me to give that up just to try something that¡¯ll probably fail? You have to admit, it sounds a little¡­¡± He put a palm in front of him, twisting it from side to side, sketching something shaky. ¡°You ask what I have to lose, but what do I have to gain?¡±


    ¡°What about being remembered?¡±


    ¡°Well, if things change when I¡¯m gone, I won¡¯t be here to enjoy it. But if people do remember me¡­ I want them to remember that I had a huge dick. Like, ridiculously big, that you could actually spot it through the suit¡­¡± he said, and laughed but his laughter wasn¡¯t mocking, as if he was just laughing at the way things are.


    ¡°Don¡¯t laugh at that, please. People spent their final hours keeping these ideas. They fought and sacrificed to bring them into being.¡±


    He raised an eyebrow, still smiling. ¡°And you would know this how?¡±


    ¡°Oral tradition. People used to spend their time here learning these traditions and passing them on, as well as their roles and titles, but most of them must have been lost. I heard only a little, and not more than once each, but I might remember one.¡± I shut my eyes hard, trying to remember. I recited:


    Here lies king of hellhole,


    I see him as he dies,


    I hear¡­ something¡­ fuck.


    I bit my lip. How had I forgotten it?


    He chuckled. ¡°Not saying that I don¡¯t believe you, and I sure appreciate the entertainment, but it doesn¡¯t change anything.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d rather you didn¡¯t jump, but if you made up your mind, I can¡¯t change it. It was nice talking to you,¡± I said, and propped the canister into my hands. I found the valve and prepared to throw myself off of that wall. ¡°I truly hope you find some peace, even for a moment.¡±


    ¡°Wait a second. I didn¡¯t say that I wouldn¡¯t join,¡± he said, and smiled, enjoying the act.


    I turned back to him. ¡°Why would you join?¡±


    He raised a finger and waggled it, like an enthusiastic teacher. ¡°You made me curious. Now I wanna know how it would turn out, and I¡¯m sure it would be at least somewhat entertaining.¡±


    It was my turn to laugh. ¡°And what about the peace of mind that you stand to lose?¡±


    For the first time, exhilaration twinkled in his eyes. ¡°What does it matter? It¡¯s going to be lost anyway. But I have one condition. Aside from the dick thing.¡±


    I chuckled. ¡°What? I don¡¯t have much to offer right now, but later on I could arrange for some sort of payment.¡±


    ¡°No payment. I want you to promise we won¡¯t kill her.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± Why was nothing ever simple?


    ¡°Because,¡± he enunciated, ¡°I don¡¯t want to.¡±


    ¡°Ok, deal. Help me recruit others, and I¡¯ll respect your condition.¡±


    He offered me his hand. Not at all scared of contact, not wary of proximity. I grabbed it and shook it, and only then realized I too wasn¡¯t afraid. His grip was effortlessly confident, firm without being crushing. I suddenly felt like I knew a lot about him.


    ¡°My name is Alex.¡±


    ¡°Yossi,¡± I replied.


    He let go. ¡°You¡¯re a fucking idiot, Yossi. You¡¯re aware of that, right?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve had my suspicions. Anyway, we need to go. There¡¯s a place I want to show you, but I¡¯m going to have to give you a boost. It¡¯s quite a distance, and I have some more things to take care of.¡±


    ¡°Nah, I¡¯m not done with this climb.¡±


    ¡°Are you serious?¡±


    ¡°Yeah! I told myself that I¡¯d climb this wall, so I¡¯m going to keep climbing this wall.¡±


    ¡°Do know how little time we have?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I do, and I have no intention of spending that time in a hurry. Just tell me where you want me to go, and I¡¯ll get there eventually.¡±


    ¡°At the end of this wall there¡¯s a plateau, and on the plateau, if you keep walking away from the airlock, you¡¯re going to find a cave, at the bottom of a cliff, a vertical wall face.¡± He nodded, and I continued. ¡°There¡¯s a warehouse there, where people used to store useful trash that might have been useful, but it has been blown up ever since, so I don¡¯t how useful the stuff that is there is going to be.¡±


    ¡°Who the hell blew it up?¡±


    ¡°Anaxagoras did.¡±


    ¡°A person named Anaxagoras?¡±


    ¡°Not a person, a line of people, each doing a little work and passing it on. If you take on this role, you will be given the name Anaxagoras¡¯s First.¡±


    He gave me a look. ¡°I don¡¯t really care what creepy space cult was here before, so please just call me Alex.¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°Fine, but if you meet Vempress, present yourself by that name. It makes it more likely that she won¡¯t kill you. I think.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s lovely. So what am I going up there for?¡±


    ¡°They might have rockets there, as well, and at the very least long beams you can use to move faster against the rock, like they have.¡±


    ¡°It could work,¡± he mused. ¡®Like a ferryman, pushing at the bottom of the river.¡±


    ¡°When you get there, pick up whatever you think might be useful. And if you meet any more people, tell them what we¡¯re up to, if it isn¡¯t dangerous. Wait for me at the junkyard, or walk the line back to the airlock. I¡¯ll come looking for you.¡±


    ¡°Whatever you say.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to jump as soon I fly away, are you?¡±


    ¡°I said I won¡¯t, didn¡¯t I?¡± He sighed. ¡°If I promise I won¡¯t jump, will you go? I have a feeling I won¡¯t have much time for myself after this.¡±


    I nodded and took flight, and he continued climbing, humming as he did.

 Diocletian III

    Estimated oxygen time: 20:28:34


    As I flew towards the airlock, I spotted a figure in a bag, standing between the edge of the smaller crater and the airlock, picking up a corpse and heaving it out onto the plain. A blade was tied to his waist with a wide nylon belt, swinging by his side with each movement.


    I almost didn¡¯t recognize David for how determined his body language was. He was still clumsy, his balance poor, but he seemed to have lost the little hesitations that had almost debilitated his movement before. As soon as one corpse went flying, he bent down, grabbed the next by the ankles, and tossed it, putting his whole weight into the throw, swaying and falling forward with the momentum. Even from above I could see the exertion in each motion, the fury of it. Not empty; not confused, Pythia had said. We should all pray to be so lucky.


    I passed over him, using the canister to slow myself just enough to absorb the impact with my legs, and landed a dozen meters behind him.


    ¡°How was your walk?¡± I asked.


    He pulled at his nose. ¡°Pretty shit, honestly. Instead of figuring anything out I just thought about all of the times I wasn¡¯t there for people who needed me.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. You don¡¯t have to do this, you know¡± I said. ¡°With the bodies, I mean.¡±


    He regained his balance and looked at me. The lights of the airlock flashed white, letting me see his wide eyes, his forehead shining with sweat. ¡°I don¡¯t see anyone else clearing this up.¡±


    ¡°Not now. But when things are properly set up, Line Diocletian will take care of the bodies.¡±


    He straightened, putting his hands on his hips. ¡°Well, when they finally come around you can tell them I¡¯m fucking sorry for taking away so much of their work.¡± He was angry enough that I would have taken a step back if it had been anyone else. ¡°But as the representative of Line Pythia, and the de facto supervisor of the mental well-being of the residents of this hellhole, I can¡¯t have people come here and see a pile of bodies first thing. It¡¯s bad. It sure messed me up,¡± he admitted, the anger in his voice dissipating.


    I turned and looked at Yahushua, hanging between the metal rods. I held my breath, and heard only one pair of lungs breathing. I turned back to David. ¡°Need a hand?¡±


    ¡°Sure, thanks.¡± There was genuine gratefulness shining in his eyes, and I somehow I just knew this guy will always be on my side.


    We decided that we¡¯d each hold either two arms or two legs and swing in unison. The bodies went farther now. Before, some hadn¡¯t even gone over the edge of the small crater now they all cleared it easy. ¡°Don¡¯t look at the faces,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s what gets you. You start thinking about how they were as babies, how someone looked at them and wished only the best for them. It gets to you.¡±


    I could have used this advice back in the chasm. ¡°How long have you been doing this?¡± I asked, as we watched an overweight man collide with the rock at the edge of the valley and tumble away.


    ¡°Fifteen minutes or so, I think. I got bored just sitting and waiting. Not much for a quarter of an hour¡¯s work, but we¡¯re getting it faster now. Let¡¯s do another ten minutes and see where we are.¡±


    I didn¡¯t always manage not to look at the people. There was one woman, her visor broken, her face frozen and dried in a desperate gasp, looking down and away from me. I was wary of the serrated, broken edges of the visor, but as it pulled my attention, I couldn¡¯t avoid but look at her face, too.


    Perhaps the time in the fissure hardened me, but I didn¡¯t feel much. A dead body doesn¡¯t suffer any more than a rock does. It wasn¡¯t good or bad, taking in the dried eyes, the blood clots around her mouth and nose. I didn¡¯t feel anything but a sense of emptiness, hollowness, a shadow of grief as I imagined Keren standing where I stood, looking down at my corpse. Some dust that had risen from my earlier movements stuck to my suit, chilling me.


    I raised my eyes to David, saw how he looked away with a strained expression, turning his entire head not to have her in his sight. The corpse¡¯s eyes were turned to him, as if she was still a person, staring him down. Even looking away, her gaze was boring into him. And he had been doing this alone? Then it hit me. Someone had decided to bring him to this world, held him to their breast, marveled at their first words. Someone saw him as a dream of potential and purity, and here he was, choking back tears, along among strangers and cadavers, choosing to suffer so someone else won¡¯t get, as he says, fucked up like he had been. My teeth clenched. We tossed her, and she arced cleanly over the edge, toward the chasm. ¡°Good thing you dropped by,¡± he said.


    I agreed. We went to pick up the next body, and I laughed in surprise. The man was muscular, clean-shaven, and bald, and his face somehow still expressed disdain and judgment.


    ¡°What is it?¡± David asked, with a hint of worry.


    ¡°I knew this guy,¡± I said, still smiling. ¡°Hated his guts, too.¡±


    David looked at me and said nothing. I grabbed the stiff, clawed hand. The bag wasn¡¯t punctured, but the body was misshapen, broken: the ribs, the spine, an elbow. Not the quick death Vempress had offered, but something more like Dov and Yahushua¡¯s. ¡°Fuck caring, right buddy?¡± I whispered. David looked at me again, and for a moment I knew what he saw: someone numb and cold, maddened by an insane place. He joined in warily, grabbing the legs and we tossed it, too, over the edge.


    ¡°Was he a bad person?¡± he asked while we were walking over to the next corpse.


    ¡°Honestly? I don¡¯t know.¡±


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 20:18:28


    We worked for a while, clearing another dozen or two dozen bodies. There were still many left, but from the redness in David¡¯s face he was building up heat in his suit, and I had asked him to take a break. He agreed.


    Weird, to worry about the health of our bodies, but we couldn¡¯t afford to be exhausted when the time came for¡­ I realized that I hadn¡¯t talked to David about my plan yet. I needed to find a way to bring it up without bringing up Vempress¡¯s suspicions, if she was listening through her radio relays.


    We hopped out of the crater and onto the plateau, where he laid down and looked up at the densely-packed stars, as if we were out on the beach.


    I lay beside him, letting the rock cool me through my suit, and he burst into a sudden laughter.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s just so weird. What the hell am I doing?¡±


    I allowed myself to laugh a little, too. Perhaps we would have had the time for that conversation, if we were both Pythia of a week ago, though I suspected not. I suspected they¡¯d keep each other too busy to think themselves into an existential crisis, memorizing poems and history and discussing confessions protocols¡­ Confession. There was my in to keep David focused, and talk about my plan without Vempress listening.


    ¡°When the old Pythia took confessions,¡± I said. ¡°They did that in the broken shuttle. It blocks radio signals, so people can talk freely without fear of being heard by anyone but their confessor.¡±


    ¡°Hmm. I can see why that would help, but I don¡¯t think I could do that walk every single time.¡±


    ¡°No, but I think I have an idea. Let¡¯s see how well I remember my highschool physics¡­¡± It was somewhat remarkable, how good I¡¯ve become at lying in less than four hours.


    He sat up to see what I was doing, and after I turned off my comm it didn¡¯t require more than a simple gesture to persuade him to do the same. I hopped into a crouch and over to him, getting my helmet closer to his so I could grab him by the helmet and put his visor to mine as he looked at me with curious confusion. ¡°Can you hear me?¡± I asked.


    He nodded. ¡°Yeah.¡± His voice was distant but clear. ¡°But this is a little¡­ intimate. Is this how I¡¯m going to take confessions?¡±


    ¡°¡±Yes, but that doesn¡¯t matter yet. Right now,¡± I ignored his confused expressions, ¡°Vempress has an eavesdropping device someplace around here, and this is the only way to talk without her hearing us.¡±


    ¡°What do you wanna hide from her?¡±


    ¡°That we¡¯re going to kill her.¡±


    David¡¯s eyes opened wide, then turned away. ¡°I should have known.¡±


    ¡°You too? You¡¯re against killing her?¡±


    He shook his head. ¡°I can¡¯t take part in killing someone. I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°She won¡¯t let this place be anything but a celebration of constant, unending murder. I don¡¯t know if she¡¯s letting us live out of curiosity or cruelty or loneliness, but it¡¯s not something we can count on for long.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s the only solution you came up with?¡± his voice rose. ¡°To kill?¡± Droplets of spittle stuck to the his side of the glass in front of my eyes. His hands were still at his sides, clenched into fists


    ¡°Why not?¡± I asked. ¡°She sure wouldn¡¯t mind killing us.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think you understand what you¡¯re asking.¡±


    ¡°I know that it¡¯s an ugly thing to do. But what alternative are you going to suggest? That we sit her down for a heart to heart?¡±


    ¡°Maybe, yes. Perhaps we can show up, a couple of us, and make her reconsider. To murder¡­ Give me a second, ok?¡±


    He looked distraught. I¡¯d begun to regret surprising him like this. ¡°Ok.¡±


    He pushed my off, more a request than a physical assertion, stood up, closed his eyes, breathed a couple of breaths, the expansion of his ribs visible through the suit, then took my helmet in his hands and touched glass to glass. ¡°You said, too, before. You too. Who were you talking about?¡±


    ¡°I met a man named Alex up north. I tried to get him to help me, to help us, but he said that he¡¯d only join on the condition that we don¡¯t kill her.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like an alright guy,¡± David said.


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand you. I watched her kill people. Why doesn¡¯t she deserve to die?¡±


    ¡°Do you know how I¡¯ve managed not to fall apart?¡± His voice was quiet now, vulnerable, and it stopped me on my tracks. ¡°I was starting to, you see, when I realized that I had a day of oxygen in my suit. I thought I¡¯d cut myself some slack, let myself lose it. But then I saw you, still trying. You were having a very shitty day, but you still tried. And I realized that I could make this day a little less shitty for you, and that was enough for me. Vempress is also having a horrible time, and I want to help her too. Doing good whatever good I can, whenever I can, that¡¯s what kept me together through my entire life. If I turn my back on that, I really don¡¯t know if I could hold on.¡±


    His eyes glistened, wet, disarming me of anger. ¡°You¡¯re right. We should do the most good I can. But imagine with me,¡± I pleaded. ¡°There is a person now, sitting in jail. They¡¯ll be thrown out tomorrow, or the day after that, or the one after, and once they do they will come here. And it¡¯s up to us what kind of Town they get to - one where they¡¯re an equal among equals, with a role and a purpose, or one where she¡¯d be nothing but prey, an object for others to use? We can¡¯t just let the town stay like this,¡± I waved my hand at this dead and dying place. ¡°Can we?¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t. But we have to make it better. Killing Vempress would protect them from her. But it would also make it ok to kill. It would make it our decision who lives and who dies, and this place would continue to be ruled by whoever¡¯s strongest at the time. Aside from revenge, it would give us nothing.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care about revenge; I care about justice.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s even worse.¡±


    I shook my head, as if trying to clear a fog, but not so hard that it would move my visor. ¡°How is justice worse?¡±


    ¡°Revenge at least admits that it¡¯s personal, emotional, an instinct. Justice is exactly the same, but with the illusion of doing it for someone else.¡±


    ¡°She made this place hell. She deserves much worse than just being killed here.¡±


    ¡°Does she?¡± A sudden confidence burned in his voice. ¡°Does anyone really deserve to be thrown out here and die? Did you?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t murder anyone.¡±


    He sighed, a deep, desperate sigh, and fog condensed on the glass barrier between us. ¡°Not yet.¡±


    I didn¡¯t know what to say to that.


    ¡°What¡¯s her name?¡± He continued.


    ¡°Vempress¡¯s?¡±


    ¡°No, the one who¡¯s going to come to Last Day Town. The one you¡¯re doing this for.¡±


    ¡°Why do you think it¡¯s a she?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Because I¡¯ve actually been listening. What¡¯s her name?¡±


    I considered insisting that he explain how he could listen so well he¡¯d heard things I didn¡¯t say, but there wasn¡¯t time. ¡°Keren. What are you trying to say?¡±


    ¡°Keren. Whatever we do, she¡¯ll still be thrown out him.¡±


    His expression was nothing but sympathetic, and that somehow made me more irritated ¡°What¡¯s your point?¡±


    ¡°You can spend this entire day trying to save her, if that¡¯s what you want. I¡¯ll help you, even. But she¡¯ll still die, like everyone else has to die.¡±


    I tried not to imagine her quivering with fear as the timer ran out, her bottom lip shaking as she cried, her eyes rolling back as she suffocated. No, not ¡®suffocated¡¯. That was too passive a word. They¡¯d chosen to kill her. They thought it was funny. They¡¯ll choke her. I forced myself to think the words, one at a time. To death. ¡°Why are you telling me this?¡± I said, voice almost steady.


    ¡°Death comes for everyone. Disaster comes for everyone, sooner or later, no matter what you do. If you don¡¯t accept that, you¡¯re setting yourself up for constant worry and eventual failure. It¡¯s no way to live, even for a single day.¡±


    ¡°This has gone on for long enough. Vempress will suspect that we¡¯re talking about her. Let¡¯s turn the radios back on, and pretend to have a normal conversation.¡± Seeing the look in his face, I added, ¡°I won¡¯t kill her without your approval, ok?¡± I pushed myself off before he could answer turned my comm back on.


    He arched his brows but turned his on too. ¡°That could work. But we should use the shuttle as a confession chamber as soon as we can. People need to feel like their being listened to, not like someone is inspecting them.¡±


    ¡°Do you think that¡¯s what makes a difference? I mean, as long as you¡¯re talking it out, what does it matter?¡±


    ¡°You really don¡¯t get it, do you?¡± He said, somehow deeply unoffensive despite the harsh words. He sat down more comfortably, looking away from the airlock, at the stars.


    ¡°What don¡¯t I get, exactly?¡±


    He sighed. ¡°Did you ever use one those therapist AI¡¯s?¡±


    I had. Tsur¡¯d introduced the concept to me, once he¡¯d felt comfortable enough to tell me he¡¯d been using one. ¡°Sorry, but that¡¯s inside talk.¡±


    ¡°Right, sorry. Well, a lot of people think they work, but the thing about psychoanalysis, or confession, or just talking about it, isn¡¯t about the offering the correct solution, to analyze the problem.¡±


    ¡°What is the point, then?¡±


    His gaze lowered, to the dark cliffs bordering us all into this big bowl of rock. ¡°The same reason people used to have pets, I think. There exists a need in the human soul, and for most people, that need isn¡¯t being meet. To let someone see you as you really are, including the darkest, worst parts. Not to judge or analyze, but to forgive. That¡¯s not something a machine can do.¡±


    It sounded right. I looked at him, and saw that he, too, accepted me as I was without judging, and I¡¯d needed it more then I¡¯d known. Still did. ¡°Maybe that¡¯s why we have children to. A bit of it. So that someone can love us, despite everything.¡±


    ¡°Maybe,¡± he said, and I saw a painful shadow cross his face.


    Did he have a loss like mine, in his story? There was comfort in that too, that he might. I puffed. ¡°See? You¡¯re already more of a Pythia than I am. And I haven¡¯t even got you in confession yet. Instead, I¡¯m just sitting here wasting your time with a stupid discussion.¡±


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°You¡¯re not wasting my time at all. This is my immortality.¡±


    For a moment I saw the insight in his blue eyes, how deeply they perceived, finding exactly what was needed. ¡°People can only become what they see. How else can they learn how to behave? When you do good, it stays after you, and it compounds. A part of you, the best part, stays in others, and they pass it forward.¡±


    Again, he somehow found the words that resonated. I thought about a line from Tsur¡¯s last letter: Learn to be kind; it makes an exponential difference. He¡¯d meant it in general, to the people of Ceres, not to anyone in specific. But I¡¯d never quite understood what he¡¯d meant by exponential; he wasn¡¯t the kind of person to use a mathematical term inaccurately. It compounds.


    My parents hadn¡¯t been there for most of my life, but they¡¯d stayed on Earth, knowing what would happen, so I could survive. I¡¯d always been grateful for that, but in the day to day, their absence was felt. And I¡¯d been there for Tsur as much as I could¡¯ve, everything that he asked, everything that he needed, I was there. But it hadn¡¯t been enough. Was there some property of being that needed to pass forward, that I never receive? It didn¡¯t matter, that kind of self-pity never got anyone anywhere. ¡°In order for that goodness to pass forward, there needs to be an unbroken chain of people receiving it and passing it forward. That¡¯s my promise for you, David: I will do whatever I can so people can learn from you, out here.¡± I offered my hand.


    He smiled, and rose to clasp it. ¡°You see what I mean? That resolve. Even after you tell me where you think that¡¯s coming from, I don¡¯t see how you can maintain - ¡±


    The rest of his statement was silenced by a scream on comm. ¡°Help!¡± A woman¡¯s voice, weakened by the distance. ¡°Please, somebody help me!¡±


    David left my hand, and jumped up to look at our surroundings, his movements fearless. I looked as well, but saw nothing until a flurry of asteroids finally passed through the sky, giving enough light for us to see a figure on the plane.


    She was on her knees, her hands grasping at her helmet as she cried out, as if in prayer. She seemed so small, so alone, surrounded by nothing but dead rock and dead space, lost in the desert.


    David lurched forward, and I followed on foot, holding the canister beside me. As we drew closer, her screams changed in tone.


    ¡°Stay away from me!¡± She turned to us, her eyes flooded and feral. ¡°I¡¯ll kill you!¡± She had a chain in her hand, like Yahushua¡¯d had, dangling all the way to the ground. Maybe the same one, even.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± David said, his voice soothing. ¡°We¡¯re here to help.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t lie to me! I know you¡¯re looking for someone to kill!¡± She rose, staying low, ready to spring; either towards us or away.


    I raised an eyebrow. ¡°Then who were you calling for?¡±


    She looked confused for a moment, as if she too didn¡¯t quite know why. ¡°Fuck off, both of you,¡± she cried again, drawing out the chain and swinging it beside her in a tight circle. Her breathing was loud no comm, as if she was still in the midst of a panic attack.


    David shot me a look, admonishing me for being unhelpful, and took a step back, gesturing for me to follow. We were a dozen meters away, so a step back wasn¡¯t much more than a symbolic gesture. I did anyway.


    ¡°Listen,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯re not here to hurt anyone. Look at me. We¡¯re also dying here. We¡¯re also afraid. But we don¡¯t want to hurt anyone.¡±


    ¡°Then why were you running at me, just now? Why are you armed?¡± She stared at David¡¯s blade, the chain still swinging, her other hand set in front of her, a barrier.


    I was going to say something about the fact that she just called for us, and that she, too, was armed, but David shot me another glance. ¡°We heard someone calling, and we came. The blade is for protection,¡± he said. ¡°My friend here was attacked, and I had a scary encounter too. Were you attacked?¡±


    ¡°No. But I was warned.¡±


    ¡°By whom?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Someone. She said she¡¯d spent most of her time here locked up, that she¡¯d only barely managed to escape a vampire, whatever that means. She told me not to trust anyone.¡±


    ¡°Nina?¡± I said.


    They both turned to look at me. ¡°Yes, Nina,¡± she said. ¡°How did you know?¡± She lowered the hand that held the chain.


    ¡°I met her when I arrived. Did she...¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± she said, her face contorting into a short-lived grimace. ¡°You must be Yossi, then.¡±


    ¡°I am,¡± I said. I was surprised that Nina had chosen to talk about me, in her last moments. ¡°Were you with her?¡± I asked, looking at her brown eyes, still wet but not as feral, the droplets hanging from her eyebrows. ¡°When her time ran out?¡±


    She nodded. ¡°She wanted me to tell you something, though.¡± She paused for a second, and I went cold. I¡¯d never gotten a message from a dead person before. ¡°She wanted you to remember that...¡± She recited:


    Sadness is like a glass,


    Filled with bitter wine.


    I found myself laughing. It hurt, to laugh with an old friend, even if she weren¡¯t there. I thought they¡¯d both think I¡¯m losing it. Instead, she laughed with me¡ªnervously, but she laughed, the chain hanging limply in her hand, forgotten. David shot me an approving glance.


    ¡°I hate that song so much,¡± I said finally.


    ¡°I know,¡± she said. ¡°She told me you would. She came to talk to me when I was scared and alone, and she comforted me, and asked me to tell you this. But now that I¡¯ve done what she asked, what am I supposed to do? I¡¯m so scared I can¡¯t think.¡±


    ¡°What your name?¡± David said.


    ¡°Rachel.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m David. Come with us, Rachel. We really aren¡¯t so bad.¡±


    She nodded at him. ¡°I want to trust you. But how can I? How can you two even turn your backs on each other?¡±


    I was going to say something about how I could have killed him when we first met, and he could have killed me, and so we knew, but I trusted David to have something better to say.


    ¡°It was scary, sure, but not as scary as being alone.¡± He was in his element, speaking softly but without a speck of hesitation.


    Rachel took a step towards us, and then another, perhaps without even noticing. He reached out his hand to her.


    ¡°Rachel, will you share the time you have with us? What have you got to lose?¡± He had a way of mocking without being cruel, taking a friendly jab in a way that he never employed with me. I was surprised, even though I had only known him for a couple of hours.


    She looked at the hand for a long moment, wanting to grab it but maybe scared that this might still be a trick. Maybe it was. If we convinced her to ambush Vempress with us, and she died, how would that be different from what Dov had done to the people he¡¯d found here?


    Rachel moved again, slowly closing the distance, until she grabbed David¡¯s hand. He smiled, and she smiled back. He turned to me. His expression wasn¡¯t soft now, but resolute. ¡°Ok,¡± he said, then turned off his comm and put his helmet to mine.


    I turned off my comm as well. ¡°I¡¯m going to meet Vempress in the shuttle in...¡± I paused for a moment to glance at the visor, calculating the difference in my head. ¡°...ninety one minutes. You¡¯ll meet the others on the slope below the edge of the crater, right next to Pythia. Get Rachel up to date about everything, please. You¡¯ll have to figure out together how capture Vempress without killing her, ok?¡±


    He nodded, took his helmet back, broke contact, and turned his comm back on. I did too.


    ¡°Go,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯ll see you later.¡±


    She looked at him, confused, then at me.


    I fumbled for the nozzle of my canister. ¡°Nice to meet you, Rachel. I hope we get another chance to talk.¡± I jumped into space and flew away.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 19:40:06


    I flew north, fast and low. Funny, that these routes had started to look familiar from above, like a carpet in a children¡¯s room. Like I¡¯d always been here.


    Nina¡¯s words put me off balance, and as I flew I went over her message, again and again. I recalled:


    And what will I say, what will I say?


    Sadness is like a glass,


    Filled with bitter wine.


    From the grapes of the soul.


    Will you know, Parrot Yossi,


    You are a lyrical child,


    Destined to a quiet death.


    Fuck you, Nina. Or perhaps it was Rachel that deserved the fuck you, for passing the message along? Or my mother, for naming after someone who¡¯d been thrown into a pit? Or for the poet himself, solidifying that sliver of grief so we could keep giving it to each other.


    Alex wasn¡¯t anywhere on the wall, and more importantly, not beneath it. As the ground curved upwards I pointed the jet down, bringing the wall beneath me in a matter of seconds. As soon as I ascended over the edge, I could see how drastically Anaxagoras¡¯s cave had changed, even in motion. The pillars of stone weren¡¯t there, the rocks probably blown away, and the ground was glassed over. Without oxygen to burn with, it had just melted and reformed into a wavy, obsidian-like texture. Even the mouth of the cave seemed to have widened. The bundles of trash that I had once watched Anaxagoras¡¯s Third launch were still piled by the wall, having been placed safely out of the explosion¡¯s reach.


    A bony, tall man in a bag was standing a safe distance from the entrance, leaning on one foot, arms crossed, his side to me. I couldn¡¯t see his face, but I recognized Alex from his relaxed, bored posture. I flew over him and landed against the cliff wall, absorbing the impact with my feet. His expression, as he turned to me, told me that he was already amused at my expense. Something had gone wrong.


    I kicked off the wall, flipping awkwardly towards the ground. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± I asked as my feet touched the smooth rock.


    He gestured with his chin towards the opening. ¡°See for yourself.¡±


    The answer came on comm, from a third voice I did not recognize. ¡°Is there another one of you out there? It doesn¡¯t matter; nobody¡¯s getting in! You come closer in and you die, understand?¡± The voice was panicked, on the verge of breaking.


    I looked at Alex. ¡°Is there someone in there?¡±


    ¡°Yup.¡±


    ¡°Peace,¡± I said. ¡°How long have you been there?¡±


    ¡°Why should I tell you? So you¡¯ll know how much oxygen you stand to take from me?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not going to take any oxygen from anyone,¡± I tried. ¡°My names is Yossi.¡±


    ¡°Nice to meet to Yossi, My name is ¡®fuck you, get out of my face or I will kill you¡¯.¡±


    I looked at Alex, who was raising an amused eyebrow. ¡°Listen,¡± I said calmly. ¡°We¡¯re not here to hurt you. We¡¯ll leave you alone, if that¡¯s what you want, but there¡¯s something we need to get and you¡¯re standing between us and that.¡±


    ¡°Are you crazy or just delirious?¡± Not a bad question. ¡°We¡¯re dying here. I don¡¯t give a shit about whatever it is you¡¯re planning; I¡¯m not letting you anywhere near me.¡±


    ¡°Fine, so could you get us something out?¡± I asked, proceeding logically.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Could you go inside, look for something, get it out and give it to us? Then we¡¯ll leave you alone.¡± I explained, again, as softly as I could.


    ¡°No! I just said no! Fuck off already; Jesus! I don¡¯t want to waste my last moments on assholes like you two! Go find your own cave!¡±


    That guy was making me hate him real fast. Not just the stubbornness, the shock he had to be in, but implying that this cave was his own when it wasn¡¯t. It was Anaxagoras¡¯s.


    I looked at Alex, who shook his head, smirking.


    It seemed shortsighted to have given David the blade. Not that I¡¯d have used it, but it would have earned me some respect. It was unfortunate that he wasn¡¯t there, for more than one reason.


    Alex shrugged. ¡°There¡¯s enough debris around here, and around the airlock. Maybe we should go look for it instead of trying to tickle open the world¡¯s tightest asshole.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s your problem?¡± the man in the cave growled.


    ¡°My problem is that I¡¯m going to die today, so I¡¯m not going to pretend I¡¯m nicer than I actually am.¡± Alex kept his voice level, but there was not a drop of empathy in it.


    ¡°Oh, fuck you.¡±


    ¡°Fuck me? You¡¯re wasting all of our time here by fighting over something you¡¯re obviously going to give up anyway.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you go and cut your suits open on a sharp rock? Both of you.¡±


    This was going nowhere. ¡°Alex, let it go. He¡¯s still in shock, and probably has been since he got here. It doesn¡¯t seem like we¡¯re getting him out of it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m in shock? You¡¯re in shock, you condescending shit-stain. Don¡¯t you understand that this is the only place where you can actually stay safe, even from Vempress? Anyone who gets in here risks getting stabbed by me,¡± the man¡¯s voice came from the dark cave. ¡°I have a knife.¡±


    Alex¡¯s eye brow twitched, like a delicate antenna for sensing lies. ¡°Do you?¡±


    There was a moment of hesitation, short but distinct. ¡°Yes, I do. I found one.¡±


    Alex looked at me and shook his head. ¡°Entertaining as this is, we might be spending our time better looking if there is a rocket around here, or some useful sticks.¡±


    ¡°They only left the trash outside. I¡¯m not wasting any more time on this squatter.¡± I was absolutely determined to get in. Not because we needed the rockets or raw material, but because I knew that if I wanted Alex to risk his life in an attempt to overthrow Vempress, I needed to show that I, too, was capable of taking risks for the cause. And it was a risk ¨C this guy could crack my helmet open if I made a mistake. ¡°I¡¯m coming in. Listen, buddy: the less you stand in my way, the sooner I¡¯ll get out of your hair.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not! You hear me? You¡¯re getting the fuck out of here, right now, if you know what¡¯s good for you.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll see about that,¡± I said. Alex half-grimaced, not protesting, but not approving either.


    I took a couple of careful steps on the smooth rock of the cave entrance. The tunnel was almost completely dark, now, and I listened on comm to the sounds of breathing. Alex¡¯s calm, deep breaths, and the hiding man¡¯s, shallow and scared.


    The bundles on the walls were gone, and in their place were gouges deep enough to hide a man. Anaxagoras must have worked for days, collecting or synthesizing or buying the explosives and making sure they could detonate at any second. They wouldn¡¯t have let all that work go to waste if they had any other choice. I knew the same people hadn¡¯t collected the explosives and detonated them, but I couldn¡¯t help but think of Anaxagoras as one entity. I couldn¡¯t help but mourn their loss singularly.


    The man in the dark had stopped talking, which was a bad sign. I kept moving, one careful step at a time, trying not to remember how I¡¯d been pinned down and robbed in this very tunnel. At last, I saw the glint of a helmet, almost hidden in one of the gouges.


    He sprang out of the hole, a piece of metal glinting in his hand. But he hadn¡¯t had time to gain the basic understanding of how to move; I watched as he made the same mistakes I had in my first hours, kicking too hard and falling forward. I stepped aside, squeezing into one of the gouges as he passed me, tumbling until he bumped into the wall, and a metal rod slipped out of his hands.


    He gathered himself quickly, trying to turn back and get the weapon, but I was quicker. He was closer to the exit now, unarmed, standing half crouched with his fists clenched. Now that he stopped moving, I could see how small he was, his elbows and back bent as if his body was trying to shrink into itself and vanish. He looked at me, and then at the exit, and at Alex, silhouetted against the backdrop of the stars.


    He went for Alex, feet scraping against the rock, hands pushing against the wall and thrusting forward. I went after him as Alex jumped up, still upright and relaxed. The man passed under him, too quickly to change course.


    Alex swung both arms in a complicated pattern that turned his body to the other way, and ended the maneuver facing the man, who slid against the dust, struggling to stop his momentum. Alex landed gently and looked back at me, his expression still amused. He was in no way athletic, his body inflexible, but somehow every motion he made was perfectly precise.


    The man stood, his fists clenched at his sides, his shoulders tense, his knees bent and ready. ¡°You fuckers. You don¡¯t wanna leave me alone? Don¡¯t wanna let me spend one fucking day in peace?¡± His green eyes sparkled with fear as he spoke. ¡°Fine, fucking fine, but don¡¯t act surprised when I break your teeth in.¡±


    I¡¯d taken enough threats from Vempress. I wasn¡¯t going to bend over for this guy, too. ¡°Listen, you didn¡¯t have to stand in our way. We have work to do, and we¡¯re going to go it. We¡¯re going to take what we need, and then be on our way.¡±


    ¡°Yossi?¡± Alex¡¯s tone was apologetic.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Give the man his weapon.¡±


    I threw a quick glance at Alex before turning my focus back to the other man. ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because he found it first, and he took it first. He found the cave first, and we want to take it from him. Doesn¡¯t seem right.¡±


    ¡°Did you miss the part where he promised to break my teeth in?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not saying this guy isn¡¯t an ass; I¡¯m just saying that I don¡¯t want to be the guy taking his stuff.¡±


    ¡°If I give him the weapon, he¡¯ll just attack me, or you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s his choice. Like it¡¯s your choice whether to rob him.¡±


    Alex sounded resolute, confident. Was it a delicate manipulation, or just who he really was? Does it matter? I looked at the man, still crouched and ready to spring, but something in his threatening resolve changed. I sent the rod his way, slowly. He straightened and caught it with both hands, but there wasn¡¯t the same confidence in the way he held it, as if it would be impolite to swing at us now.


    ¡°And it would be much appreciated,¡± Alex told the man, ¡°if you didn¡¯t break our teeth in. My name is Alex,¡± he added. ¡°This is Yossi.¡±


    I raised an awkward hand.


    ¡°I¡¯m Shaul,¡± the man said, and the weapon dipped in his hands. ¡°So, listen, I don¡¯t have to beat you up. Just get out of my way, ok?¡±


    ¡°Hold on,¡± I began, pissed that he still wasn¡¯t cooperating¡ªand his gaze snapped from Alex to me.


    ¡°You¡¯re standing between me and my cave,¡± he said. ¡°Move.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I said.


    Alex chuckled. ¡°You¡¯re not much of a natural leader, are you?¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°When no nightingale is heard, a crow¡¯s mistaken for a songbird.¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Shaul said. ¡°Why are you doing any of this?¡±


    ¡°Because this stinks,¡± I said. ¡°And it doesn¡¯t have to be like this. But it only gets better if we can act just a little bit more civilized.¡±


    He burst into fake, bitter laughter. ¡°It doesn¡¯t have to¡­ It was always like this. Inside, outside, Mars, Earth. As above, so fucking below. This is the only way it can be.¡± His voice had a distinct quality of someone who wasn¡¯t used to talking to other people.


    ¡°There are alliances, on Mars, even inside Ceres. Couldn¡¯t there be some here?¡± Alex said. He was looking at the sky, apparently bored again.


    ¡°There could, if you had anything to give me. Seeing as you only want me to give you something, I don¡¯t see why I should care.¡±


    ¡°We gave you the weapon,¡± I said.


    ¡°We also took it,¡± Alex said, still looking away.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. You have nothing to give me now. And even if you did ¨C you remember what¡¯s going on, right? Or are you in some sort of shock where you pretend your oxygen isn¡¯t running out every moment you wait here?¡± For a moment the sky gave enough light to show his face - a patchy black stubble over acne-scarred skin, a quirking of the lips that wasn¡¯t so much of humor as attempted derision.


    ¡°I¡¯m very aware of how many hours I have left. That doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m gonna do nothing about it.¡±


    ¡°You might as well.¡±


    ¡°Is that your plan? Sitting in a cave and safely awaiting your death?¡±


    ¡°What the hell else?¡± he said, a hint of breaking in his voice.


    ¡°You could do something with your life.¡±


    ¡°You realize how stupid you sound, right?¡±


    Alex glanced from the stars to Shaul with the same impassive gaze. ¡°Does it matter, though? Either way, anything you do here is stupid.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve wasted enough time, and I have no intention of philosophizing here with you. If you¡¯ve got nothing to give me, fuck the hell off.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll listen.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± He had a way of saying the word that was clearly not interrogative, but derogatory, a demand that I explain my absurdity. ¡°If you tell me your story, I will listen.¡± I said.


    ¡°What does that even mean?¡±


    ¡°Back when there was order here, there were all sorts of roles to perform, and people got paid with the most precious resource this place had to offer: attention. A chance to have someone listen to you, in exchange for metal, or technical work, or violence, when that was needed.¡±


    His curiosity visibly grew with every word, but he was still on guard. ¡°What do I care? I could tell my story to a fucking rock if I wanted to.¡±


    I finally understood what David had said. ¡°Isn¡¯t quite the same, is it? It doesn¡¯t feel the same, unless someone¡¯s really listening.¡±


    ¡°So what are you proposing?¡±


    ¡°That for once, we switch the order. I¡¯ll hear your confession-¡°


    ¡°Confession? Why can¡¯t you talk like a normal person?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll listen to you for fifteen minutes, no interruption. And in return¡­¡± I looked sideways at Alex. Time to delegate, I suppose. ¡°You¡¯ll help Alex help me, for the rest of the day.¡±


    ¡°Three hours, tops.¡±


    ¡°Four.¡±


    ¡°Deal,¡± he said, and paused. ¡°And how do we make sure no one else listens?¡±


    After I¡¯d finished explaining, I turned off my comm, and bowed. I looked sideways at Alex, who still seemed amused and relaxed, and took it as a good sign. Shaul turned off his comm as well, and stepped forward. There was a sudden, surprising eagerness in him, that had nothing to do with the aggression he¡¯d shown before. Whoever he was, no one had listened to what he had to say in a long time.


    ¡°What should I tell you?¡± he said as our helmets touched.


    ¡°Whatever you want. In the name of Line Pythia, I am your confessor.¡±

 Diocletian IV

    Shaul Malka¡¯s no fool ¨C he knows that he¡¯s terminally fucked. Another rejection sends him to the floor of his apartment, squealing into a pillow so the neighbors won¡¯t come over to complain again. He knows that there isn¡¯t a single thing he can do or think to ease the pain. He¡¯s trapped, cursed with a limbic system that screams at him to procreate as it watches another chance sail past, even if he fails to grasp it precisely because his brain wouldn¡¯t give him a minute¡¯s rest.


    Shaul spends his years sailing from one devastating crush to another, usually on women who work at the same fertility clinic as him. Every time one of them shows up in his life he falls in love with her so deeply, so painfully, that he cannot think of anything else, cannot sleep, cannot enjoy anything. Yes, he knows how pathetic and desperate that sounds. His mind glorifies their image into something holy he knows in his prefrontal cortex to be impossible, yet still he is forced to believe.


    His genes don¡¯t care this is exactly that kind of stress that makes him so unappealing to women. So un-fucking-cool. And that¡¯s the tragedy: he¡¯s actually a pretty chill guy, and any of these women would have liked him if they¡¯d met him in any other context. He¡¯s not handsome, but not ugly either. Short, yeah, but he could have gotten over it if he had confidence. But no. It¡¯s a vicious cycle that he goes through, the lack of confidence engendering further failure, each one taking away from his confidence, year after year after year.


    It¡¯s always the same thing: The girls join the clinic, he falls in love, tries to initiate small talk, fails miserably for about a year, and after they leave for something better, he sends a message, trying to hook up, with the results painfully obvious. Every rejection feels like a failed attempt to save his life ¨C his terminal virginity is as awful as terminal cancer, as far as his genes are concerned.


    Adding insult to injury, while others get to leave, Shaul is trapped in his job as a laboratory technician, making the same alterations to human DNA. The ones permitted by the government¡ªboring stuff like cutting the defective genes that cause cystic fibrosis or Tay-Sachs out of embryos, and a little polygenetic screening on the side. Technically illegal, but practically decriminalized. When it costs so much to raise a single human being, it¡¯s not unreasonable to grease a couple of hands to make sure that kid is above average. Nothing novel and exciting like super-intelligence or modified personality traits. The work is technical, repetitive, and there¡¯s an added dimension of the humiliation itself: while Shaul fails to leave anything of himself behind, he is expected to help the winners make sure only the best parts of themselves are getting passed on.


    The first year of the job was the easiest, the humiliation sweetened by the expectation of leaving, like the others had. But once he¡¯d started interviewing, he realized there¡¯s something about him that makes him suspicious to others, and that makes him anxious, and that anxiety only serves to make him act even more suspicious. Now, after years spent at a job that someone could be expected to do for a year, tops, his odds of reaching escape velocity grow smaller and smaller.


    The bleaker his future gets, the greater the chunk of his free time he dedicates to his coping mechanisms ¨C computer games, stripped to the shadow of what they¡¯d been in Earth¡¯s golden age, but still powerful skinner-boxes riding primal fantasies of brutal violence and triumph. And porn, that gets more toxic every year, until it becomes snuff proper. The hunt for more exciting content becomes harder, as each escalation burns off another level of sensitivity from his aging neurons.


    Luckily, the same laws of game theory that had doomed him on the dating market provide a constant supply of ever-innovative entertainment. One night, as he is looking for new videos to excite his numb imagination, he comes across a whole archive of videos, seemingly from Mars, of POWs being tortured. The torturer seems to be following written instructions, but written by whom? Shaul¡¯s curious, but his brain is too desperate for distraction to embark on anything as focus-intensive as a proper investigation. Like a rat with a lever hooked into its dopamine receptors, he knows that he¡¯ll keep favoring the instant relief over long term gratification, and so the years pass.


    His thirtieth birthday marks his failures in bold. He could have lived with having missed the excitement and adventure of youth, if he could have the privilege of fathering children. But he knows he won¡¯t, and it¡¯s killing him. It¡¯s absurd, that something could evolve to kill itself, but his genes, he thinks as he rides a dick-shaped train back from work, were never supposed to face this kind of environment, this kind of oppression. He takes a bite out of a pre-wrapped cheese-flavored-fungus sandwich, grown on human waste. His brain did not evolve to deal with this shit.


    Genetics are slow to evolve, and mankind had to adapt quickly in order to survive, so it created a secondary genome, coded not in DNA but in ideas, and quickly evolving. That worked for a while. The gods of the hunt were replaced by gods of harvest, and then with gods of science and justice. But at some point, the environment changed so quickly that the layer of ideas that mitigate the raw human and reality could no longer keep up. We stopped developing new traditions, new religions, but instead figured out, each for themselves, a jumble of philosophies, gathered as we went along as grownups (instead of learning them as children, as evolution planned for us). Just like a heavy dose of antibiotics could decimate your gut bacteria, leaving your digestive tract unguarded and vulnerable, so we found ourselves stripped bare, to our endemic ideas. And thus, man found himself defenseless in this alien new world.


    Shaul wishes that he could have lived by his instincts, like the warriors on Mars, killing or being killed. He thinks it might have actually quenched a part of his soul, to be a hero like that. But he can¡¯t. He¡¯s too restricted to live, and too safe to die.


    He decides to spend his money on one last birthday party. He orders stimulants from the local web, enough to kill himself with. He intends to take half of it first, then see if it gives him the courage needed to take the other half.


    The customer service professional notifies Shaul that their usual policy of delivery times doesn¡¯t apply in case of riots, so it might take the delivery as much as an hour to reach his residence.


    Again? Is it about rent this time, or the rising oxygen prices? Either way, it¡¯s always about children, in the end. Shaul¡¯s not sure if etiquette demands that he tip the courier extra - it¡¯s not Shaul¡¯s fault people can¡¯t afford to have children, or have those children breathe. He wasn¡¯t going to have any children, and nobody cared about that. But still, being a generally good person, he multiplies the tip by one point five. Out of sympathy, if not empathy. God, how he hates that word. The drugs aren¡¯t what gets him thrown outside, either.


    Alone in his apartment, trying to keep his hand from shaking, he loads what seems like a reasonable amount of white powder onto a teaspoon and brings it up to his nose, realizes he has too much air in his lungs to snort forcefully, moves the spoon away from his face so he can exhale, emptying his lungs, then bring the spoon back under his nose, curses silently and snorts the powder as hard as he can.


    The high is the best feeling Shaul has ever had. For once his default mode network is down regulated, and he finally knows what it¡¯s like to be confident, happy, normal. The stimulants remove the shame, and as he lays on the floor, mumbling euphorically like a child, the casing of protective lies dissolves and he finally look at what¡¯s going on inside of his mind. He sees that the porn has, even in its softer reincarnations, nothing to do with sex, but about watching someone having control over someone else. No wonder it¡¯s so addictive - his traumatized brain seeks to believe a scenario where he is in control, and what¡¯s a greater signifier of control than restricting someone else¡¯s ability to breathe?


    His genes always knew this¡ªthey¡¯re tested every day, every minute. Even when a girl likes you for your personality, it¡¯s just another test - IQ is just as dependent on your genes as your looks. They are testing your genes, and if you don¡¯t pass, your genes die off. Can he blame his genes for wanting revenge?


    But that¡¯s na?ve of him; that¡¯s not the truth. The truth is that there is a gene inside of him, inside of every man. A gene that served so many of his ancestors that it became ubiquitous ¨C and that gene mediates the shift in strategy that so many like him went through ¨C when the you¡¯re losing the game, stop playing by the rules.


    The epiphany brings a great calm with it, or maybe it¡¯s the other way around. He decides not to take the other half, to postpone his suicide for another twenty-four hours and goes to work as normal, more out of force of habit than actual necessity. When he returns home he takes the remaining stimulants, and watches a lot of Martian POW snuff, cross-referencing the time a video was made with the news from Mars itself; it takes him another night to figure out which of the Martian armies produces the videos. He does this night after night, postponing his suicide by another day, snorting more stimulants, connecting the dots, until finally he follows the trail of rat droppings all the way to the nest.


    The videos were ordered by Ceresians, and for a fee, he can order one as well. No option for a live session, for reasons to do with both security and physics, but he can send his demands to the torturer, and get the results within twenty-four hours. It¡¯s almost morning when he finally sends the request, still on, even though the stimulants should have worn off hours before, typing down one instruction after another in clear, technical language. He transfers the money to an account on Ceres, though he has no idea what a Martian army would use Ceresian Shekels for.


    That¡¯s not what gets him thrown out, either.


    When the video arrives, Shaul¡¯s life, whatever¡¯s left of it, changes. He watches again, and again, and again. He catches every nuance: the alien looking, extreme expansion and contraction of a rib cage, the thrashing or helpless legs, knees bent inwards, the plethora of human sounds that can¡¯t be precisely pinned down by words like ¡®whimper¡¯ or ¡®sob¡¯, but most of all he savors the expression of the torturer herself, like a child holding back tears, lower lip trembling. He keeps thinking about that, afterwards. Did the rest of the crew mock her for hesitating? Sunja Sunja, thought she was a psychopath, put some sand up a girl¡¯s nose and now she¡¯s traumatized. It doesn¡¯t rhyme, but perhaps it does in whatever Hindi dialect that beat the others out of existence.


    He doesn¡¯t feel any guilt. After all, he isn¡¯t the one causing the pain, and if he hadn¡¯t put in the highest bid, the next bidder in the auction would have. And the Martian armies would have done it to each other even if there was no one paying, wouldn¡¯t they? It¡¯s not like he can save them, and even if he did, they would either fight in another Mars war, or be brought to Ceres as refugees, as if Ceres wasn¡¯t crushed under the weight of those already. No, their lives were already rendered without value by circumstance. Why not have someone profit from it?


    Shaul is free of guilt, that¡¯s true, but he still feels shame. And that¡¯s all right.


    Shame is how your limbic system warns you not that what you¡¯re doing is wrong, but that you should hide it from others, and Shaul heeds the advice of the older, wiser parts of his brain. Shaul has come to respect his genes. They were never the problem ¨C it was the unnatural restrictions being imposed on him. The constant bombardment with the demand for empathy by society around him. They want you to be nicer than fucking evolution, a blind, mad god but a god still, designed you to be, so you won¡¯t be any danger to them. Don¡¯t try to be better, you are exactly as good as you are supposed. Your so-called weaknesses, your sadism and self-centeredness, aren¡¯t a coincidence, they are strategies that have been utilized successfully for tens of thousands of years, and if you¡¯re not a complete idiot you can understand why they are still useful. The world has changed, sure, but people are the same, and your genes have a lot more experience than you in how you should treat other people.


    So he orders more videos. He orders women hanged and strangled, drowned in water or urine or sand, throats blocked, faces taped shut, vacuum-sealed. He stared directly at the unbearable truth of it, knowing that most people won¡¯t even stand reading this stuff on a page, and feels purified of the comforting lies he was given. And his tastes refine, focusing less on the torture itself but of the anticipation, meticulously writing up the rules for games these women will have to play, with the reward being another twenty seconds of unobstructed airflow. It doesn¡¯t matter what he makes them do, as long as it¡¯s clear that they don¡¯t want to do it.


    Nothing makes you feel as in control as choosing whether or not another person breathes, and when. Nothing makes you feel as powerful as hearing them beg, and refusing them mercy (except for, perhaps, if he were to deprive someone with his own hands, which he can¡¯t. But he does make the torturer look at the camera, pretend to be waiting for a nod from him, as if he is there instead of watching a recording of the past, and he nods each time, knowing that a part of his brain believes this simulacrum of social interaction).


    This isn¡¯t what gets him thrown out, either.


    Something is altered deeply in Shaul ¨C on the train, in the clinic, he can no longer see people as anything but machines. An almost sentient machine, computing the correct personality they should have and the best way to display it, sensing behavioral pressures and adjusting themselves unconsciously like a colony of gut bacteria tracking levels of chemical signals. He is no different, no better or worse ¨C it is only because playing along stopped being a good strategy, that there is nothing for to gain by co-operating, that his brain allows him to witness the bare truth.


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The drug dealer¡¯s customer service contacted him, asking in too many words why he stopped using.


    According to our database, quitting at this advanced stage of a stimulant habit is 70% likely to be the result of intervention and forced withdrawal, or a financial shortage. We offer services to assist in both situations, if you are interested.


    What¡¯s the other 30%? Shaul is genuinely curious.


    Falling in love. Is that the problem? We offer solutions for that as well, at affordable prices.


    Shaul laughs to himself at the pragmatism of the human spirit. No, thanks. You can say that I finally found my place in the world.


    Is that true? Did he really maximize the amount of control he has on others? Taking people¡¯s lives is a pretty serious thing, but survival isn¡¯t about the physical body¨Cthat¡¯s just the means of achieving a human being¡¯s real goal¨Cleaving something of yourself after you¡¯re gone. Taking that from people is the ultimate act of control. Shaul is surprised that he hasn¡¯t thought of this before, considering it was in front of his eyes every single day.


    Nobody in the clinic wants to take the ¡°fertilization¡± shifts. The mixing of the parents¡¯ genomes, as well as cutting out defective genes (another level of ideas humanity decided to discard), is done through a computer, but ¡®printing¡¯ the genome in actual DNA molecules and making sure it is inserted into the synthetic host cell (synthetic, in this case, means that nobody remembers who the original cells have come from). It¡¯s tedious, boring work. Everyone¡¯s happy when Shaul volunteers to take those depressing night shifts. They probably credit it to his antisocial tendencies, that he just prefers to spend that time alone. No one suspects what he¡¯s actually planning. How could they? It¡¯s outside of their little box.?


    If you don¡¯t know anything about gene editing, you might think that gene replacement is done with a pair of tweezers, literally cutting out the genes. Of course, in reality the entire genomes of both parents are scanned on to the computer, where they can be edited as software objects, with whole sequences cut out and replaced. That¡¯s enough for him to compose the possible genomes of an embryo. All Shaul has to do is print out the genome of the synthetic zygote, print the sequence created from both parents, and insert that into the cell.


    What he does, instead, when he receives the genetic scans of an expectant couple (so in love, so happy, the assholes) is print another genome entirely. One of the possible genomes that would have resulted from his own semen mixing with the woman¡¯s egg cell. As is it were him to father a child with that woman. He considered making clones of himself, even female clones with a little tweaking, but there is something more fulfilling about mixing his genetic material the way nature, at some point, intended.


    He wishes he could have used the stimulants to give him courage, to block out the pinch of shame that he still feels, but he can¡¯t afford to have anyone seeing him shaking. He waits for the dead of night to start, slowly approaching the point of no return. It is the defining moment of his life, his ascension.


    Uploading his own genome is easy, as is telling the computer to recombine it with the mother¡¯s genome. But the moment he prints the genome of his own child is a hard one, a sense of intense reality comes over him, and only intensifies as he pours a million copies of said genome into the same compartment with the zygote. His heart beats slowly, heavily. One of the copies lands close to the zygote, and he directs the robotic, microscopic tweezers via the microscope screen, stopping only to wipe the sweat off his forehead on his labcoat¡¯s sleeve. Closer now, he pushes the strand of DNA into the cell¡¯s membrane, panting. Once, twice, many times, back and forth, until it finally breaks, and he inserts the long, thin tweezers deep inside, dumping his genetic load into the moist, soft inside of the cell.


    He barely chokes down the astonished laughter, pretending to cough. His knees buckle. He watches through the microscope screen as the cell seals itself, accepting Shaul¡¯s identity into itself.


    Tomorrow morning, this woman will come here and get their child, Shaul and hers, pumped up her cervix. And she will raise him, maybe even into adulthood.


    This is what winning feels like, he tells himself as he leans on the workstation, feeling a chilly, hollow horror.


    The second time is easier.


    By the seventy-third time, he doesn¡¯t feel guilty at all¡ªlife is a competition, even if no one else has the balls to admit it. He knows they¡¯ll be sore losers, and he¡¯s right. The only surprise is how long it takes the cops to come to the clinic and arrest him.


    The judge acts superior, appalled by Shaul¡¯s obscene acts. But what does Shaul care about this man¡¯s opinion? How many children has he fathered? Shaul has fathered hundreds.


    He laughs in the faces of the judge and the two attorneys. Let them find solace in their anger, a paper-thin mask over their jealousy. Evolution has crowned him champion, an elite among the likes of Genghis Khan and King Solomon. What have they done with their life, compared to him?


    Getting thrown out of the asteroid is hardly a surprise. The first thing he sees is a woman chained to a pole, forced to perform a role. There is a sense of bitter comfort in finding out that the usual rules apply on the outside as well. This could have been a place to fight, a place to finally live his life by his instincts ¨C but he knows the game already. Whoever was out here before him has already secured power for themselves, either by technology or by grouping together, and if he goes against them, it¡¯ll do nothing but shorten his already short lifespan. And so, he retreats to a pattern of behavior that is painfully familiar, and looks for a place where he can wait for death to come and take him.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 18:11:05


    ¡°I still feel like shit,¡± Shaul said after turning his comm back on. He seemed better, though, without as much tension in his muscles.


    I, on the other hand, was shocked by his story. I hoped that I managed no to let my expression give away the disgust I had for him now. All of those people, all of those lives ruined, the unbelievable scope of it. A part of me thought that we shouldn¡¯t even ally ourselves with him, that I should tell the others what kind of person is among them. But if I wanted everyone to work together, to trust each other, I had to keep this to myself. Once again, I had to admit that Pythia knew what they were doing.


    ¡°If Yossi had the power to stop people from feeling like shit,¡± Alex said absently, ¡°I don¡¯t think he¡¯d be out here.¡± I turned and saw that he¡¯d lain down in the entrance to the cave, using a rock as a pillow. Was he napping? Here? There were four metal rods laying beside him, and the useless wreckage of a rocket. He hadn¡¯t wasted the time completely.


    ¡°I wonder if there¡¯s a way to get high in this suit,¡± Shual said abruptly. ¡°Change the ratio of gasses or something. Deprive the brain of oxygen, but not too much.¡± That reference to oxygen deprivation could have seemed innocent earlier, but now it inspired in me another flare of contempt. I wondered if Alex¡¯s instinctive hostility for Shaul was in fact some insight into the man¡¯s character.


    ¡°There is,¡± Alex said, quickly, as if he¡¯d thought about it before. He pushed himself off of the rock, into a stand. ¡°Or at least there should be.¡±


    Shaul turned to him. ¡°What is it?¡±


    Alex blinked hard, unable to rub his eyes. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you later.¡±


    Shaul raised his hands in frustration. ¡°Jesus, why?¡±


    Alex stretched his long, tree-like body. ¡°Positive fucking reinforcement. There¡¯s something we need to do first, and we don¡¯t owe you anything. If anything, you owe him.¡± He pointed at me as he said the last word. ?


    ¡°I don¡¯t care what you guys are planning: just tell me how to get fucking high before I die here,¡± he whined, then sighed to himself quietly. ¡°God, fuck this place so bad.¡±


    ¡°You will care,¡± I said, and only then did the realization fall into place: not only would he not raise any objections to killing Vempress, as Alex or David had, but he¡¯d kill her even if we told him not to, trying to squeeze another drop of pleasure from his final hours. For a moment I thought that I should warn Alex not to trust this man. I couldn¡¯t - that would clearly transgress against Pythia¡¯s rules. And if he did kill her, who would it hurt? Even better, it would prevent her from making any of us offers we could not refuse, if we did catch her.


    ¡°I doubt it,¡± Shaul answered.


    ¡°Alex,¡± I said, looking at my timer. ¡°I have to go. Can you explain things to him?¡±


    ¡°I guess,¡± he said.


    ¡°But not right now,¡± I added.


    ¡°I know, because of the¡­¡± he said, then made a motion of tapping on his helmet, avoiding using the word aloud. Elegant. ¡°Shaul, let¡¯s go into the cave, and see if there¡¯s anything useful in there.¡±


    ¡°Only if you tell me how to get high in this suit.¡±


    ¡°Deal. After you¡± Shaul turned to look at me, suddenly distant, as if he regretted telling me his life story.


    Alex waved casually and said, ¡°Have a nice day.¡±


    The cliffs were growing even more familiar. Not just familiar ¨C I was getting sick of taking the same paths back and forth. As I returned to the airlock, I started to feel a horrible sense of my hours being wasted on this work. David was right ¨C it was harder to see the hours pass slowly, spent on the tedious and mundane, rather than on the tension of threat or chase, or the exhilaration of plotting. Having enough spare time, enough spare mind, to realize what was happening was the real curse of this place.


    I tried staying focused on the plan, but instead was distracted by how both David and Alex had succeeded in calming down Rachel and Shaul. Talking to David and Alex had been so easy, and I¡¯d let myself believe that I had some talent for it. Now I had to admit that if the order they¡¯d arrived in had been different, things might not have worked at all. It annoyed me, and it annoyed me that I was annoyed.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 17:59:50


    David was standing alone by the airlock, waiting for the newcomers. He turned slowly to me when I landed a few steps away, his face illuminated for an instant in the flashing light. He looked tired, and I could see he¡¯d been crying. ¡°Where¡¯s Rachel?¡± I asked.


    He turned and pointed east, towards Ctesibius¡¯s cliff. ¡°She wanted to know what¡¯s u?p there.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t go with her.¡± It couldn¡¯t have been easy, being by himself with the bodies.


    His voice was hoarse when he answered. ¡°I didn¡¯t want anyone to be alone out here, when they face all of this for the first time. We decided we¡¯d meet in forty minutes, as counted by our oxygen timers.¡± He stopped for a moment. ¡°The question now is: Do I want that time to move quickly, or slowly?¡±


    I put my hand on his shoulder. ¡°That¡¯s a tough question,¡± I said. And after a moment of silence, I changed the subject. ¡°I was sure the new arrival would have come by now.¡±


    He put a hand over mine, pressing it into his shoulder, and turned up to look at me, grief in his eyes. ¡°They did.¡±


    ¡°They did?¡±


    ¡°She did. She¡¯s gone.¡±


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°She just...left. She didn¡¯t want to talk. I thought I was in danger, but then she took off. Ran away.¡± He looked out into the distance.


    ¡°And you didn¡¯t go after her?¡±


    He shook his head. ¡°She was too fast.¡±


    I allowed myself a grunt of real, guttural frustration. ¡°I knew I shouldn¡¯t have stayed there so long. Fuck.¡±


    ¡°Trust me, Yossi: There¡¯s nothing you could have done. Even if it had been the two of us, it wouldn¡¯t have helped.¡±


    And yet¡­ My mind flashed with images of Vempress killing human beings with the ease with which I¡¯d open a cartoon of milk, toying with Dov and Yahushua. It would be better to have six of us, instead of five. ¡°Where did she go? I could still catch her if I used the jet¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yossi,¡± he said, with an authority that I wouldn¡¯t have guessed he had in him. ¡°Leave it.¡±


    Vempress had known, even as Diocletian, that some people wouldn¡¯t come around, but I still thought that I could talk her out of it, if I tried.


    David squeezed my hand, then lifted it off his shoulder. ¡°You know, it¡¯s pretty basic to give depressives something to look forward to, some future worth waiting for. I think that¡¯s what you¡¯re doing for yourself.¡±


    ¡°I think you did that for yourself too, didn¡¯t you? When you talked to Rachel, earlier, you seemed so¡­ engaged, knowing exactly what needs to be done. You looked like you¡¯ve forgotten where you are.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I was glad that I could be there. You should have seen the look in her eyes when she started talking about¡­¡± He paused for a moment and looked out east to Ctesibius¡¯s cliff. ¡°The future. Like a fire in her was lit. I think she would have gone up there even if I asked her not to.¡± There was a glint in his eye, and the side of his lip curled upwards.


    ¡°And yet¡­¡± I started saying, an echo of what he¡¯d said to me. And yet you know that she¡¯ll suffocate.


    He nodded quickly, eyes squinting, as if he were swallowing something bitter. ¡°Yeah. But it¡¯s enough that I have something to do. I¡¯m not asking for anything more. Anyway¡ªI¡¯m guessing you¡¯re going to talk to her; You want to see who she is.¡±


    I nodded. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t leave you here, though.¡±


    ¡°Go. I¡¯ll be fine.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure?¡± In a flash, I remembered what it had been like to play chess with Tsur, when he was ten, or twelve. Before each game, I offer him to take out one of the pieces from my side. Not the queen, that would be too much, but a rook or a bishop. He refuses each time, saying that he wants to play fairly. And still, I keep offering. I know that he won¡¯t accept, and still I offer. Not in order for him to change his mind, but just so that when he loses, he will have a sense of pride of having lost on his own terms, of having chosen to walk the hard path.


    Someone with half a brain would see in that a tendency to be merciless towards himself. Unfortunately, he had gotten me for a father.


    We looked at each other long enough for it to become weird. Long enough for it to become something that happened, an event; that time that I looked into David¡¯s eyes and felt like he was looking through me. ¡°I¡¯m sure,¡± he said at last. ¡°Go.¡±

 Ctesibius II

    Estimated oxygen time: 17:57:39


    I flew low towards Ctesibius, making myself a bit harder to spot against the backdrop of the sky. If Vempress saw me making my way towards the cliff, would she stop me? As if the ghost of Ctesibius still dwelled there, and the ghost of Diocletian still feared its conspiracies. The jet quickly shot me up the cliff, and stopped me just as easily.


    The entrance to Ctesibius¡¯s cave didn¡¯t change, aside from some for some of the lights having been turned off, but that was enough. I entered through the mouth and kicked clumsily from wall to scatter-lit wall. With each kick I recalled more of what had happened here¡ªCtesibius¡¯s First drawing a knife to kill one Diocletian; Second trying to get the other one with his torch; Diocletian murdering Third in a cloud of metal shards; First¡¯s confident expression behind her rifle, certain that Diocletian would just sit down and talk.


    Ctesibius¡¯s mistake had been expecting Diocletian to see reason. I wasn¡¯t going to make the same mistake with Vempress.


    The hall at the end of the tunnel was full of soft, yellow light, the luxurious bulb that Ctesibius afforded themselves, now weakened, enough that I could see that it was no light bulb, just a single exposed wire, heated. Strange, that Vempress hadn¡¯t taken all of the batteries for herself. Maybe she hadn¡¯t found them.


    In the light, I saw Rachel crouching over the piles of debris, her body half hidden in shadow. She fumbled, her movements methodical and efficient, with the shattered and smelted devices, things that had taken days to build, ruined in mere minutes. I recognized Vempress¡¯s style in the conservative way pieces of equipment had been welded together as to become unusable.


    Rachel started when she finally saw my shadow cast over her, then steadied her gaze on my face, trying to hide her startlement. The one fierce brown eye I could see, still bloodshot from crying, revealed her anger. At Vempress, or at Ceres, or even at me. It was much better than the panic she¡¯d shown, the last time I¡¯d seen her. There was a vitality in her movements. Power.


    ¡°How did David do?¡± she asked, her tone casual, though her lips were pursed in impatience.


    ¡°With what?¡± I said as I stepped closer.


    ¡°The newcomer. He was excited about it.¡± Her eyes were back on the debris pile.


    ¡°He didn¡¯t get to try. She didn¡¯t want to talk; she just ran away.¡± I walked closer, realized my shadow was blocking the light on the pile she was looking through, then stepped aside. Ctesibius¡¯s main hall was different without the people in it, working on this and that. Too quiet. In one corner I noticed the device Ctesibius had offered to use on me¡ªthe small bubble to take my helmet off, now slashed open and useless.


    ¡°Weird,¡± Rachel said.


    ¡°It has to happen every once in a while. I¡¯m sure he did everything he could.¡±


    ¡°No, I meant why are we even surprised? How can we trust anyone, out here?¡±


    ¡°With David, it¡¯s easy. All you need to do is look at him and see how much it all matters to him,¡± I said. She had made it clear that she likes him. Maybe our trust in David was something we could bond over.


    ¡°That¡¯s the thing, right? You trust David because of those puppy eyes, but I don¡¯t have puppy eyes.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re here, aren¡¯t you? Isn¡¯t that proof enough?¡±


    ¡°I was curious, so I came here. But I don¡¯t understand how you two can convince yourself to care. I wish I could. What does it matter, what we do here? Nina told me about the shuttle, and the thousands of names that were signed on it. Thousands of people who¡¯ve come here and died. Even if we helped one person, which I doubt, it¡¯ll amount to nothing, weighed against those people who have didn¡¯t get shit. David told me you want to change this place, to have some order and jobs and roles, but even if you did, what would it matter?¡± She held on to her helmet with both of her hands, and shook it. A loose strand of her curly hair settled on her face, but she didn¡¯t seem to notice. ¡°It makes me nauseous just to think about all that¡¯s happened here,¡± she said, glancing again at a pile of bent metal and broken electronics. ¡°And the future makes me claustrophobic. Jesus.¡±


    ¡°Why are you doing this with us?¡±


    She looked up at me for a moment, then back down at her hands. ¡°Because the world is full of cowards. Every world, even this weird, little one. I can¡¯t change how other people think, but I can try to be a little less weak than the rest. You want to correct the world? Just think about what it is that a coward wouldn¡¯t do, and do that.¡± She pulled a long line of suit material out of a pile, spooling it around one arm like an electric cable.


    ¡°If it won¡¯t matter, why do anything at all?¡±


    ¡°Justice,¡± she said, and I cut her in, waving my hands to let her know we should stop. Did David not tell her that we¡¯ re being tapped? We¡¯re conspiring against Vempress, we could at the very least pretend not to. Or does she just not care?


    ¡°What do you mean, justice?¡± I let the terror show on my face, mouthed no, no, no. I tapped my ear for emphasis.


    She grimaced, as if my wanting not to be heard was some spineless, sycophantic groveling and not simple caution, but in the end nodded slowly. ¡°You and David were kind to me, and I¡¯ll do you justice by helping you rebuild the lines,¡± she said¡ªlying for David¡¯s and my benefit. ¡°It¡¯s my last chance to make an actual impact.¡± She put a gloved fist into a gloved hand, to signify her true intention.


    ¡°Not the last,¡± I said. ¡°After we¡¯re done with¡­ the building of the lines, we could build more things. A lot of people chose to spend their last day in this cave, making useful thing. You could do that, too.¡±


    ¡°Useful? What the hell could be useful here? If there isn¡¯t anything that gets someone back inside, that helps someone survive, how is a piece of metal going to help anyone? And if you say you also want to siphon oxygen from people, I swear to god¡­¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t. I swear.¡± I haven¡¯t even thought about that option. The only thing that seemed worse than living as Vempress¡¯s pet was killing to stay here.


    She sighed, the anger draining out of her. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have come here. I should have stayed with David. Taken that last chance¡­¡± She stopped, as if she suddenly realized where her words were leading, and wasn¡¯t quite ready to go there yet. .


    ¡°What last chance?¡±


    She bit her lip. ¡°This is a place of last chances¡ªto hold someone in your arms, or laugh or sing, or speak your mind. To do something right. I wouldn¡¯t have given away any of those chances for all of the water ice in the asteroid belt¡ªbut I gave it up because he asked me to.¡± I wasn¡¯t quite sure what she meant, but I had a feeling I would if I just let her continue. ¡°And here I am, wasting my time looking through this trash because someone decided they want to do things the soft way. Because they don¡¯t want things to get rough.¡± She looked directly at me, making it very clear what she was talking about. This society hasn¡¯t even formed yet, and it already has its open secrets. ¡°So what the hell, dude? I understand David,¡± her expression softened the smallest bit every time she said the name. ¡°He¡¯s a gentle soul¡ªbut you?¡±


    I smiled. That one conversation with David was enough for her to figure out that he really wouldn¡¯t want to kill anyone, no matter where. But she wanted to kill Vempress, too, and didn¡¯t understand why I¡¯d be against it. ¡°It doesn¡¯t make much sense, does it?¡±


    ¡°No, it doesn¡¯t,¡± she said, her eyebrows rising slightly, her tone suspicious.


    We couldn¡¯t say much else out loud, and some instinct told me not to put our helmets together yet; not to strain her trust that much, just yet. ¡°What would you have done?¡± I asked. ¡°If you were in my position?¡±


    Her eyes told me everything I needed to know about her thought process: they blinked in confusion, then narrowed as she realized what I might be suggesting, then widened in disbelief, then closed. ¡°Not the same thing you would,¡± she said finally.


    Would someone eavesdropping understand what we were talking about? I wondered. ¡°I understand. Let me show you something, then.¡±


    She followed me reluctantly to the inner chamber. Here, too, everything was in shambles, the lab turned into heaps of trash, the once ordered and useful now chaotic and useless.


    I floated near the wall, tracing the grooves and gouges left by a drilling machine that had left ages ago.


    ¡°I thought we were in a hurry,¡± she said, as I found the hand-hold I¡¯d been looking for. I placed my feet against the floor and pushed that segment of the wall upwards. It detached cleanly, exposing the hidden room Ctesibius had shown me so long ago.


    ¡°What are you doing there?¡± she asked, unable to see clearly. I put the piece of wall down. It took me a moment to find the loose wires that served as a switch, but finally the lights went up.


    She approached the opening, and The Egg. ¡°What the hell?¡±


    ¡°Can you imagine how many days that took to build?¡± I said, sounding like Ctesibius once had.


    She didn¡¯t appear to share my sense of wonder. ¡°What is that?¡±


    ¡°A handmade spaceship. It¡¯s just missing a couple of components.¡±


    Her eyebrows furrowed in consternation. ¡°Were they getting help from the inside?¡±


    ¡°No. They did it all by themselves, adding a piece each day. Their name was Ctesibius. They couldn¡¯t get the microbes they needed to make that thing sustainable, but believed that one day, they¡¯d find a way, and send someone far enough to forget about this place. They united around that cause. They didn¡¯t even tell the others about it. They pretended to be selfish, when in reality they had a much larger goal in mind. Dreaming of the one person who¡¯d get banished to Last Day Town to die, and instead would get sent far away from here. Instead of drowning in despair, they all worked together just to help one.¡± I brushed the metal scaffolding, feeling a pinch in my chest.


    She snorted. ¡°That¡¯s it? That¡¯s the comfort? It looks like something out of a nightmare. I¡¯d rather stay here and choke than get sent up there in a coffin.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not asking you to go up there, I¡¯m asking if you¡¯d want to build it, so someone else will.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t. Even if I did, I wouldn¡¯t have the time.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t be alone, that¡¯s the point. More people will join Ctesibius, and once your time is up they will recruit others, and it will all be thanks to you. What you build isn¡¯t the thing itself, but how people get to spend their time.¡±


    ¡°And you expect me to look forward to building that? Because I¡¯m not.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re clearly still looking backwards. Ctesibius isn¡¯t just a crazy idea, it¡¯s person after person choosing to put their past behind for something greater. And when I look at you, I see someone who isn¡¯t letting the past go. You¡¯re bothered, and I need you sharp. This place needs you sharp.¡±


    ¡°This place doesn¡¯t need me. It doesn¡¯t need anything. You wantt me to look forward¡­ to what? To building that? Because I¡¯m not.¡±


    ¡°No, I want you to look forward to looking forward¡­¡±


    She shook her head again. ¡°You¡¯re even sadder than I thought. I don¡¯t have time for this.¡± She kicked off the wall, back towards the piles.


    I changed the course of the conversation as I followed her. ¡°Did David tell you about Pythia¡¯s duty? About confession?¡±


    ¡°He told me the basics,¡± she said, then stopped herself against a wall. The light lit her face, and she looked shy, as if she were hiding something. ¡°But we said we¡¯d talk about it once we regrouped.¡±


    ¡°Confession is a tricky thing, and Last Day Town understood this. That¡¯s why people working together never got to hear each other¡¯s confession, so they won¡¯t be judged by each other. We have all done things we¡¯re not proud of. The confession is first and foremost about you telling the story to yourself, but in order for you to tell it truly, you need a listener whose opinion doesn¡¯t bother you too much.¡±


    ¡°Like you?¡±


    ¡°You tell me.¡±


    ¡°How do I know you won¡¯t tell anyone? Use it against me?¡±


    ¡°Then I¡¯d hurt myself more than you. Pythia have nothing if not their trustworthiness. So are you ready?¡±


    ¡°What¡ªright now? I thought you said there isn¡¯t time.¡±


    ¡°There isn¡¯t, but there¡¯s even less time for you to be confused and unsure about what it is you want to do here. We can¡¯t afford to be unfocused.¡±


    She hesitated. ¡°Aren¡¯t there more pressing things to focus on?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but that¡¯s why this ritual¡¯s so important. We can let go of the past and focus on the now.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t feel like talking.¡±


    ¡°Not even if it helps you make a bigger impact?¡±


    She sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll try. But no promises.¡±


    I bowed before her, and put my hands behind my back. She proceeded carefully, and put her helmet to mine. ¡°In the name¡­¡±


    #


    Dina puts the piece of paper under her tongue. It¡¯s an archaic method of ingesting the drug, but she looks so goddamn cool¡ªher thick eyelashes quiver as almond colored-and-shaped eyes look up, red tongue slamming down over the paper; like the slab of a sarcophagus, thick lips closing like a tight seal. She sends Rachel a kiss all the way across the room ¡°Psychedelics are the only way to commit suicide without making your mother cry,¡± she says. Her head tilts to one side, letting her black hair fall over her cheek.


    ¡°Is that yours?¡± Rachel sits down on the bed, looking at Dina as she dissolves and becomes someone slightly different. It used to scare Rachel, seeing her like this.


    It¡¯s the end of another hard day at the same old hard job: monitoring cooks who try to cut her product or take shortcuts on her recipe; micromanaging couriers who refuse to take the longer, safer routes; scripting her customer service professionals to make sure they tell the bored, anxious wage workers who are the heart of her clientele everything they need to hear to keep using; and her least favorite¡ªbargaining with mafia dogs who threaten to take a bigger piece of the pie than they already do.


    By the time she can let her guard down and be herself for a little while, she¡¯s too exhausted to do anything but sit on the edge of the bed and keep from falling asleep. Dina¡¯s standing, long arms bent behind her, hands resting on the counter, sharp hip bones poking though her jeans. It¡¯s as if she¡¯s unfazed by their day, as if she let it slip by her, through her, without it taking anything away or leaving anything behind. She closes her eyes, and Rachel knows she¡¯s feeling the chemical dissolving in her blood stream, in her brain. ¡°Does it matter?¡± she responds, her voice is peaceful, nirvanic.


    ¡°Well,¡± Rachel says, trying to sound as sophisticated as Dina seems, ¡°if you died since the first time you thought about it, it isn¡¯t yours, but it isn¡¯t anyone else¡¯s either.¡±


    ¡°Correct,¡± Dina says. ¡°But it doesn¡¯t really do that anymore. It used to. Every time was like diving into death, and having someone else swim back to shore.¡±


    ¡°This has to be one of your worst pitches. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s something you could say that could make it sound less appealing.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± Her gorgeous eyes open, mesmerizing Rachel. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t it be nice to know that tonight you go to sleep, and someone else will wake up in your body tomorrow to do the things you¡¯re afraid of doing? Wouldn¡¯t it be¡­ relaxing?¡±


    ¡°No!¡± Rachel laughs, but she means what she¡¯s saying. ¡°I want to live my life. If I die tonight, who cares who¡¯ll do my job tomorrow. I¡¯d rather just kill myself properly, my mom be damned.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯re alright with what we¡¯re doing?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not really killing anyone. And even if we were, they would have had it coming. Yeah, they would. They wasted their lives standing by while Ceres was going to shit, and now they¡¯re all going to die unless we do something about it. Fuck. Them.¡±


    Dina nods, and smiles that confident, sexy smile of hers, ever relaxed, ever sure of herself, never faltering or anxious or afraid or anything that Rachel naturally, constantly is. Rachel tries not to let it show on her face how much that nod and smile mean to her.


    ¡°Wow,¡± Dina says flatly. ¡°You¡¯re so cold blooded. I don¡¯t know if I even feel safe in here with you,¡±


    ¡°Fuck you,¡± Rachel says, and laughs again. She¡¯d be afraid that other people wouldn¡¯t be able to tell the difference between one ¡®fuck¡¯ and another, that they wouldn¡¯t follow what she meant. Not Dina, though.


    ¡°So it wouldn¡¯t have mattered to you this much if we used poison instead of Acid? Then why did it take me so long to convince you?¡±


    ¡°I would have, if we¡¯d had to. If it was the only way to survive, I would have helped you commit genocide.¡±


    ¡°Luckily, we can make do with culture-cide,¡± Dina says, obviously pleased with her own cleverness.


    Rachel wonders if it would have sounded clever if anyone else had said it.


    ¡°But really, are you ok?¡± Dina¡¯s now concerned, as if her sharpened senses have caught some process going on in Rachel that she hasn¡¯t quite realized herself.


    ¡°I¡¯m just¡­ I¡¯m getting dizzy. I can¡¯t fully grasp what we¡¯re doing here. It¡¯s like¡­ It¡¯s too big for my brain to hold it all in.¡±


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    ¡°You feel guilty,¡± she says, and Rachel doesn¡¯t deny it. ¡°Because you¡¯re subjecting them to something you won¡¯t go through, yourself.¡±


    ¡°Is it so bad that I¡¯d rather not die? I¡¯ll do what it takes, when it¡¯s time.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± Dina says, her voice sweet, ¡°because it is.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not serious.¡±


    ¡°Deadly so. I got the codes.¡±


    Talk about dizziness, huh? Rachel can¡¯t believe this is really happening. ¡°You didn¡¯t even tell me you had an approach.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know either.¡±


    ¡°Well then, where did it come from?¡±


    ¡°Do you remember the girl from my kindergarten, whose mother went missing?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, the daughter of some important minister. It was on the news, right?¡±


    ¡°The daughter of the chief director of the ministry of air, yes. She started crying today, and when I took her to another room to quiet down, she started talking about how she thinks daddy might have done something to mommy the night she disappeared.¡±


    ¡°And what did you do?¡±


    ¡°I recorded it, of course. He was more than willing to send the codes after I sent him a clip of that, though he insisted that it was a fake and would never hold in court. I don¡¯t think he knew that she¡¯d seen it happen. We¡¯ll go in the morning, before he gets any ideas.¡±


    That¡¯s Dina for you. Acting in the moment, seizing opportunity as it arises and barely taking any pride in it. Not only did she nail it, but she didn¡¯t even seem that eager to tell Rachel. If their roles were turned, Rachel would have started bragging before even closing the door behind her. Even though Rachel has essentially become a drug kingpin from her tiny apartment, rediscovering manufacturing schemes that were lost when Earth was abandoned, she knew that she would¡¯ve never gotten there without Dina holding her hand, confident enough for the both of them. Will I ever be like you? Rachel¡¯s afraid to ask out loud.


    Dina looks at her. Her expression is blank, her eyes calm like two little ponds, peering into depths unknown. Driven by some otherworldly intuition, she quotes:


    Your desire to remain as you are is what ultimately limits you.


    And the words flash a light unto Rachel¡¯s soul, and in that light she sees herself, whole.


    Rachel has been a coward for a long time, and Dina has been more than patient¡ªshe hasn¡¯t pressured her at all, even when they moved in together to save for the project, even when they started sleeping in the same bed. Dina has a way of showing what she wants without being demanding¡ªand it¡¯s an undeniable fact that Dina, so much cooler, so much wiser, wants Rachel. Wants her close, wants to love her, wants to be loved by her, wants to fuck her so hard she¡¯ll forget what part of the solar system they¡¯re in. Rachel has said that she doesn¡¯t know what she feels; that she loves Dina, but she doesn¡¯t know how; that she needs more time to think about it. Dina always nods and understands.


    But there¡¯s no more time. There¡¯s nothing left to wait for, nothing to think about.


    She gets off the bed, taking one scared step after the other. Her eyes are on Dina¡¯s knees, but she can see the smiling lips at the edge of her vision. When she raises her eyes to Dina¡¯s, Dina¡¯s are closed. There¡¯s something to be said about the way she leaves herself open, completely vulnerable, while somehow making Rachel feel like the one without power.


    Rachel¡¯s almost touching Dina now, feeling the energy radiating off her, even in motionlessness. Rachel wants to be like that more than anything. She touches her lips to hers, gently, then harder, and Dina, as pliant as the surface of water, lets her proceed.


    But Rachel feels nothing. No fire in her guts, no lust¡ªso she pushes more, using her tongue to pry open Dina¡¯s lips, and Dina stops yielding and grabs Rachel by the hair (palm flattened against the back of her scalp and closed into a fist, a grip that¡¯s confident but not painful), pulling her back, thrusting her tongue into Rachel¡¯s mouth, but still nothing happens; no birds singing, no roar or raw desire. Maybe if she just gave it more time; if Dina kissed her harder, held her tighter¡­


    In the end, it¡¯s Dina who pulls back. Their lips detach but stay close. Dina¡¯s still holding the small of Rachel¡¯s back, the back of her head, though her grip has lightened into a caress. Rachel¡¯s hand rests limply on Dina¡¯s shoulder.


    Dina takes a deep breath. ¡°This isn¡¯t working for you¡±¡ªa soft whisper, warm against her cheek.


    Rachel represses the instinct to apologize. ¡°I wish it did,¡± she says, hoping that the words will bring some comfort.


    ¡°You tried. Now we know.¡±


    ¡°I¡ª¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s go to sleep, ok?¡± Dina says. She goes to brush her teeth, slowly enough that it doesn¡¯t seem like she¡¯s running away, and Rachel watches her, and feels a dark, disturbing question rise in her, hidden in shadow. What is it? She searches the deep pools of her own heart, finds nothing.


    Rachel is the little spoon, as always, like a ritual they both know. Dina¡¯s warmth against her back is comforting, familiar. ¡°I love you,¡± Rachel whispers in the darkness.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t think otherwise,¡± Dina says, and Rachel can hear the smile in her voice, but she can also hear the distance, like there¡¯s a wall between them. Still, Dina clutches Rachel closer, pressing her belly to Rachel¡¯s back and the front of her thighs to the back of Rachel¡¯s thighs, and Rachel thinks that she feels, against her butt, the warmth of Dina¡¯s pussy, radiating like an engine revved up but left to idle, all of that excitement and anticipation pumped in preparation for an event that won¡¯t happen.


    For a moment Rachel thinks that she should give it another try, see if she can¡¯t get in the mood. But what¡¯s the point? Why make Dina even less comfortable than she already is?


    But then, just as she¡¯s about to fall asleep, the half¡ªno, quarter dose of Acid she scraped from under Dina¡¯s tongue finally hits her.


    First, the feeling is of becoming alive, of becoming real, but then there¡¯s an expansion, as if her imagination can carry more, encompass more. What she experiences is not as intense as a hallucination, but not as mild as a daydream; she feels that she could open her eyes and shake herself out of it whenever she wants.


    The blackness under her eyelids reshapes into complex geometrical forms, architectures that make no sense, until they do. She finds herself looking from above at a little lab¡ªa room with clean floors and bright white lighting, with a spacious cage in its center. Within the cage, six pinkish-grey rhesus monkeys sit and groom each other, looking alert and somewhat nervous. Above them, by the roof of the cage, a robotic water sprinkler waits. Rachel recognizes this experiment¡ªshe read through it with Dina a long time ago, though it took her a couple of late-night discussions to fully understand its significance.


    A man in a white lab coat lowers a bunch of bananas through a hatch in the cage ceiling. One of the monkeys darts towards it as soon as the researcher pulls his hand back through the hatch.


    Rachel remembers the methodology¡ªthe sprinkler is there to provide negative reinforcement, spraying all of the monkeys with water to teach them that touching the bananas is bad. But when it happens, it¡¯s nothing like she imagined¡ªthe water shoots out with excessive force and keeps going, targeting their noses and mouths, going from one to the other while the monkeys try to run or hide behind one another. Their voices, high-pitched and scared, might as well have been the voices of babies crying in her ears.


    Finally, it¡¯s over. The wet, shaken monkeys huddle together, comforting each other with caresses and hugs. Another researcher opens the door of the cage and pulls a monkey out. They walk hand in hand, the rhesus monkey surprisingly obedient, until they reach the wall of cages at the end of the room. The researcher puts the monkey back in his personal cage and takes one from another cage, and they walk back to where the experiment is taking place. The new monkey climbs in quickly and the researcher closes the door behind her.


    A second researcher sits by the sprinkler controls, staring amusedly at a screen Rachel can¡¯t see, eating a banana.


    The new monkey spends a moment greeting the others in the cage, then, confused as to how no one else has thought of it, start shuffling towards the bananas resting in the corner. The other monkeys place their little hands on her, grabbing her arms or pulling her fur. She makes a confused, distressed sound, and there is a short but vocal conflict. Soon enough, she understands the will of her brethren and gives up.


    Only after they quiet down does the researcher again take one of the monkeys away, and brings another. The process repeats¡ªreaching for the banana, getting physically stopped, a little shouting match. The monkey that only a moment ago reached for the banana is now screeching at the newer, more ignorant monkey for having tried to do the same. Rachel notices the way she glances sidelong at the others to make sure that she¡¯s in line with them, that she¡¯s doing it right, that they don¡¯t know that she has no idea why they¡¯re shouting the new monkey down. Finally, the new monkey gives up his efforts, and the group becomes civilized again.


    The process repeats six times, until there¡¯s not one monkey in the cage that saw the original spraying and knows why bananas are forbidden. All they know is that it¡¯s very important no one touches them, and it¡¯s up to them to make sure.


    When the sixth monkey is taken out, Rachel¡¯s perspective drops until she¡¯s not looking from above, but from the eye level of one of the scientists, and then lower, from inside a cage by the wall.


    ¡°Go on,¡± a man in white lab coat says to her, as he hunches down to open the cage door. He leads her by the hand to the larger cage, where the experiment is being held. The man monitoring the sprinkler is packing his bags. The scientist calls out to him, ¡°Yiftah: you going already?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I shut it down after the first shot. The thing,¡± he waves a hand towards the group (no, not the group, but something that resides among the group, between its members), ¡°more or less runs by itself.¡±


    The hand she¡¯s holding rises a little, as the researcher shrugs. ¡°Your funeral,¡± he says, then opens the door to the cage. Rachel doesn¡¯t want to enter, but she knows that¡¯s what¡¯s expected of her, so she does. The latch clicks behind her.


    The others eye her suspiciously. She doesn¡¯t go over to groom them, and they don¡¯t come over to her. Not until she looks at the cluster of bananas. The turn of her head is enough to activate them all, ready to teach her a lesson. She looks back at them, trying to feign relaxation and disinterest, but they aren¡¯t buying it. Their eyes track her every move.


    Fuck it. She dives for the bananas.


    Ten hands get in her way, pull at her clothes and hair and wrap around her throat, lift her up in the air as the monkeys scream at her, their faces condemning her for breaking their traditions, for daring to think her own thoughts.


    She bites the arm closest to her mouth, thick fur between her teeth, rubbing against her tongue. The monkey pulls back his arm and smacks her in the face, the pain surprisingly real.


    She thrashes as hard as she can, landing one monkey with a kick right between the eyes and knocking it back, but it¡¯s no use. They toss her against the wire wall of the cage. She¡¯s out of their hold, but they block her, towering over her, as if she somehow became smaller. She can still see a flash of yellow between the wall of furry limbs. She slams her body against them¡ªif only to prove to herself that she hasn¡¯t given up¡ªand they knock her back down, taunting her to get up again, proud in their ignorance.


    This is what Dina must have seen already. This is what she already knows. Faintly, back in the real world, she feels her body being held, hugged from behind. She¡¯s here, Rachel remembers. Dina¡¯s here.


    And there she is, in the dream, standing above Rachel, tall and proud, and Rachel feels even more weak and pathetic for what she let them do to her. Dina smiles that smile that she knows so well, that says she accepts Rachel as she is, with all of her stupidity and weakness.


    Dina claps her hands, not a thunderous sound but a snap, breaking the monkeys¡¯ concentration. They look confused, reawakened, like they can¡¯t remember why they¡¯re doing what they¡¯re doing, and they fall back. Rachel stumbles to her feet and looks at Dina, who nods, the smallest movement of her chin, towards the bananas.


    The monkeys follow with their eyes as Rachel crosses the floor of the cage, as if it¡¯s perfectly natural. She peels a banana in two slow, confident motions, but wakes up before she gets to sink her teeth into its flesh. Her mind must not have been prepared to simulate what success tastes like.


    When she opens her eyes, she¡¯s wrapped in Dina¡¯s arms. ¡°You¡¯re safe,¡± Dina whispers, ¡°I love you. You¡¯re safe, I love you,¡± again and again. Rachel must have moved in her sleep, or said something.


    ¡°I bet you do, you slut,¡± Rachel mumbles, half asleep, and her eyes close again to the sound of Dina¡¯s laughter.


    When she wakes up in the morning, Dina¡¯s standing, looking intently at a map of air piping, at its tight turns and dense notations, going over it and over again, tracing different trajectories with her finger as if they were the wrinkles of complex, manifold genitalia. She¡¯s assessing the different times at which the laced air will hit different parts of the asteroid via the distance the air will have to go, but Rachel thinks that even Dina has a capacity to dream, to romanticize, to fantasize about the moment after their success. ¡°It¡¯s all so close,¡± she whispers in that voice she has when her focus is absolute, when Rachel could piss on her floor and she wouldn¡¯t notice. ¡°This world is so small, so connected.¡±


    And it¡¯s a good thing that it is -- their plan wouldn¡¯t make any sense, otherwise.


    Dina puts the screen down and leans against the counter behind her, stretching to hold the tall surface, shifting her weight from side to side like a spider. Rachel remembers trying that pose, how uncomfortable it is, as if her spine and Dina¡¯s are made of completely different materials.


    Her gaze turns from not acknowledging Rachel¡¯s existence to suddenly acknowledging nothing but it. ¡°You ready?¡± Dina grunts, her voice low and smooth and feral.


    ¡°Hell yeah,¡± Rachel says, and for once, she feels as confident as she¡¯s trying to seem.


    Dina puts another tab under her tongue. Rachel considers telling her about the dream she had had last night, but there¡¯s no need. In the deepest sense, Dina already knows. ¡°You¡¯re going to finish the entire payload, if you keep this up.¡±


    ¡°A hundred million doses; that¡¯s quite a high,¡± she says, and smirks. Her eyes dart towards the two suitcases waiting by the door. Rachel¡¯s eyes follow.


    Lysergic acid is a highly specific drug, pharmaceutical jargon meaning that it reacts only with the receptors in the brain it needs to affect, which happen to be the same serotonin receptors that the brain auto-activates while dreaming. The same receptors that are important when it comes to revaluating deep-seated beliefs. In practical terms, six kilograms are enough to blast one hundred million people out of their minds, and change their minds about what society does to them and what they do to others. To make them ask themselves if they know why they¡¯re keeping other monkeys from reaching for the pile of bananas.


    Many people have gone through the process: freed themselves of shackles and saw for themselves, unclouded, only to slowly but surely let society bend them back to the same crooked, unnatural form they had before. Let¡¯s say, for example, that you realize that it¡¯s insane to pay rent for a volume of space. Oxygen makes sense, because somebody needs to mine water-ice and run an electric current for the electrolysis process, though it¡¯s still pretty bad that it¡¯s a monopoly, but how does it make sense that they¡¯re making us pay for space, every month? How can anyone own it in the first place? And because all of Ceres belongs to someone, it¡¯s insane that you have to choose between renting or dying. So you realize that it¡¯s not the space that you¡¯re paying for¡ªyou¡¯re paying not to be thrown out. Having that revelation, you try to talk to people about it, but nobody wants to listen.


    That¡¯s just the way it is. Nothing we can do about it, they say, or: What are you complaining about? You have a good job! And after a while, you stop bringing it up, and at some point you forget it even angered you, and when someone brings it up with you, you only shrug, defeated.


    And that happens every time someone tries to change our basic assumptions about culture, they get shut down, condemned heretics or weirdos, excused for being romantics or just young. (Either that, or they make the rebellion modest enough that society accepts it as a sort of harmless, amusing fringe.)


    Not Rachel, though. Rachel knows she¡¯ll keep the fire alive. She always has, even without drugs, somehow stoking the innermost chambers of her heart with that flame of refusal¡ªa simple non-acceptance of the way things are, keeping it alive even in the toughest cold, even at the desk job, even as a drug dealer running a mean, cut-throat business. She always remembers the only reason to stay in this shitty world is to fix it.


    Dina says that, among the monkeys, there¡¯s a spectrum between being completely obedient and completely defiant. Some reach for the bananas many times and have to be stopped violently. Others don¡¯t try to reach for them at all, reading the cues off the other monkeys, but will be the first to stop others¡ªwith violence, if needed. Obedience doesn¡¯t mean non-aggression.


    Rachel doesn¡¯t think it¡¯s just that, but that a person¡¯s character, whether sophisticated or brutishly simplistic, can be summed up in as little as one sentence. For most people, that sentence is ¡°Why even bother?¡± or ¡°It¡¯s not my fault.¡± For some it¡¯s ¡°I deserve everything¡±, and others add ¡°If I work hard enough¡±. Whatever that sentence is, it guides their work, their love life, the way they treat their friends.


    For Rachel? She thinks her sentence is something like ¡°Will you fight?¡±


    Will you fight, or will you perish without leaving a mark? Will you fight, or will you end your life knowing that you haven¡¯t even tried to fix the world? And, on nights when she¡¯s feeling particularly vicious¡ªWill you fight, or will you lie on your back and take it, like the coward that you are?


    And she will fight. She¡¯ll have her revenge for thousands of years of society devouring its hosts. She will kill culture itself, fucking parasite that it is. One good hit; that¡¯s all it would take. And that¡¯s what Acid does to you. It kills you. Dina¡¯s right: It kills what you were, and puts in your place someone fresh and new, with your memories. Rachel knows she¡¯s going to commit murder¡ªmass murder, even. But she doesn¡¯t feel bad for the people she¡¯s about to kill, any more than she feels bad for the person she once was.


    And it¡¯ll be worth it. One freed person will eventually let society scare them back into place, but if everyone¡¯s freed at the same time, there¡¯s no one to push back. The monkeys will realize that the threat no longer exists; that they¡¯re free, and can live happily together, eating bananas. Easy to imagine the utopia that will arrive, after the operation¡ªafter political, societal, and sexual norms are re-examined and remade. A place where compassion and free thought are commonplace, once the unnatural cruelty and coldness that we¡¯ve been teaching each other is discarded, and society realizes what a fruitless struggle it¡¯s been engaged in, sister against brother, while the orchestrators watched from above and laughed.


    If they succeed, Dina and Rachel will save these people¡ªthey will save Ceres, before it sinks completely into selfish chaos. Yet her fingers shake as they close around the suitcase¡¯s handle. She¡¯s always been a coward. That much hasn¡¯t changed. But she¡¯s a courageous coward now. Will she fight? She tightens her grip on the plastic. Yes. Yes, she will.


    The plan is that they strike at two different hubs at the same time, making it harder for the authorities to catch them as well as stop the flow of oxygen in time. The routes are not in the same length, so Rachel gets on her way first (of course she volunteered to take the longer walk), and Dina should leave thirteen minutes later. She hugs Dina with everything she has, and Dina kisses her on the cheek, smirking again.


    The walk is long and lonely, but Dina¡¯s with her, she reminds herself. She¡¯s always with Rachel, wherever she is.


    Eventually she arrives at the air-main monitoring hub and puts her thumb in the fingerprint reader by the door. Just like they were promised, the door unlocks. But the room behind it isn¡¯t empty like she was told it would be: It¡¯s full to the brim with police officers.


    She¡¯s on the floor in seconds, slammed hard into the ground, cuffed and secured so tightly she can¡¯t even attempt to struggle. They seem to be taking some pleasure in confining her, keeping just enough weight on her that she can keep breathing, barely. They don¡¯t outright beat her, but they make sure she regrets whatever she did to put herself under their knees.


    The shock and grief of having her dreams shattered doesn¡¯t hit her yet. Maybe Dina did better on her side? Rachel will be locked up, but maybe Dina will succeed. Once society is changed, they¡¯ll release her, right?


    She spends the first couple of days in prison slowly letting go of hope. Some guy spits in her food and she kicks him in the dick, wakes up in her cell with an electric burn, but other than that there isn¡¯t much to write home about. At night, she tries to decide whether she regrets trying. Sometimes she feels proud to have gone out fighting; sometimes she cries, thinking about the life she¡¯s going to miss, a loss too great to process. She misses Dina so much that she worries the constant pain under her heart will actually cause health complications, that she won¡¯t even make it to the end of the week.


    But she does.


    In front of a judge and two attorneys, she stands in a transparent cage and watches a video of herself entering the air-main. The officers waiting inside seem alert, but not bloodthirsty. When she opens the door and they subdue her, it¡¯s nothing like she remembers¡ªthey¡¯re dispassionate, extremely professional. Even when they pin her down they seem to be using a minimal amount of force. She, on the other hand, thrashes like a wild animal. She screams. The speakers play her voice loudly and clearly¡ªthe wailing of a simian mother who finds that her nest has been plundered, her babies stolen. The shrill sounds finally form words. ¡°Dina!¡± she howls. ¡°Dina, help me!¡±


    She doesn¡¯t remember any of it. In private, watching such a tape would be profoundly disorienting, but with the three men in the room, watching with expressions of mild interest and amusement, she¡¯s flattened by the intensity of the humiliation. That her hardest moments, her lowest despair, are being watched by strangers... It reminds her something, but she doesn¡¯t remember what.


    Next, they play an audio file. A call to a police public line. Rachel hardly recognizes Dina¡¯s voice as Dina tells the operator everything they planned, the location of the hub Rachel, mentioned by name, is supposed to hit, and the time she is supposed to arrive. And then, just when Rachel thinks nothing could be worse, Dina begs.


    ¡°If you stop her in time, I¡¯ll stay free, right? Please: I don¡¯t want to die.¡±


    The recording ends, and the judge politely asks Rachel for her final statement, anything that could help them view her in a favorable light.


    They want her to talk so she won¡¯t have time to process what she heard, but there isn¡¯t that much to process¡ªthe recording is obviously fake. Regardless on who snitched to the authorities, Rachel¡¯s identity would lead them to Rachel¡¯s apartment, and that would lead them to Dina, and whatever recordings of her voice they have on hand, making it easy to fake a new recording if one is using illegal software. Dina hadn¡¯t left any traces of her identity on the web since she started using, and Rachel recognizes the subtle differences in her intonation, parts of old identity Dina, her Dina, does not longer possess. Or maybe Rachel is just rationalizing to herself so she won¡¯t have to admit her best friend betrayed her. What a cruel trick they are playing on her, trying to get her to feel so alone and betrayed that she would betray anyone she can.


    She tries to come up with something to say. Some words to express the bitterness, the futility that she has felt for a long time now and tried stupidly to sweeten with hope and dreams of change. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have had to do this,¡± she says finally, her voice steady, admonishing.


    ¡°Are you expressing remorse for your actions?¡± the judge says.


    ¡°No. I¡¯m not saying that I shouldn¡¯t have done it. I¡¯m saying I shouldn¡¯t have had to do it. It was your duty to see that you stopped being human beings. You¡¯ve transformed into parasitic worms, and not even the kind that¡¯s decent enough to restrain themselves so the host survives longer. You shouldn¡¯t have let things get so bad.¡±


    ¡°No remorse, then?¡± he asks, eyes on the screen, where he¡¯s tapping on a touch menu.


    ¡°No.¡± Rachel knows that she¡¯s still a coward. It¡¯s easy for your last words to be something defiant, because the other monkeys have nothing to threaten you with. For the attempted poisoning of one hundred million people, there is nothing she could say that would redeem her. But she can still have revenge, can¡¯t she? What was the name of that wife-murdering asshole? She doesn¡¯t remember. ¡°The supreme director of the ministry of air. Ask his daughter what she thinks about her mother disappearing.¡±


    The judge raises his eyes from the screen, and trades worried looks with the attorneys.

 Ctesibius III

    #


    As soon as the airlock door opens, vacuum sucks Rachel out into space. Levitating feels so unreal, so unexpected: the view from her helmet may as well have been a kaleidoscope. A flock of asteroids passes above her, illuminating the mounds of corpses below in shifting, dancing lights. Nothing has any meaning, except for the enigma, sitting in the back of her mind, of why she isn¡¯t dead yet. Dina¡¯s said that she knows for a fact that people are thrown out to die, so what gives? She lands on her feet on the first try, and sees a woman held in some metal confinement. She starts towards the woman, sleep-walking on the rock, to examine her, as if she were an artifact of her own mind. She¡¯s middle-aged, and beautiful; strong, even in defeat.


    Rachel almost falls back when the woman¡¯s eyes open.


    ¡°Don¡¯t stay here,¡± says the woman. ¡°Just run.¡± A white light flashes from the airlock, illuminating the blueish steel of her binding. The only reason this woman is still trapped is because no one could be bothered to help. Shouldn¡¯t steel be fragile, in these temperature? Rachel picks up a sharp stone from the ground, takes a step forward.


    ¡°Is your comm broken or something? I told you to get the hell away.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Rachel hears a voice ask, a voice that might just be her own.


    ¡°Because there are people here that are out to kill you. Go as far away as you can, and don¡¯t let anyone see you. Please. As soon as you get out of the greater crater, you should be safe.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡± Rachel looks at the stone in her hand, and back at the metal structure. ¡°I¡­¡±


    ¡°Go!¡± Rachel can see the woman¡¯s white teeth as she shouts. ¡°Move!¡±


    Rachel turns and tries to run away, but running doesn¡¯t work here, she stumbles into a series of jump. She hasn¡¯t made even ten leaps when she hears the woman, yelling at her to hide.


    Rachel fumbles to a stop and rolls behind some rocks. No way she hasn¡¯t been seen, she thinks. But seen by whom?


    She hears a new voice that sounds like the smile of a cannibal with filed teeth. ¡°That¡¯s not right,¡± the voice says, joyful and vicious. ¡°That¡¯s not right at all. Have you forgotten the speech I made for you? After all of the time I wasted drilling it into you?¡±


    Rachel lies motionless behind the rock, not knowing who she¡¯s hiding from, or why. She looks at the violet digits at the side of her visor and listens very, very hard.


    ¡°The only way this place can run properly is if everyone does their part, and you¡¯re not doing yours. I have to make sure you remember it next time.¡±


    Metal slides on metal, heard through someone¡¯s radio transmitter.


    ¡°No, please don¡¯t,¡± the woman cries, and then turns assertive. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t. I¡¯m a human being. I¡¯m here. I¡¯m real. Don¡¯t do this.¡±


    ¡°Well, you should have thought about that before you told her to run, shouldn¡¯t you?¡±


    Another metallic sound, this one a disconnection. An oxygen tank screwed off. Then a swallowing; a breath panted through clenched teeth, and a grunt of panic. Rachel counts the seconds; she¡¯s at nine when she hears the sliding of metal on metal again, and the woman breathes freely.


    The grinning voice speaks again. ¡°If you betray me again, I might not feel like plugging you back in.¡±


    ¡°I understand,¡± the woman gasps. ¡°It won¡¯t happen again, I swear.¡±


    ¡°Good. Now¡ªyou!¡± Rachel shakes as the voice addresses her. ¡°I know you¡¯re out there, hiding. I hope you¡¯re listening carefully, for your own sake. Because the fucking Welcoming Committee,¡± she hears a grunt of effort, a thud, a groan of pain, ¡°didn¡¯t do their job, and you don¡¯t know what you¡¯re in for. First of all, welcome to Last Day Town! My name is Vempress, and here are my rules: One - If I see you outside the little crater, I¡¯ll take your oxygen. Not right away, mind you, I¡¯m not a savage: I¡¯ll give you a head start. Two - anyone else here can kill you if they wish. For example, if you come back inside, these two assholes hiding under the corpses will get you, just for the heck of it. What?¡± Her tone changes, as if she¡¯s talking to someone else. ¡°You thought I didn¡¯t see you there? It¡¯s clever, but anyone not in shock would see it.¡± Rachel almost feels the cannibal¡¯s attention shifting back to her. ¡°Three - if you have a tank with more than twenty hours of oxygen on it, I¡¯ll spare you once, even if that tank is connected to a body. That¡¯s more or less everything you need to know. Run as far away as you can, and you might survive, whatever that means to you.¡±


    Rachel listens to the silence for thirty seconds, then sets off. She runs, though you can¡¯t really call that running, until she reaches the crater wall. She struggles against it, charges it again and again until she figures out how to gain enough momentum to scale all of it in one go. A series of kicks takes her higher and she finally pulls herself out. She stands, panting, and faces the grand plateau beyond the crater and sees how vacant it is. There¡¯s nothing but more rock, more distance to cover. It stupefies her. She¡¯s already wasted hours of her life. What for? To curl up like a coward and die?


    A band of asteroids that lit everything sets, and everything slowly falls into darkness. She feels a cold fall over, not knowing if it is real or just her imagination. It doesn¡¯t matter. She wants to get that woman out of the trap she was welded into. If she tries, there will be people in her way, trying to hurt her. But they can¡¯t hurt her, she posits a hypothetical, if she hurt them first.


    Will you fight? She clenches her fist, and jumps back down into the crater.


    The way back is easier. Just before she reaches the airlock, she hears people talking¡ªthe grinning voice from before, Vempress, and someone else, sounding perfectly subdued and servile. She hesitates, crouching fifty meters or so from the lip of the small crater¡ªand something hits her shoulder. Something hard, which nudges her off balance. She puts a foot forward to stabilize herself and watches a rock a little larger than her fist fall past her. She turns around and sees a figure peeking from a hiding place among the rocks. The figure waves a hand and presses the other to their visor. One finger pointing up. Though Rachel can¡¯t see their lips through the light reflecting on the glass, she understands the gesture.


    When her eyes adjust, she recognizes the woman. She must have escaped the contraption, somehow. She moves towards her without thinking and the other woman reciprocates, and without a word pulls Rachel into her hiding spot among the rocks.


    Vempress, still hidden, spits a furious ¡°Fuck!¡± and then turns collected again, commanding. ¡°Grab on,¡± it says to someone Rachel can¡¯t see. ¡°Let go, and I¡¯ll noose you by the neck.¡± Whoever that is, Rachel¡¯s glad she¡¯s not in their place.


    The woman presses a button on the front of Rachel¡¯s suit, and the world falls into silence. She didn¡¯t even notice how loud space was until it was shut off. The woman grabs Rachel¡¯s helmet and puts her visor to Rachel¡¯s, so close Rachel can see the sweat in the folds around the woman¡¯s wise eyes. What a terrifying thing, she thinks, to look into someone¡¯s eyes when there¡¯s no society to tell you how you should feel about it and what you should do next.


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°You can relax,¡± the woman says. ¡°They¡¯re gone. What¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°Rachel.¡±


    ¡°Ah,¡± she smiles, and recites:


    Not nebulous tomorrow but today: solid, warm, mighty,


    Today materialized in the hand:


    Of this single, short day to drink deep


    Here in our own land.


    ¡°What is that?¡± Rachel asks.


    ¡°Really? You don¡¯t know Rachel the Poet?¡±


    ¡°I guess I never got around to it. Who are you? Why¡­¡± She shakes her head.


    ¡°I¡¯m Nina.¡±


    ¡°Hi Nina.¡± Every word seems so pretentious, so theatrical, and not just because this stranger is holding Rachel¡¯s helmet with both hands. Who are they pretending for? ¡°What the hell is going on?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll explain on the way.¡±


    ¡°Where are we going?¡±


    ¡°Anywhere else.¡±


    ¡°How did you get out?¡±


    She chuckles. ¡°I got lucky.¡±


    They hop a couple hundred meters and lie there, hidden in a shallow crater, watching an asteroid pass.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know if you would make it,¡± Nina says. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have come back here. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I¡¯m glad that you did, but why?¡±


    ¡°Why not? What else would I do?¡±


    Nina¡¯s expression is even more somber than before. ¡°I didn¡¯t even get my twenty-four hours. Vempress used me. Not manipulated like you do to another human being, but used me like you would a toilet. Input/output, nothing more. No humanity to take into consideration, but that isn¡¯t too different from my life on the inside, is it?¡± Her voice is calm as she laments herself. She stares at the sky, lying flat on her back on a patch of dust, her outreached hand in both of Rachel¡¯s. She turns to look at Rachel, and Rachel once again marvels at her eyes. ¡°I want you to have it better than I did. I¡¯m sorry,¡± she says, and for the first time a hint of breathlessness sneaks between her words, ¡°that I have to leave.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll manage.¡±


    Nina bursts with laughter, and for the first time since Rachel had met her, she cries. Rachel laughs too, but she doesn¡¯t cry¡ªnot yet.


    ¡°I have to ask you something,¡± Nina says. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but it would really help.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°I need you to deliver a message to someone.¡±


    Rachel is walking alone, now. She listens to the sound of her own breathing, the sound of the life support reacting, and dust crunching under her weight. She doesn¡¯t know how to process that she¡¯s killed someone. One person. One person who asked to die. And yet the shock is taking her apart. Would she even survive the aftermath, if Dina and her actually pulled through with their plan? Was that the best she could do for this person? After all that Nina had done for her, all that Rachel could do was kill her. That¡¯s not true, is it? Someone better than her would swear to avenge, to find Vempress and make her pay for all the things she took from Nina.


    But she is so alone. So helpless. She walks. She would go anywhere, but there is only one place that she knows and she finds herself walking back. Walks and walks, fearing that if she stops walking, she won¡¯t be able to start again.


    Her legs tangle in something, an iron chain, each link as wide as her wrist. Could she use it as a weapon, or is she too weak to even do that?


    She falls to her knees and cries for help, not knowing for whom.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 17:28:57


    Rachel opened her eyes, moved back, turned on her comm. She had kept her eyes closed throughout the confession, as if offering it to herself, and it made sense. She had laid her weaknesses bare, and even if I didn¡¯t agree with her methods, I couldn¡¯t help but feel for her, for the repeated abandonment she¡¯d been through. I turned my own comm, as well. She stood in a patch of yellow light, her face half-hidden in shadow, but her expression clear¡ªnose wrinkled in disgust when she looked at me; eyes narrow.


    ¡°What?¡± I asked.


    ¡°There¡¯s a face that you make.¡±


    ¡°Am I making it now?¡±


    ¡°Not anymore.¡±


    ¡°What kind of face?¡±


    ¡°As if you¡¯re anticipating something. After you do something, you look to gauge the reaction around you, as if to see if it worked. The way a baby stops crying to check if anyone¡¯s listening.¡±


    ¡°Is that bad?¡± I asked.


    ¡°It makes me wonder if you¡¯re a snake.¡±


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m trying to manipulate you?¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°I told you nothing but the truth.¡± I was surprised to hear anger in my voice.


    She looked at me sideways, as if to say that some things are too obvious to waste precious breath on.


    ¡°Fine then. Let me be entirely honest with you,¡± I said. Just like when I¡¯d dropped my bowl on Gil¡¯s foot, I felt a surge of exhilaration. I walked over to The Egg and took hold of a brittle piece of steel protruding from its frame, about the length of a finger but thinner then one, pointy. I broke it off and made a makeshift handle using a piece of bag lying on the floor. I examined it in the light. Even for shiv, that¡¯s shoddy work, I thought as I handed it to her.


    She approached slowly but stopped on the verge of taking the thing from me, as if she were a monkey reaching of a banana that might get it punished. I waited for a long moment, until she finally yanked it out of my grip. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said, as she examined the crude weapon. ¡°You know exactly what you¡¯re doing. Don¡¯t look so surprised. I know what you think¡ªthat you don¡¯t feel like a manipulator. The thing is...¡± she looked at the shiv closely, checking the grip on it. ¡°Most manipulators don¡¯t know that¡¯s what they are. So we should consider ourselves lucky that you¡¯re trying to help.¡± She practiced a stabbing motion with her wrist, then let her eyes meet mine again. ¡°If that¡¯s what you¡¯re doing.¡±


    Frustrated, I brought my hands up, as if they could help me articulate, what my mouth couldn¡¯t. But they couldn¡¯t, and I found myself pressing the button to turn off my comm.


    She almost said something, but caught her tongue, sighed, and turned of her comm as well. We put our helmets together, and I couldn¡¯t help but notice how close she held the shiv at my side.


    ¡°You have to be the one doing this.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t lie to him. Not like you can.¡±


    ¡°Think whatever you want of me,¡± I said. ¡°But if we capture her, and she starts offering people oxygen, we don¡¯t know who¡¯s going to turn on whom. Even if they aren¡¯t thinking about it now, they will when the offer is in front of them.¡±


    ¡°Is that what you¡¯re afraid of?¡± Her eyes, up very close, looked at me, unflinching.


    ¡°Yes. And the only way to stop that is to kill her first, then destroy her tools.¡±


    ¡°I agree. But why me, and not you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll be on the inside. If I come out after you¡¯ve captured her, it will like cold blooded murder. If you do it in the middle of a fight, it might look like you thought she would kill you, and defended yourself.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t lie to me, Yossi.¡±


    ¡°Rachel, you¡¯re the only one who can organize this. David is too soft, Alex doesn¡¯t care, and Shaul¡­ well, you¡¯ll see. But if someone is going to actually pull an ambush together, that¡¯s going to be you. And that puts you in the perfect position to kill her by accident.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t understand,¡± she said. ¡°I really can¡¯t lie to him. He¡¯ll see through it in a second. And I should just accept that he¡¯ll hate me for breaking my promise?¡± She¡¯ll die before the die is done. And still, yet, here she was, worried about one person¡¯s opinion of her. Living a life.


    ¡°He¡¯ll forgive you.¡±


    ¡°Tell me the truth, Yossi. Why me?¡± Her brown eyes were piercing. Looking into them meant looking at a reflection of myself, and it¡¯s hard to see yourself through the eyes of someone who hates you, but I didn¡¯t turn away.


    ¡°Because I¡¯m too much of a coward to do it myself.¡±


    She scoffed. ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean I should have to do this.¡±.


    ¡°No, but you will.¡±


    I might as well have thrown up in my helmet for the expression she made at that, pulling away, turning away from me, and going to tend to another one of the piles. I didn¡¯t move aside from my hand turning my comm back on.


    ¡°Go to hell,¡± she said.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said, and meant it. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean¡ª¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s just get to it, okay?¡±


    There was nothing to say. I left.

 Yael I

    Estimated oxygen timer: 17:11:10


    Ceres revolved slowly under me, the crater far below. From the direction of Anaxagoras¡¯ cliff, I saw two figures gliding just above the rock. Even from afar, I recognized Alex by his carefree, fluid movements, and Shaul by the tightness of his. They were swinging long metal rods beneath them, pushing at the rock, and propelling themselves faster than they could with their legs alone. They had more rods tied at their backs, either as weapons or extras for others. They weren¡¯t nearly as fast as real Anaxagoras had been, but they were getting there. They¡¯d have time to redevelop the technique, if a new line were to be formed.


    Our respective positions shifted, making it so a hill appeared to have moved between us, and they were out of my view. I absentmindedly tried to scratch the itch at my nose and got blocked by the visor in front of my face. I inhaled a lungful of canned oxygen and exhaled slowly. There are irritations in this life that you have to accept you¡¯ll suffer until your last breath.


    The fallen statue rolled into view, and the shuttle beneath it.


    A particularly large asteroid crossed the sky, its face porous, full of crags and chasms¡ªthe remains of extensive excavations that had sucked out every possible chunk of dirty ice. Massive haulers had landed on it, dug into it, sucked it dry, and headed back home, to Ceres. The light it reflected made the cliffs shine with what seemed, compared to the usual starlit darkness, like natural sunlight. I put a hand over my visor to protect my eyes.


    In that light I spotted Vempress: a dark mass shooting across the town towards the shuttle in a descending arc. I didn¡¯t think she could have seen Alex and Shaul from that low, but even if she did they should seem like they were just going to the airlock¡ªnot to Pythia¡¯s chamber. I glanced at my timer; she was going to arrive slightly late, according to my clock. Was she getting sloppy, or was I running down my oxygen by hurrying from one engagement to the next?


    A small figure, their bag hanging loosely around them, was kneeling by the rows of initials scratched into the shuttle, tracing them with a careful hand, unaware of our approach. I decided not to call out to them¡ªif I wanted to appear to be Vempress¡¯s loyal servant, it wouldn¡¯t make sense to warn this person, and take her natural advantage away.


    Without my intention, my shadow passed over him, letting him know that he wasn¡¯t alone anymore. He tensed like a rabbit hearing an eagle screech and turned to look at me. A man, his eyes wide, his eyebrows raised, his mouth open. He gave a short, terrified holler. His voice was surprisingly low.


    Don¡¯t scream, you idiot, I thought. Move.


    Somehow, in the short time after he entered her view, Vempress managed to complete the series of actions that it took to take someone off their feet. She changed her course, drew her lasso out, calculated the right angle of approach, seized it, and pulled up so they both revolved around each other. She let go at the height of his spin and he was thrown far into the crater, shouting with more confusion than terror. Perhaps he hadn¡¯t even seen her coming. She nailed the maneuver so accurately that when she let him go she had no momentum left, and just floated idly in space, pulled slowly down by gravity. She roared with laughter as she watched him fly away.


    I landed as my trajectory reached its end, skidding forward until I stopped myself against the shuttle. I looked back at the man. He was still flying, his trajectory still ascending towards its peak, moving away as fast as Vempress had approached. When he finally lands, there¡¯ll be one hell of an impact. What a shame. Whoever that was, we could have used another pair of hands.


    Vempress landed beside me, one hand on the controls of her jet, the other on the blade¡¯s handle, the wrench, torch, and spear gun tied or clasped to her by the side, while I had not a single weapon. After her laughter subsided enough that she could talk, she said, ¡°What are you mad about? I didn¡¯t kill that one. Be happy.¡± Her grin stretched wide under her bloodshot eyes. ¡°Anyway, why isn¡¯t Pythia here?¡± She asked, her eyes following the fleeing resident, controlled by some predatory instinct.


    ¡°It didn¡¯t work for us, waiting out here, so we spread out.¡±


    ¡°Well, you missed that one.¡± She made a face like she wanted to spit.


    ¡°True,¡± I said as I lifted the door open for her, bowing my head slightly, as if unconsciously. ¡°But we found another by the airlock, that we would have otherwise missed. I¡¯m still hopeful about this wager.¡±


    She entered the shuttle and I followed, placing the broken door back behind us. Once again, the radio noise went silent.


    In the darkness, Vempress¡¯s violet-lit visor slid in one fluid motion to the far side of the chamber, and stopped, as if she had found a spot to sit. ¡°Well, confess me.¡±


    ¡°What would you like to talk about?¡±


    ¡°I imagined you would have learned the comforting ways of Pythia, lure me into talking about my deepest secrets, but it seems I overestimated you again. Last time we talked it only made me more annoyed.¡± And yet, there she was.


    ¡°Line Pythia wasn¡¯t built just to give comfort, but to be a contained space to talk about the life people had before. Did you ever tell anyone, here, what your former life was like?¡±


    ¡°No point,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m here now. That¡¯s all that¡¯s real. You haven¡¯t learned that.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the point,¡± I said. ¡°To gain perspective. To reach back and see how different things were, to better understand where we are now. You told me what it¡¯s like out here; about what it¡¯s like to survive. But you didn¡¯t tell me anything about where you came from, or how you got here. Can we be where we are without remembering how we got there?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t see any point in telling you when I was born, or what my parents were like.¡±


    Not a no. ¡°That¡¯s not what Pythia does at all. This isn¡¯t psychotherapy, where you dive into your deep traumas. Pythia¡¯s ritual is about the basic, driest detail.¡± I wasn¡¯t exactly lying. There was some chance that what I was saying was true. ¡°You don¡¯t speak of what you think your life has been: you tell it as it was. The boring stuff.¡±


    ¡°And what is that good for?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll see; I promise.¡±


    ¡°Eager, aren¡¯t you? If you weren¡¯t so pathetic, I¡¯d be afraid that you were thinking of a way to use the story of my life against me, learn my weaknesses.¡±


    ¡°Pythia never shared the details of a confession, not even with other Pythia.¡± That too, wasn¡¯t a lie. The truth was, I didn¡¯t expect her to live long enough for it to be of any use.


    ¡°But you¡¯re not really Pythia, are you?¡± A note of gloating sneaked into her tone, as if she¡¯d found a new way to hurt me.


    Of all the things I¡¯d given up, all the ways I¡¯d let her step on me, that one I could not abide. ¡°I memorized the words. I sat in the chamber and listened, and when the time came, I cut First out of his suit. In every sense of the word, I am now Pythia¡¯s First.¡±


    ¡°Really? Where¡¯s your robe, then?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not fair,¡± I said. ¡°None of this is fair¡ªyou gave us too little time, and I can¡¯t undo all the damage you¡¯ve done in just a couple of hours, let alone worry about attire.¡±


    Her tone was chilly. ¡°Do you want to cancel the operation, then? Should I go back to hunting?¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s not what I meant¡ª¡±


    ¡°You forgot,¡± she said quietly, ¡°whose oxygen it is you¡¯re breathing. If you want to keep breathing it, you¡¯ll mind how you speak to me.¡±


    A part of me was tempted. If I kept arguing, she just might unplug my oxygen and be done with it. But if she did, she¡¯d get out of the shuttle before the others were done setting up the ambush, and they¡¯d lose whatever little advantage they had. Not to mention Keren. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. It won¡¯t happen again.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± She chuckled, and her tone relaxed. ¡°You know what, Pythia? I¡¯ll play along. Let¡¯s do this confession thing.¡±


    I recalled something in that instant, a real family dispute, long forgotten. Ayelet, Tsur, and I, sitting in the living room. I want Ayelet to help Tsur with an extracurricular project. She refuses, saying she is too tired from work, and we should just pay a tutor. I agreed that she has been working hard, and we go on to another subject. Tsur mentions that one¡¯s parents bring a number of advantages, and I agree that his talent for science comes not only from his mother¡¯s genes, but also from the times she¡¯d sat down with him and answered his surprisingly sophisticated questions. She mocks me, reminding me of the times that I¡¯d made up answers that turned out to be entirely false. We all laugh at my expense, and in the end she¡¯d changes her mind, and says that she¡¯d work with Tsur on the project. After she leaves, he turns to look at me, eyes barely visible under his awkwardly long hair, and says, in the tone of a smart adolescent that is just figuring out who he is, ¡°That was impressive.¡±


    ¡°What was?¡± I ask, as I bring up an ornithology documentary I haven¡¯t finished on the screen. I look back at him, and his eye are narrow, curious.


    ¡°Wait, that wasn¡¯t on purpose?¡±


    ¡°What wasn¡¯t?¡± I ask again, flattered but confused.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know,¡± he says, a sort of scientific wonder in his voice.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t even know that you¡¯re doing it.¡±


    Looking at Vempress, at the way applying a bit of power over me made her feel just a little bit more at ease, I thought I understood what he¡¯d meant.


    ¡°In the name of Line Pythia,¡± I said, ceremonially, ¡°I am your confessor.¡±


    #


    Yael Kornikov twists a lock of curly hair as the screen in front of her displays a three-dimensional model of a needlessly complicated assembly. She¡¯s trying to put together a hermetic casing for a weapon meant to operate at low temperature and atmospheric pressure, and resilient to chlorine-based, corrosive compounds. Her contractor hasn¡¯t said that they¡¯re designing weapons to be printed and used on Mars¡¯ surface, but he doesn¡¯t need to. She didn¡¯t even ask which of the Martian armies her contractor¡¯s working for¡ªit simply doesn¡¯t matter. She knows she¡¯s helping people murder each other, but those people would have murdered each other anyway. To her, this job could mean the difference between making all of her payments, and none. It''s a matter of survival, and ethics are something to discuss only after survival stops being an issue, not a second before. It¡¯s not like her refusal would stop the Martian skirmish in its tracks.


    A horn blares, startling her out of her contemplation. Why does it have to be so loud? She¡¯s right here, dammit.


    Yael¡¯s working two jobs, but luckily for her she¡¯s working both of them at the same time. She¡¯s an on-site technician in an air purification hub. If nothing breaks down, she gets paid to just sit there, and has time to do the time-independent weapons engineering. If something does, like now, she springs into action to save the company¡¯s leaking money.


    She recognizes the specific pressure-loss siren: one of the pipes has started leaking. In the micro-gee environment (unlike other facilities, there is an inherent difficulty in rotating the entire compound to create pseudo-gravity with so many pipes going in and out) she has to throw herself from pipe to pipe, allowing the computer (pseudo-intelligence, of course) guide her to the source of the high-pressure whistle. She¡¯s perfected the movement, turning and pivoting gracefully as she floats through the damp air, screen in hand.


    It¡¯s a decent job. Sure, a robot could do it, but that¡¯s exactly the reason AI is illegal: to safeguard the economy. If robots were legal, Earth would probably give them for free, just to destabilize Ceres.


    Earth would probably offer weapons¡¯ design for much cheaper than she or her contractor could offer - The fact that this Martian army chose the expensive option says something about their values¡ªthat they had spent their limited resources just to avoid cooperating with the menace from Earth while they should be focused on their own survival and nothing else. If anything, Yael feels bad for spending her time helping the losing side.


    Nah, she¡¯s just overthinking. Here she is, in her comfortable job¡ªin her comfortable life. When there are problems to be solved, she solves them. When there aren¡¯t, she just chills, playing games and reading books. And sleeps. God, how she loves to sleep. No need to feel sorry for anyone. No need to feel sorry for herself, either. It isn¡¯t a bad life; she¡¯s always comfortable and often engaged, never bored, and rarely stressed. She doesn¡¯t need more. She has always thought that people¡¯s incessant need for approval, whether through relationship or career, comes from a deep, nameless anxiety. But what does Yael have to be anxious about?


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The only thing she can¡¯t give herself is a good lay, every once in a while, and that Dimi provides. Young and enthusiastic (five years older than her, and still), he comes when told, even when she¡¯s at work. She hopes that the leak she¡¯s tracking is the last of the day, as he¡¯s supposed to visit her later in her shift, and she¡¯d hate for them to be interrupted by a pressure-loss siren.


    He¡¯s a journalist of some sort, an aspiring author. She loves listening to him talk, sweaty and exhausted after a session of aerobatics in the dead of a night shift (fucking in zero gee isn¡¯t instantly intuitive, but he¡¯d learned quickly. The important part is to choose the hand and foot-holds in advance). She doesn¡¯t listen to the things he says as much as to the sound of his voice, his enthusiasm. He always compliments her, letting her know how beautiful her legs and back and eyes are. She doesn¡¯t compliment him back. She¡¯s there, isn¡¯t she? What else does he need to know?


    She¡¯s amused by his concern when he makes sure she knows her that his wife knows, and that she¡¯s ok with what¡¯s happening between them. Yael doesn¡¯t have the heart to tell him that it wouldn¡¯t bother her either way.


    But what she loves most is the way he whistles. That escape of air through a narrow slit, vibrating with emotion and freedom, going off on all scales and forms, from early Baroque to post-bebop. ¡°Don¡¯t whistle inside; it¡¯s back luck,¡± she tells him.


    ¡°Where the hell am I supposed to whistle, then?¡± He laughs.


    In essence, what fascinates them is how different they are. Like mirror images of each other.


    ¡°Everybody around me cares so much,¡± he says. ¡°I care so much, all the time. I get tired of it sometimes. I like it that you don¡¯t make a big deal about anything.¡± And she¡¯s glad, too. If the dark world she¡¯s built for herself can be a refuge for others, why not?


    ¡°I can¡¯t find my bag,¡± he texts her one day, a couple of hours after he left.


    ¡°Did you turn over a glass?¡± the computer types the words for her, knowing her. She nods quickly and the words are sent.


    ¡°Why? Is that another superstition?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not a superstition,¡± the machine writes after she shakes her head, all the while flipping a model of a bullet cartridge, on another screen, ¡°it¡¯s about training your mind to enter a certain mental¡ª¡±


    His next message comes in before she gets to send. ¡°Can you see if it¡¯s at your place? It¡¯s really important.¡±


    When she gets back to the corridor leading to her own home, her door is open and there are strangers in uniform going in and out. She suddenly recalls how in elementary school they were made watch a video about cows, in history class, and how they¡¯d walked down metal corridors to their own slaughter. Yael didn¡¯t know if they knew, as they walked down the corridor, what waited in the end. Now she knows - they¡¯d walk the same, even if they did.


    She takes one shaky step after another, promising herself that it can¡¯t be that bad, can it. She can¡¯t turn and run¡ªrunning would make it real, and where would she run to, anyway?


    They find the bag hanging from a chair, full of documents he¡¯s gathered about things they don¡¯t want anyone to know (she¡¯ll find this out later), but they still feel the need to search her entire apartment, and she stands, helpless, as foreign hands rummage through her haven. Did he tell them? Did they break his fingers for it, or did he talk on his own? When he told them, did he know it would get her in trouble? When she¡¯s out of jail, she¡¯ll slap him right in his handsome face.


    Prison is boring, but safe and predictable. She¡¯s strangely tranquil through her trial, clinging to the promise she made to herself that it will all be over and forgotten quickly, and she¡¯ll be able to return to her old life.


    The judge doesn¡¯t even mention her job as a weapons engineer. All he talks about is Dmitry and the presence of the documents in her apartment, as if that¡¯s a crime. One of the attorneys asks if there¡¯s something, anything she could give them, that will put her in a more favorable light, and an interesting process happens in her mind. She¡¯d forgotten when she needed to forget and now, when survival demands she remembers, it pops back up.


    She speaks for the first time, telling the judge how a stranger contacted her online only a few weeks ago, trying to enquire, in very elusive language, whether or not she could bribe Yael to get access to the air purification facility she works in. Yael ignored it, blocked their communication, deleted the message and forgot the whole thing almost overnight. But now she can¡¯t remember the name. She¡¯s thinking of one of the famous Hebrew poets, but she can¡¯t remember which one.


    ¡°You can find it,¡± Yael says, ¡°if you¡¯ve seized all of my communications. It might be a lead.¡±


    The judge notes it down, thanks her politely, and proceeds to give the verdict. Yael is certain that she didn¡¯t hear correctly. She asks the judge to repeat himself, and watches his lips move as her ears pop with a sudden internal pressure.


    ¡­Exiled. To. Earth.


    She is not big on politics, but she knows that it¡¯s nothing but a euphemism for an execution, and for the first in her adult life she loses control. She screams and kicks and spits at them, her fury knowing no end, for they have taken from her the one thing she had: the comfortable life she¡¯s built, and the survival she¡¯s earned.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 16:53:32


    Her blue eyes inspected me, vulnerable, but still hostile. ¡°What are you making that face for? Are you that surprised? You thought I was born like this, did you?¡± There was bitter amusement in her voice.


    ¡°Of course not. It¡¯s just¡­ I can sympathize.¡± And I could. Even as I thought of Alex and Rachel, David and Shaul, wondering how close they were, I still couldn¡¯t help but sympathize.


    She gave me a look, skeptical, and continued.


    #


    After her tantrum passes, she goes limp. She¡¯s so small and fragile that they don¡¯t even tase her. She¡¯s shoved into a space suit and tossed out like a piece of trash. When the air pressure gradient propels her to the outside, she tumbles out like a ragdoll.


    She can¡¯t take her eyes off the stars, but the bedrock finds its way under her feet, without her meaning to, and she collapses on to it. Someone¡¯s talking to her, but she doesn¡¯t process what she¡¯s being told. She doesn¡¯t look at them, but shifts her unfocused gaze to include them in it.


    Two men in cheap grey spacesuits, makeshift weapons in their hands, standing as if they still have responsibility, as if the world still makes sense. Yael doesn¡¯t have the clarity to regard them as real, let alone communicate with them. Only when one gives the other a command does she manage to translate the words into meaning.


    ¡°Do it. She¡¯s gone.¡±


    The man who says it, small, with cold, black eyes, does so with a gravity that¡¯s unmistakable, and it¡¯s that gravity that jolts her back to life. Her eyes refocus and her muscles tense. Her posture shifts¡ªshe crouches like an animal, her fingers gripping at the rock, the toes of her boots finding fissures to wedge into. Ready to push or pull in any direction.


    The other man is lanky and nervous. He holds the blade in shaky hands, breathing quickly. He starts walking towards her, so slowly and clumsily that Yael doesn¡¯t understand at first that he¡¯s charging her.


    She doesn¡¯t think¡ªshe moves, sticking low, keeping hold of the ground so she doesn¡¯t float away as she circles around him. He swings at her once, twice: desperate motions, each one putting him more off balance. His back is wide open, and she leaps towards it with enough momentum to take them both off the rock. She quickly climbs onto him, holding on to his oxygen tank, where he can¡¯t reach her, but she doesn¡¯t wait for him to figure out how to shake her off. She kicks him with both legs, getting him in the side of helmet. Not giving him a second to recuperate, she finds a grip against the rocks, and pulls. He dropped the blade when she concussed him, and she reaches it before he even gets up. She holds the rock with one hand while the other drives the blade against his back.


    Blood sprays her suit, marking her, as she would later find out, as a member of Line Diocletian. The tear in his suit is large enough that there can be no mitigation of the pressure loss, no chance for him to save himself. It takes only a couple of seconds for him to stop moving.


    She folds back to a crouch, ready to pounce at the other one. The way he stands, erect and frozen solid, his weapon in its clasp instead of in his hand, is enough to shake her out of the killing mindset she¡¯s in. She looks at the blade in her hand and thrusts it away, not even throwing it properly. As if putting distance between her and it will disconnect her from the act itself.


    She¡¯s a killer, now. So what? How many people kill for the first time and think, ¡®This is the first time I¡¯ve killed someone¡¯? Probably millions. Probably billions. She isn¡¯t special. This is what human beings have always done.


    When he speaks, she keeps her eyes on his lips, on the movements of the muscles in his clean-shaven cheeks, learning to understand language again.


    ¡°The first time is hard,¡± he says. ¡°But you¡¯ll learn to enjoy it.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Killing.¡±


    She shakes her head. ¡°I don¡¯t want to enjoy it.¡± She just wants to not die.


    ¡°You should. Not too much; just a little bit.¡± He picks up her blade from the ground.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°To keep sane.¡±


    ¡°What does it matter, if I¡¯m going to die anyway?¡±


    ¡°If you stay sane,¡± he says, offering her the blade handle first, holding the blunt edge of it between thumb and index finger, ¡°you might not have to die.¡±


    She knows it¡¯s bad luck to pass a knife from hand to hand, but she takes a step forward, reaching. His expression is impassive. She understands why, sees the practicality of it, but she doesn¡¯t enjoy this expression. When her fingers wrap around the handle, she chooses to smile.


    Once the bubble is finished, they agree that they need to test it. Neither of them wants to go in alone while the other is outside, and she¡¯s reluctant to be alone in the bubble with him. He considers that for a moment, then retrieves a sharpened screwdriver from some hidden compartment in the cave.


    He hands it to her. ¡°Point it towards me when we¡¯re in the bubble. So you can trust me.¡±


    She chuckles at his definition of trust, but doesn¡¯t argue, and the edge of his lips minutely curves upwards, a twitch so small someone less keen would have missed it. ¡°You know what I meant,¡± he says, a little softly, and to her surprise, Yael feels a measure of companionship.


    He climbs into the bubble, bending himself into the loose folds. She follows him into the darkness, where she has to get close enough to him to touch him, or the bubble won¡¯t close. Her hand, the one holding the weapon, finds a relatively safe place by his ribs, and she¡¯s almost as afraid of killing him by accident as she is of him hurting her. She feels his hands moving as he closes the bubble behind her, locking them in a kind of hug.


    ¡°Are you ready?¡± he asks, his voice calmer than usual, an indication of how tense he really is.


    She realizes how far she¡¯s gone in the last few hours. How bizarre this all is. Each decision she¡¯s made since being thrown out has been rational, but each has led her to this weird place. ¡°Ready,¡± she says.


    ¡°Three, two, one¡­¡± They open their zippers a fraction, and the bubble expands surprisingly quickly as the inside pressure rises. The folds flatten. They¡¯re very close together in the small, dark enclosure, touching each other without trying to. Carefully, gradually, they open up their suits, exposing themselves to this limbo that is neither inside nor out. They listen for the sound of oxygen leaking. Aside from the background noise of space, though, there¡¯s only silence. As they decided in advance, he strips her of her suit, while she holds the screwdriver, switching hands as he takes off one sleeve and then another. His hands aren¡¯t gentle, but she feels that they would have been if they could. She barely notices that she¡¯s naked, or the way he¡¯s looking at her nakedness; she just holds the weapon and watches him struggle to slip out of his suit. His smell, which already filled the bubble, becomes stronger. The stink of a man, but somehow not unpleasant. She looks at the tattoo on his bare chest¡ªshe thinks she can trace the branches of a tree, or maybe the horns of a running elk¡ªand doesn¡¯t notice that he has stopped taking his suit off, as if waiting.


    He places a hand on her hip, gently but without hesitation, and leaves it there. His gaze is steady. Against all reason, there¡¯s a question in his eyes. Against all reason, her answer is yes.


    They fuck like wild, rabid animals¡ªpulling and pushing into each other, scratching and biting. They fuck like their lives depend on it. Which, perhaps, they do. It hurts, but that¡¯s a good thing¡ªthe more it hurts, the easier it is to forget where she is.


    He climaxes with a grunt, sweating, his teeth clenched. She¡¯s not even close, but she squeezes him with her legs, as if she¡¯s trying to get every last drop out of him. She doesn¡¯t worry about pregnancy¡ªwhy should she?


    They crawl back into their suits. They¡¯re going to have to hurt a lot of people, he says, and they need to remember what they¡¯re doing it for. She has no idea what he¡¯s talking about, but she nods. As long as she survives, none of it matters.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 16:48:24


    For a while Vempress said nothing, staring at the rock, her face barely visible under the light of her visor. Her expression was inquisitive, as if she was trying to see what effect her words had had on the color of darkness.


    I felt my chest become heavy, even in the micro-gee. Not because her story had made her seem innocent; it hadn¡¯t. But because she¡¯d opened up to me at all. She had let me see something of herself, and instinctively, primally, that made me wish her no harm.


    For a moment I thought about saying something, holding her back, calling the whole thing off. I couldn¡¯t forgive her, but I didn¡¯t want her killed, either.


    Not that I had any choice. That was the whole point. Somebody had to die, and it was up to me to choose who. Remember, I begged myself. Think of all the people she hurt. Nina, face contorting in despair; Ctesibius¡¯s Third screaming as she died; Pythia singing alongside Diocletian, even though she knew what violent death awaited her; Yahushua begging as she hurt him for no reason other than her own enjoyment, his voice expressing a kind of clear and undiluted terror I hadn¡¯t known was possible. And Vempress, dancing around them with the experience she¡¯d gained working in micro-gee, making us stumbling toddlers in comparison.


    I didn¡¯t know how Keren would sound screaming, and prayed that I¡¯d never find out. That she could at least die peacefully, among friends. But that could only happen if I let Vempress die.


    ¡°We¡¯re done here. I¡¯m bored,¡± she said, and went to the shuttle door.


    ¡°Wait,¡± I said. ¡°The ceremony isn¡¯t over yet.¡± I put my hands together. ¡°There¡¯s another poem that I need to recite, to finish the confession.¡± She raised an eyebrow, noting my urgency, but didn¡¯t stop me. I continued, making it up on the spot.


    ¡°In the name of Line Pythia, I was you confessor.¡± Goodbye, Yael, Diocletian, Vempress. I¡¯m sorry.


    She put her fingers to the door. ¡°That was¡­¡± for the first time, I saw her struggling to find the right word. ¡°Not like I had expected.¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°Things get set in stone for a reason.¡±


    She shook her head, a genuine smile on her face. She looked so¡­ human. ¡°Fucking Pythia.¡± She pushed the door, and as soon as it opened a crack, my helmet was filled with the sound of someone yelling on comm.


    ¡°Your head is too high, dumbass! She¡¯ll see you!¡±


    Vempress¡¯s body froze for a fraction of second. Then she turned to me, her face distorted into something ugly. She drew her spear gun, pointed it at me, and shot.

 Yael II

    Estimated oxygen time: 16:47:24


    The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the horrible whistle of exiting air. A leak.


    Then came the pain. My left shoulder felt as if it had been split open. I dared not touch it. My head ached; my eyes protested when I tried to open them; my throat was rock-dry. Indicators of blood loss, I noted. I breathed, and the pain spiked suddenly; I tried to move slowly, but that caused another spike of agony¡ªthe spear must have sunk into the shuttle¡¯s interior, pinning me in place.


    Did Vempress miss, or did she choose not to kill me?


    I opened my eyes, consciously choosing not to look at the wound. I was still in the shuttle, where I¡¯d been sitting before, but the door was open now, letting in faint third-hand light. I checked my visor; the readout didn¡¯t make sense. Sixteen hours. Last time I¡¯d checked, while talking to Yael, I¡¯d more than nineteen hours. Had I just sat here for more than three hours? No, of course not. I hadn¡¯t been breathing that air but leaking it. I¡¯d been leaking time.


    I struggled to place the facts-puzzle into an image that made sense. I remembered hearing someone scream, but I didn¡¯t know if it had been me or someone else. There hadn¡¯t been pain in the sound, but fury. I had a feeling the others hadn¡¯t fared much better. Something had obviously gone wrong. Of course it failed. What else could have happened?


    And now I listened to the sound of my life escaping through a narrow hole. I turned slowly; I couldn¡¯t move my neck without stretching my ruined shoulder. I saw the butt of a spear sticking out of my flesh, and forced my eyes to follow its path into the wound.


    The hole in the bag was hemorrhaging oxygen. Cloth flapped in the weak stream. Blood from my own veins had also leaked, partially blocking the exit as it dried. The physical pain, worse than any I had ever felt, was secondary to the terror of leaking air, leaking blood. The fluids that I needed to keep inside of this little enclosure in order to not die. I thought I had to be in shock.


    I wasn¡¯t sure how much time had actually passed. The numbers on the display were dropping quickly, each second ticking far faster than a second should, and for a moment I thought I might be falling forward in time. I tried to block the hole with my hand, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to press on the wound. I couldn¡¯t even think of pulling the spearhead from the wall behind me so I could move.


    The light changed¡ªnot the soft transition of asteroids rising and setting, but something blocking the entrance. I looked up and saw her stark silhouette against the brighter rock. Her face was hidden in shadow.


    ¡°You lied to me.¡± Behind Vempress was another suited figure, droopy and beaten.


    I didn¡¯t answer.


    ¡°You betrayed me.¡± Her hand rested on the blade at her side as she floated closer.


    ¡°That¡¯s impossible.¡± I felt a deep calm. Let this be my final rebellion. Let all this pain be over. ¡°I can¡¯t betray you. We were never allies.¡±


    She grinned. I saw a cold certainty in the grin. An oxygen leak comes with uncertainty, a chance that the suit might get fixed. But the hate in the lines of her body, against the bright backdrop, the hyper-cooled scorn in her voice, were perfect, flawless. There was nothing to fear in that certainty.


    This is it, I thought. I felt as if I were about to take part in one of the most meaningful events of my life¡ªlike the birth of a child, or a wedding. I wasn¡¯t surprised that I wasn¡¯t afraid; I¡¯d accepted this a long time ago. Come on. Bring it.


    But as she came closer, there was that grin again, far too wide for mere murder. The calm dissipated and fear took its place, a crescendo leading up to the moment when she grabbed the spear end in both hands. Even that little pressure was enough to cause a jolt of blinding pain.


    She took a long, raspy breath and wrapped her fingers around the metal. Please, I wanted to say as she placed one foot on my chest, but my lips didn¡¯t move. She straightened suddenly, and pulled the spear out of me with ferocious force. The sound of metal scraping bone, though not as loud as my wailing or Vempress¡¯s laughter, rang nauseatingly clear, and I will not forget it for the rest of my life. The pain became all of me, blotting out everything else. I may have tensed or curled, screamed or wept. Perhaps she moved me, flipped me over, handled my suit. I wouldn¡¯t know.


    After a long while, I opened my eyes, found the floor mere centimeters away. She was crouched on top of me with her foot on my good shoulder, tending to the hole in my bag. She used tape to seal it, as well as the skin itself, pressing it with her thumb, making sure it stuck to the perimeter of the wound. It hurt as it touched the raw flesh, but it blocked the leakage immediately. The numbers on the visor slowed down, but they were still dropping too fast. She turned me over and I felt the same pain at the back of my shoulder as she sealed the exit wound. The ticking slowed all the way down. She made me spread my arm out so she could wrap another layer of tape around my shoulder, under my pit. As I sunk into oblivion again, I wondered why she was using so much tape on me.


    #


    Estimated oxygen timer: ???


    Someone was talking to me, trying to wake me up, but I didn¡¯t want to wake up¡ªI wanted to sleep until I died.


    ¡°Would you please say something? I¡¯m sorry, but I think you¡¯d rather I woke you up. Hey.¡± A hand touched my shoulder¡ªthe good one, but it still hurt. ¡°You can sleep when you¡¯re dead, right?¡± His voice was muffled, far away, as if the speaker was behind glass.


    I woke up.


    David¡¯s face in front of me, lit in visor violet, was the only thing I could see in the darkness. The door must have been closed again.


    I was still in the shuttle where I¡¯d been sitting before, I was pretty sure, still in the same dirty suit, now glued to me. Something was missing, though, and it took a moment to identify it. The oxygen timer. My visor wasn¡¯t there. The helmet that was supposed to be on my head wasn¡¯t.


    I brought my good hand up, slowly, to touch the glass, and the glove touched my face, instead. I scratched my nose, savoring the slight, precious comfort. I breathed, and my breath condensed into fog, visible where it obstructed David¡¯s helmet. The air was very cold, but it was air. The door of the shuttle was broken, so there should have been no seal. And if it was sealed, how the hell could it be opened without killing me instantly? And where was my helmet?


    I tried to move, but something cold frost-bit the side of my neck. My gloved hand traced a structure of metal bars welded together, holding me to the wall. Like Nina. Like Yahushua.


    ¡°Hey, buddy,¡± David said, and I slowly let my eyes focus on him in the darkness. There was an expression of deep sorrow on his face. Fresh grief. His bag was closed, and I figured all of the oxygen in the room was coming from my own air supply. Vempress¡¯s air supply.


    ¡°How are you feeling?¡± he asked, his voice barely more than a whimper. It wasn¡¯t surprising that he would use every ounce of energy he had to tend to others.


    Full consciousness meant full awareness of the pain in my shoulder, and how tired I was, how dry my mouth and throat were; How long it had been since I¡¯d felt like a human being. In my entire life, I had only felt worse once. ¡°I¡¯ll live,¡± I said finally.


    He didn¡¯t laugh.


    I rubbed my face again, finally getting around to the itch at my nose. It was an interesting sensation, even with a glove on. I¡¯d forgotten how natural it felt. I looked at him. Now that he was done worrying that I¡¯d already died, and saw that there was nothing he could do for me, he was forced to tend to the grief he¡¯d come here with. ¡°What happened?¡± I asked. ¡°Where¡¯s Vempress?¡±


    He shook his head.


    ¡°Tell me. I need to know.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± he said, looking away. ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t know how.¡±


    He was ashamed of what happened, even I could see that, but I had to find a way to get it out of him. ¡°You know,¡± I said, ¡°You haven¡¯t confessed yet. Whatever it is you need to say, should be easier as a part of your confession.¡±


    ¡°As a part of a confession...¡± He frowned. ¡°I can try,¡± he said, as if everything was manageable if it was a part of a ritual, part of a tradition.


    He took off his helmet, and turned off the comm. Only I could hear him there, through the air locked in the shuttle, and him only me.


    ¡°In the name of Line Pythia,¡± I said, as loud as the pain allowed me. ¡°I am your confessor.¡±


    #


    ¡°Can you help me understand what that means?¡± David Ezra Cohen asks the man sitting in front of him in his cozy little clinic. The man asked David to call him Bar. Even with his face buried in his palms, he radiates a type of dominant energy David is quietly envious of.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    ¡°It means¡­ Do you know that feeling when you¡¯re high, or drunk or after you¡¯ve had a really good fuck, and you happen to look at the mirror and you realize that¡¯s what you look like from the outside? There¡¯s a contrast between how you feel, and how you really look like, and your brain¡¯s too fucked up to smooth that difference out for you. That¡¯s how I feel, every time I¡¯m off the lion, I mean, in my down time, when there isn¡¯t any danger or anything to do. I wonder if what I¡¯m doing is enough. I¡¯m trying to be a good person, but I don¡¯t know if I really am. Especially after doing this to you.¡±


    This isn¡¯t even therapy, not officially. But he had asked David to talk, and David obliged, refusing the under-the-table payment. When had he ever refused a person who needed someone to talk to?


    ¡°What have you done to me?¡± David asks.


    ¡°I thought they wouldn¡¯t catch me, and that they wouldn¡¯t hurt you. But there are more and more ¡°cleanups¡±¡ªsomeone disappears, and not just everyone they¡¯re close with, but literally anyone they might have shared any information with, disappears with them. I knew it was a risk and I still came here.¡±


    ¡°What did you know? Help me understand what you¡¯re going through.¡±


    ¡°I knew I might drag you in, but I was losing it. I thought that if I kept it together, I¡¯ll be good enough to avoid them. But they¡¯re closing in on me, and if they throw me out, they throw you out too. Perhaps people close to you, too, if they think you told them.¡±


    That¡¯s the first thing that makes David worry, not that he will be thrown out, but that Nurit, his wife, might lose her life because of his actions. He immediately decides not to tell her. How would it help her to know? ¡°They, in this case, being the Shadow Man you told me about?¡±


    ¡°You got it.¡±


    ¡°So if I understand correctly, you¡¯re feeling guilty for the fact that Shadow Man might decide to kill me?¡±


    ¡°I thought that¡¯s obvious.¡±


    ¡°Sometimes, even obvious things need to be said aloud. Like how, for example, you¡¯re taking responsibility for someone else¡¯s action.¡±


    ¡°Baddies are going to do bad,¡± Bar says, ¡°That¡¯s a given. But I put you in harm¡¯s way, for my own benefit. I¡¯ll understand if you hated me.¡±


    David haven¡¯t even considered hating the man. ¡°If I remember correctly, you told me you were falling apart, when you asked me to start talking. That the pressure is getting to you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s an excuse. If I fucked you over, that¡¯s something you won¡¯t be able to forgive me for.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me what I can and can¡¯t do. If you apologize, I¡¯ll forgive you.¡±


    He sighs. ¡°Ok. I¡¯m sorry I took actions that put you and your loved ones in danger.¡±


    ¡°Apology accepted. See? You¡¯re taking responsibility for other people¡¯s actions.¡±


    ¡°What am I supposed to?¡±


    David slows down. This is the part that is the hardest for people to accept, and he wants to make it as easy as possible. ¡°Focus on the work in front of you¡ªif there is still something you can do, you should do it.¡±


    ¡°The things that I¡¯ve uncovered¡­ It¡¯s good that you don¡¯t know about it, but it¡¯s big enough to that I worry about you either way.¡±


    ¡°Then focus on spreading the news, if that¡¯s what you need to do.¡±


    ¡°And what are you going to do?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s between me and my therapist. You didn¡¯t come here to hear about me. But you can rest assured that I¡¯ll do what needs doing.¡±


    Bar, whatever his real name is, seems like he had let something into his heart.


    David comes back home, late into the night. His wife is out. He goes to the bathroom to take a piss and notices a bunch of short pubic hair in the toilet, obstructing the reflection of the white light on the ceramic. She¡¯s off on a date, then. That¡¯s what they agreed on, but he can¡¯t help but feel there¡¯s an element of provocation in leaving evidence for him to find. Even if she only dates women, there¡¯s a part of him that¡¯s jealous, that¡¯s bitter about not being enough for her.


    He washes his hands even though he didn¡¯t actually touch anything dirty, and as he dries them, he notices that his towel is taking just a little more space than Nurit¡¯s, on the rack. Hers is crumpled, and he knows that the moisture in the folds will turn damp if he doesn¡¯t attend to it. He straightens the fold gently. Now his towel is a little folded, but David doesn¡¯t mind.


    He holds her towel for a moment longer, and thinks about their marriage. He¡¯s grateful for her companionship, but worried that she could have done better. The lack of sex is a problem, obviously. You don¡¯t need to be a trained therapist to know that it¡¯s crucial to a partnership. But he just never found himself comfortable with the concept. The inherent brutality of it, the loss of control. They tried a few times, using several approaches, but it scared him, like some drug-induced experience. He knew exactly what Bar was talking about.


    He knows that only an amateur would make the mistake of jumping to a conclusion based only on neuroanatomy, but the fact that in human males the amygdala, that part of the brain that regulates fear and aggression, becomes highly active during sex, while in females it doesn¡¯t¡­ It haunts him. He tried to satisfy her while maintaining control, but the more he tried, the less she enjoyed it. That was all a long time ago.


    A week passes without hearing from Bar again, and David keeps busy, managing not to think about it. Nurit certainly can¡¯t suspect anything if he doesn¡¯t even remember something is going on.


    A buzz at the door jolts him awake. He gets out of bed, mumbling something calming to Nurit as he exits their dark bedroom, hoping her sleep wasn¡¯t irreparably disturbed. Maybe it¡¯s a patient. One of them, Vered, used to show up, back in the tougher periods, but she¡¯s been holding it together so well lately.


    He presses a button by the door, letting his voice be recorded and transmitted outside. ¡°Who is it?¡±


    ¡°Police,¡± a gruff voice answers. David starts to panic. If one of his patients has gotten themselves in trouble¡­ He opens the door, unsure how he could help in such a case, and is surprised when they tell him that it is him who¡¯s under arrest.


    He doesn¡¯t understand what is happening, and they don¡¯t explain or let him talk to anyone as they take him into custody, don¡¯t give him a chance to ask what exactly they are charging him with. There is no law that prohibits you from talking to people. He hopes Nurit isn¡¯t too worried about him. She¡¯s a doer, by nature¡ªsolves problems by confronting them head on¡ªso the fact that she doesn¡¯t make contact with him for the week that he¡¯s in prison means that she finally found a wall that was too tough for her to bulldoze. He wishes he could comfort her. Or anyone. It¡¯s terribly lonely in prison.


    All he can do to occupy himself is to try and understand what put him there, but his mind doesn¡¯t deliver any reasonable solutions, just an ominous sense that he¡¯s going to be thrown out. But why? He hasn¡¯t hurt anyone.


    Finally, the day of the trial comes. The mystery isn¡¯t instantly solved¡ªthe judge and two lawyers speak quickly, cutting in and talking over one another. Somebody says something about a sex offence, but the only person he¡¯s been remotely sexually active with is his wife, and he can¡¯t even conceive of hurting her.


    No one asks him anything, so he doesn¡¯t say anything. There¡¯s talk of the evidence being ironclad, but he doesn¡¯t know what said evidence is. Is there any? When his clients come in with the anxiety of being falsely accused and tried, he tries to treat it like any other anxiety about dangers that aren¡¯t really there. But he really is here, and the danger seems very real now.


    When the time for him to speak finally comes, he doesn¡¯t know what to say, how to defend himself against an unknown accusation.


    ¡°That¡¯s settled, then,¡± the judge says, looking back at the screen. ¡°Call me for the proceedings, ok? I wanna watch when they airlock this pedo.¡±


    Oh, David thinks numbly. That thing. Right.


    His mind has somehow managed to walk around this, but here it is. Yes, he had those videos on his computer. And yes, he watched them. Many times. And yes, he paid for them. And yes, technically speaking, he was aroused by them. Sexually aroused.


    David has come to terms with the fact that there¡¯s a part of himself that he¡¯ll never like. A part he¡¯ll never accept¡ªnot only because of how he¡¯s internalized society¡¯s scorn, but also because he suspects that it reflects some deeper wound within him; a hidden, bitter helplessness. When the Prime Minister spoke of the ¡°slimy little perverts, taking their damage out on the world,¡± it struck fear in David¡¯s heart¡ªbecause of the threat in them, but also because of the possibility that they were true. That the¡­ tendency was nothing more than a manifestation of the desire to be in power over something, anything, in this chaotic and scary world.


    He tried his best to deny this part of him, and most of the time he succeeded. Repression isn¡¯t a bug of the human psyche, but a feature, and it¡¯s served human beings for as long as they¡¯ve needed to fit into a society. He pretended to be a normal, healthy person, to his wife, his patients, and even himself, forgetting what he was until the time came for another guilty, compulsive binge.


    But even if they were true, the prime minister¡¯s words didn¡¯t make David a bad person. He¡¯d never touched a child; never even watched a video that wasn¡¯t one hundred percent computer generated. He didn¡¯t even buy them from Earth, even though Earth¡¯s had more than enough computing power to spare, and sold custom videos dirt cheap¨Cbecause it was illegal to buy any labor from Earth, for fear of it outcompeting all Ceresian trade. No, he paid Ceresian artists, like a good citizen should.


    David found long ago that nothing served as a better distraction from the world¡¯s endless, needless cruelty than those simulated visions of purity and beauty. But he would never hurt anyone. It¡¯s the only thing in his life he has always been certain about.


    Isn¡¯t that enough? What¡¯s more heroic than to have evil inside of you and guard the world from it? How could he be punished for that?


    When he looks at the judge¡¯s face, he realizes that it doesn¡¯t matter. People can make you guilty just for holding something in your head, be it a thought, a desire, or an idea. He should have known. He did know.


    Even so, he thinks that there¡¯s a chance someone might notice that he isn¡¯t the kind of guy who¡¯d harm anyone. Maybe there¡¯s another committee, someone else he can talk to. Surely, no one could pull the lever on such a harmless guy. He¡¯s in denial, even in the airlock, suited up. The guy behind the glass avoids eye contact. David thinks that it must be a very hard job.


    The airlock opens, and the leftover air whistles against his suit as it pushes him outside, into space, and there is no more denial, no more shocked optimism. This is really how it ends. He looks at the star-filled sky, and terror engulfs him. He thinks¡ªand it¡¯s the most shameful thought he¡¯s ever had¡ªthat if he¡¯s paying the price, he may as well have done the crime. Maybe they¡¯re right to throw him out like garbage.


    Blackness descends on him, crushing him. The stars themselves are judges. The suit is tight, small, and there is no escaping it. Never. This is the worst thing one person can do to another: leave them by themselves, truly by themselves, and they immediately begin to die.


    A voice he doesn¡¯t recognize screams in the darkness.


    A couple of hours later, he¡¯s now sitting by the airlock, waiting for a newcomer to arrive. Yossi has gone to talk to someone else, and though the loneliness bears down on David, he endures. He knows that nothing else will keep Yossi from collapsing under his own weight, and he has to let him go, to do whatever he thinks he has to do. Of course, he¡¯s excited for the arrival of someone new, for a chance to be useful, himself.


    The newcomer emerges out of the airlock in a halfway catatonic state¡ªunable to move but bravely fighting for control over herself, her body rigid even as she floats, her small fists pinned at her side. David doesn¡¯t need to see her face to see how hard she must be clenching her teeth. She floats up, screaming that scream he now knows so well. Even before she lands, he knows what he should say to her, and how: She¡¯ll need to be comforted with a sort of robustness, and her quest for safety will be an aggressive one. What a blessing, to know what needs to be done.


    But she never does lands. She reaches the apex of her ascent and drifts to a stop¡ªand something quick and dark snatches her and flings her against the lip of the crater with a thud and a breathless gasp David hears on comm.


    They bounce with the energy of the impact. ¡°Are you watching?¡± Vempress says. She¡¯s hanging onto the limp woman¡¯s oxygen supply, crouching like something that is clearly not human. He hears the mockery in her voice, as if she¡¯s seen deep inside him and knows what will hurt him most. The woman¡¯s face tells David that she¡¯d be screaming if she could, when she realizes, at the exact same moment David does that, that Vempress has already put a wrench to the piping of the oxygen tank.


    ¡°Watch closely, Pythia,¡± the hoarse voice says. ¡°I want you to remember this.¡± As if it¡¯s a response to something he did. But what could he have done to her?


    After Vempress unplugs the oxygen tank she takes off, making a sound that is clearly not a chuckle, leaving David to comfort the dying woman. It takes a very long time.

 Yael III

    David watches Yossi land with that little flying device. The first thing he does is ask David where Rachel is. David turns to him and sees a man walking on the edge of a great chasm, trying very hard not to look down. He seems older, somehow, tired. His mouth twitches under the grey beard¡ªthere must be an itch behind his visor that he can¡¯t reach. Perhaps the long, ragged scar running down the side of his nose.


    David points to the cliff, not trusting his voice. Yossi¡¯s eyes are a brown so deep it seems black; they scrutinize David, measure him. David knows that he barely convinced the man not to kill Vempress. He knows that if Yossi finds out what Vempress did to the newcomer, what she had done to David, this will change.


    But Yossi¡¯s gaze is sympathetic, not suspicious. He seems to read David¡¯s emotional state, but likely credits it to Rachel¡¯s absence. That¡¯s good. David¡¯s a horrible liar, but he still manages to lead Yossi on. He hates every second of it.


    They speak of psycho-therapeutic theory. That¡¯s also good¡ªanything to keep Yossi afloat. There may be a time where Yossi must face that which he is avoiding, but that time is not now. It is a long time after he leaves that Rachel comes back, carrying the folded net behind her. David can¡¯t hide what has happened from her, though, but he feels guilty for telling her, and relying on her for support.


    She tells him that he¡¯s trying too hard, caring too much. But what does it matter? What will happen if he cares too much, if he tries too hard? All that will remain are the consequences of his actions, even if no one recognizes them. The cumulative benefit of good deeds¡ªthat is his only consolation.


    Rachel and David lie in a pool of soft dust, her curled up in a fetal position, him big-spooning behind her. She¡¯s as tall as he is, and it bugs him that he can¡¯t wrap around her more. It bugs him that he can¡¯t bury his face in the nape of her neck, and instead can only put his helmet to the back of hers. Still, he¡¯s warm, and he thinks that he¡¯s warming her up, too. It¡¯s not that he feels her warmth exactly, but her form blocks some of the cold emanating off the vast emptiness. That¡¯s good enough.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to die,¡± she says.


    ¡°I know.¡±


    ¡°How do you know? Maybe I¡¯m not afraid at all.¡±


    ¡°I know because I know you,¡± he says.


    ¡°You know me? You don¡¯t even know who I am.¡± Her tone is soft, despite the harsh words.


    ¡°Does it matter? Would anything be different if I did?¡±


    ¡°I guess not.¡± She laughs, and hugs one of his legs with her own.


    David considers the possibility that Nurit was thrown out of the airlock before him, that she¡¯s roaming somewhere in the crater, and wonders what his wife will think if she caught him now, his leg between another woman¡¯s thighs. He dismisses it as unlikely. ¡°It¡¯s enough that you¡¯re in my arms, right now.¡± He squeezes her a bit tighter, as if he can compress every bad emotion out of her like water from a sponge.


    ¡°I admit, this is an improvement,¡± she says. ¡°I trust you, for some reason.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s because you know me.¡±


    ¡°What? I don¡¯t know anything about you.¡±


    He even loves that little spike of anger, when she thought she was being patronized or ignored. ¡°No, I mean, yeah. Sure¡ªyou don¡¯t know who I was, what my story was, what happened before, but it doesn¡¯t matter anyway. You know I¡¯m someone you can trust. You know I can¡¯t hurt you. That¡¯s what you¡¯ll remember.¡±


    ¡°What makes you think I¡¯ll be the one remembering you, and not¡ªyou know what? Never mind.¡±


    ¡°Did you sew a patch to your suit?¡± David says, quickly changing the subject that made her uncomfortable. ¡°I think I felt something on your thigh.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t sew into a bag; it¡¯ll leak. I found some tape, and I used it to make a little pocket to keep the rest of the tape. Try not to touch it; I don''t know how strong it is,¡± she says, and something in her tone is clearly off.


    David doesn¡¯t know why she¡¯s lying, what she has to hide, but her secrets are hers to keep. They lie in that warm darkness for a while, until the sounds of a distant conversation rise above the background noises of space.


    ¡°And how does that help me?¡± one voice, assertive and suspicious, asks.


    ¡°After you lose some of your inside air¡ªboth nitrogen and oxygen¡ªthe suit won¡¯t be able to replenish the nitrogen supply,¡± answers a calmer voice.


    ¡°Why would why I care about nitrogen? I only need the oxygen to live.¡±


    Rachel shakes David off and lifts her head above the lip of the little crater, to see who¡¯s approaching.


    ¡°You¡¯re not wrong, but your suit only has oxygen reserves. After you seal it the life support will try to restore pressure, leaving you to breathe much more oxygen with each breath.¡±


    ¡°And that gets me high?¡±


    ¡°Fuck if I know. Oh, here they are, the sweethearts.¡± The tone changes to one of pleasant surprise.


    The other one keeps silent.


    David lifts his head as well and peers out into the open, trying to spot them in the dark. Rachel¡¯s already on her feet. Two men are coming towards them, using metal rods, moving faster than David has ever seen anyone move on the surface. He remembers that Yossi told him their names, yet the sight of the two stampeding towards Rachel is terrifying. She stands steadily, but she seems so small, so alone, and he can¡¯t protect her.


    He notes the safe distance they keep from one another. They don¡¯t trust each other, and it makes him not trust them either. They bring themselves to a full stop in front of Rachel and him, the taller one in a fluid, confident motion, and the shorter, stockier one with unnecessary force. His face is frozen in a half-grimace, his green eyes narrowed, as if he suffers from a constant, chronic pain. He stares at the sword at David¡¯s side, and the net Rachel carries in one hand, and his grip around the metal rod tightens. The taller one had darker eyes, set in a long and tranquil face. The way he looks at things makes David feel like he¡¯s taking in every detail in methodical boredom. David isn¡¯t sure which of them worries him more.


    He braces himself to break the ice, take control of the situation, when Rachel steps forward, her body tense as she floats past him. She points at the taller one. ¡°You Alex?¡± Her voice is controlled and commanding. ¡°You look like an Alex.¡±


    He smiles and nods. ¡°Good day, everyone.¡± He manages to put a great deal of irony into that one little phrase. ¡°And you are?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Rachel,¡± she says. ¡°This is David.¡±


    Alex turns to look at David, and says, as if to a co-worker, ¡°Oh yeah, Yossi told us about you. You¡¯re going to be Pythia, right? Nice to meet all of you. This guy¡¯s Shaul. He¡¯s shy, but give him time.¡±


    David looks at the man. He doesn¡¯t seem shy. The mistrustful eyes look at David, then at Rachel, then at the crater they¡¯ve been lying in, and his expression grows acidic. David didn¡¯t know a silence could be so uncomfortable.


    ¡°David,¡¯ Alex says, ¡°if you¡¯re taking the role of Pythia, I could ask you for a confession, right? My friend here had his, but I haven¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Right now? We don¡¯t have much time¡­¡± They are near the airlock, which means that Vempress might be listening in, and they should start making the walk towards Pythia if they want to make it in time to capture her.


    ¡°It won¡¯t take long,¡± Alex says.


    They put their helmets together. What¡¯s said, David cannot repeat to any other ears. But it¡¯s fairly quick, even if it isn¡¯t a confession per se.


    When they¡¯re done, they begin the trek towards Pythia. Alex teaches Rachel and David how to use the stick to propel themselves, while Shaul stays at a safe distance, his eyes always on them. When they reach the shuttle, Rachel assumes command so naturally it surprises David, and directs David to stand on the shuttle itself.


    It¡¯s an eerie thing, large but nearly weightless, with the broken statue above it, two legs with the torso folded behind it, broken, like a shattered symbol of hope. Inside are Vempress and Yossi, both unpredictable in their own ways.


    David climbs slowly, making his bootsteps as soft as possible. His heart beats so hard he¡¯s afraid the vibration will pulse through his feet, into the metal. That they¡¯ll feel it, on the inside.


    According to their plan, all that David need to do is seem like he¡¯s about to attack Vempress, to draw his attention to her. That will give the others a chance to act. He doesn¡¯t understand why Rachel didn¡¯t take the sword from him. There wasn¡¯t time to explain. There wasn¡¯t time for a lot of things.


    She directs Alex and Shaul to hide behind rocks. She places herself in front of the door of the shuttle, holding the net. When they begin their attack, she¡¯ll be in the most immediate danger, counting on the others to distract Vempress.


    After a startlingly short wait, a vibration runs up through David¡¯s feet as the shuttle door opens. He tenses. He can¡¯t tell the others, of course, but they¡¯ll soon know. Except Rachel¡¯s looking at Shaul who, despite his orders, is standing tall, nervously peeking over the rock. ¡°Your head is too high, dumbass! She¡¯ll see you!¡±


    David hears a howl of pain. The sound is distorted, the radio waves sneaking through the narrow crack between the door and the opening, but he recognizes Yossi¡¯s voice. The look on Rachel¡¯s face displays a combination of terror and guilt. For a moment, no one moves. Everything is silent but for that dying howl.


    The door bursts outward. From above, David sees Vempress holding on and hiding behind it, turning her head, surveying the area with cold precision. Her gaze passes on Alex, Shaul, then David. Terribly slow, everything is so slow, and he watches as Vempress cranes her neck over the door and sees Rachel. David isn¡¯t sure but he thinks he sees a measure of disappointment in the way her lips are pursed, her eyebrows drawn near each other.


    David realizes that from Rachel¡¯s angle, it might seem like Vempress kicked the door outside, while staying in the relative safety of the shuttle¡¯s interior. Only when Vempress peeked her head out and spotted Rachel could she understand that she was already late on the attack. She throws the net, hurriedly, clumsily, and Vempress kicks the door right at the center of the net.


    The net wraps around the door, just the way they planned for it to wrap around Vempress herself. Her hand closes around the edge of the net as if she planned it all along.


    Terrified and furious, Rachel charges forward, the metal rod in her hands.


    David feels his gloves tighten around the sword¡¯s handle, but don¡¯t move, as if there are someone else¡¯s hands inside those gloves. He looks to the left. Shaul is still hiding behind the same rock, watching and waiting for the right moment.


    David looks to the right, at Alex, who stands there, his mouth open, as if struck by¡­ Beauty? As if he¡¯s enjoying what he¡¯s seeing. He follows each and every one of her movements as if he was watching God manifesting.


    Alex, David thinks. Save her, goddammit. Do something. Alex isn¡¯t a coward. He could get in there and fight, perhaps even defeat her. David couldn¡¯t.


    Rachel¡¯s eyes are wide with terror. Above her, Vempress pumps her jets, using the net with the door tangled in it like a giant slingshot, twisting it around herself. Rachel¡¯s smart enough not to stop¡ªinstead, she runs straight into the open shuttle.


    But Vempress catches her, slamming the door down with a fluid motion. The net obstructs his view, but he hears the impact on comm. It takes him a moment to understand that the sound came from inside of Rachel¡¯s helmet, from her own microphone. He listens closely for the sound of air leaking through the background noise of many mouths breathing, and notices a soft whistle. Hers, or Yossi¡¯s?


    He looks again at Alex. Painfully slowly, he ties the weapon on his back, and finds the proper handholds on the rocks.


    What is he waiting for? Does he want Rachel to die before he acts?


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    David tries to look at her again, but the view is still blocked. He turns back to look at Alex, only to find out Alex is already looking at him. He crosses his fingers, using his other hand to cross his fingers, wishing me good luck? then shoots himself up and away against the rock. It takes David a moment to realize that he¡¯s just watched Alex run away, without even a trace of shame or apology on his face.


    Vempress barks, that imitation of amusement again. She turns her head to the rest of her targets. She looks directly at David, and for a short, terrifying moment, he knows this is how he¡¯s going to die. To his surprise, even with the sword in his hand, she turns from him to Shaul.


    Her non-laughter seems to have shaken Shaul out of his paralysis, and a lust for murder resonates in his movements. He vaults over the rock and charges forward¡ªbut Vempress moves faster, controlling her jets with one hand, holding the sword in another. She lands to his side, putting herself at an angle that makes it difficult for him to swing at her. He moves back before she strikes, trying to dodge, but she must have planned for this, and as he steps back the tip of her sword nicks him across the ribs, so precisely that no blood sprays from the cut.


    The whistle of escaping oxygen is loud in David¡¯s ears. Under it, just barely, is the sound of a man fighting for breath. Shaul tries to turn and retaliate, swinging the metal rod, but something is pushing him sideways, the cut applying force on him. He takes a few stumbling steps towards Rachel.


    The door and the net have sunk to the ground, and David can see the disoriented expression on Rachel¡¯s face. He sees when she starts to remember where she is, looking around her, terrified and then, as she sees Vempress, furious. She gets a grip on her weapon just as Vempress lands in front of her, rotating on one boot-point.


    Rachel strikes; Vempress strikes. Rachel misses, her face a savage mask of hate, her limbs flailing, the bar passing just above Vempress¡¯s helmet; Vempress cuts, her body bent and extended like a ballerina¡¯s and the sword outreached, the tip kissing Rachel¡¯s suit open, right above the collar bone. Another whistle of escaping air is added to the chorus.


    Vempress looks out into the darkness, at Alex. He¡¯s moving fast, but is not yet out of sight. If she keeps looking long enough, Rachel might have enough time to patch herself up. She said she had tape, didn¡¯t she?


    Vempress draws the spear gun from her side¡ªlooks down at it and sees that it isn¡¯t loaded. She is still looking out at Alex as she grabs a spear from the side of her life support and loads the gun, but by the time she¡¯s donw her expression has changed. She shrugs and turns to Shaul, who has managed to stagger closer to her, drooling and spitting as he gasps for air, one hand gripping at the nick in his suit.


    She points the spear gun at him, but then notices Rachel on the floor, struggling to rip a piece of adhesive tape. For the second time, she turns to look at David. As she does, the sky lights up, casting brown-yellow light down on them. Her eyes are hidden in shadow, but her smile glints. That smile terrifies him more than anything he has ever seen, and he doesn¡¯t know who it is he¡¯s afraid for.


    Shaul is almost in striking range from her now. His eyes are bloodshot, his face blue; he sees nothing but her. Doesn¡¯t even notice that he¡¯s stepping on the net.


    Vempress pulls it from under his feet in one sharp, decisive motion.


    He trips backwards, falling onto his back. She grabs him by the ankle and tosses him at Rachel in a lazy arc.


    Rachel has just begun, desperately, to tape the slash shut; she stops to block him with one hand. Vempress swings the net around her, snaring both of them, and pulls it tight.


    Shaul and Rachel are bound now, like lovers in a cocoon. David can¡¯t hear the whistling anymore, as if the net has cut them off from all communication, like the shuttle does.


    Vempress jets up and lands beside David on the shuttle. Her sword is in her hand, but her grip is slack¡ªshe knows she won¡¯t have to use it. ¡°Don¡¯t move.¡±


    His eyes turn to her, then, in tiny increments, his head.


    Vempress looks at him with understanding in her icy eyes. No, not understanding. Familiarity. ¡°Drop it.¡±


    Before he has time to consider his actions, his hands let go of the sword. It drops slowly, still within his reach. She extends her own sword until the tip almost slices his forearm, and slaps his sword away. ¡°Now,¡± she says. ¡°Watch.¡±


    He hears nothing but his own panting, and Vempress exhaling air through her nose in amusement, and another sound he doesn¡¯t fully comprehend, some wet gurgling. He holds his breath.


    Shaul is pushing and kicking inside the net, one hand reaching around to his ribs, trying to stop the leakage with no success. Rachel is scrambling to use the roll of tape, to shut her suit so she won¡¯t have to fucking die. David knows her¡ªshe¡¯d seal her own suit first, then fix Shaul¡¯s. It¡¯s the logical thing to do. But his violent motions prevent her from using the tape properly.


    She screams at Shaul in the thin air, trying to reason with him, to get him to stop moving, explaining, probably, that if he doesn¡¯t, they would both die. For a moment, he does stop¡ªand then his hands are on the tape, his face feral and selfish. David never spoke to the man, but he senses that he¡¯s speaking words that have waited deep inside for a long time. Demanding what he¡¯s entitled to.


    Rachel puts an elbow between them and pushes him away. Precious seconds pass while they struggle. It looks like she¡¯s yelling at him again, but he doesn¡¯t listen; he pulls her arm and gropes for the tape. His fingers stick, and so do hers. She still has a free arm, though, the one she used to keep him away, and she reaches for the pocket at her thigh. Maybe there¡¯s another roll of tape in there¡ªbut no. She draws something else out. From the way she holds it in her hand, even before it glints in the light, David knows it¡¯s a knife. She tries talking, one last attempt to cooperate, but Shaul keeps pulling and pushing, not listening.


    She lifts the thin knife above her head, ready to slice at the tangled tape. Then she hesitates. David sees the exact moment she realizes there¡¯s an easier solution to her problem.


    She cries, and cries out, as she brings the weapon down and stabs between his shoulder and neck. She pulls up to stab again but the knife doesn¡¯t come out. The frozen metal sticks in his flesh, and she twists until the weapon comes free in an explosion of blood.


    Shaul stops moving, but not because he¡¯s dying¡ªhe¡¯s confused, perhaps; doesn¡¯t understand what¡¯s going on. He gets both of his arms up, along with one of hers that is taped to him, blocking her stabbing hand, but she stabs his forearm instead, and pulls the knife out with another spray of blood.


    Shaul laughs as he dies. David hears a laughter on comm, though it isn¡¯t Shaul¡¯s. From the corner of his eye, he can see Vempress chuckling, as if echoing Shaul¡¯s emotion. Or maybe it¡¯s the other way around.


    Shaul lowers his hands, pulling down Rachel¡¯s arm as well, even as she resists. He reaches for her collarbone and thrusts his fingers into the gash in her suit.


    Only then do tears flood David¡¯s eyes, perhaps a kindness performed by his own body to blur the view. He can¡¯t hear them, but he sees the pulling and pushing. Sees a ripping motion.


    Rachel stops struggling. That¡¯s it. One moment she struggles and fights, and in the next she doesn¡¯t.


    Shaul lets go of Rachel¡¯s body. He moves slowly now, having given up on escaping, on surviving. The tape is stuck to his hands, and with a last effort he rolls up, to look at the sky. Then he stops moving, too.


    David lets go of the breath that he¡¯s been holding. Just him and Vempress, now. It¡¯s very quiet.


    And he didn¡¯t do a single thing to stop it. He didn¡¯t move, except for a slight movement of his eyes, the loosening of the grip around his weapon. Not a single step forward. Not even the pretense of one.


    How he wishes for her to hold a sword to his throat, to kick him in the head, if only so he¡¯ll have an excuse to keep not doing anything. Never in his life has he hated himself as much as he does at this moment. Not for lying to himself, thinking that he could actually take part in a fight to the death; lying to themselves is what people do. No, he¡¯s angry at himself for believing the lies his mind came up with. This was his job, goddammit: to help people see through their own bullshit.


    Using every bit of courage left in him, he turns to face Vempress, who¡¯s looking down, as if through the roof of the shuttle. Something happens to her. She doesn¡¯t move, but he still sees it clearly: an ache deep in her stomach she wants to collapse around, to let consume her. She keeps the smile on her face, but only an idiot would take it for anything but a cheap mask. Even now, he finds himself unable to ignore her pain.


    Something bubbles in him¡ªsomething hot and painful, thawing his frozen limbs. Freedom, as he realizes that there really is nothing left to lose, that none of it matters. If this keeps rising, he might actually get the courage to -


    ¡°Would you like to go on breathing?¡± Her words are barely audible, the object of her focus still inside the shuttle. And that¡¯s that. All of the power drains from his body, and he knows that he¡¯ll do nothing. She looks at him, taking full stock of his humiliation, and her smile turns just a bit more real. ¡°Good,¡± she says. ¡°Then wait here.¡±


    She jets down and throws herself into the hole in the shuttle, and David finds himself waiting for her next command.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: ???


    In the dark room, lit only by a single visor display, David stopped crying. His eyes still lowered, he laughed bitterly. ¡°Well, that could have gone better.¡±


    I was surprised at the choking cough that escaped my mouth. Was that what my laughter sounded like? Rachel had been right not to trust me; Shaul had been right not to trust me. David trusted me and had somehow survived, but at the cost of everything that he might have enjoyed. Alex¡­ I didn¡¯t know what was going on in his head. I doubted I¡¯d ever see him again, but knowing that he was somewhere out there, walking the hills, brought me the tiniest measure of comfort.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said finally. A ridiculous apology.


    ¡°Me too,¡± he said, and I didn¡¯t know what the hell he was apologizing for.


    ¡°Where is she now?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. But she¡¯ll return.¡±


    ¡°Ok, so what are our chances of making something good out of this?¡±


    He looked away. I hoped he wouldn¡¯t cry again. ¡°Not good. Very not good. We attacked her, and she knows you set it up. She took it¡­ personally. I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll tell you herself.¡±


    ¡°She will, huh? She told you so?¡± A part of me, one with which I¡¯d become very familiar in the last couple of hours, raised its head and flicked its tongue at the scent of an opportunity to talk my way out of something.


    ¡°That¡¯s the impression I got. She made it very clear that she doesn¡¯t want you to go anywhere.¡±


    ¡°I figured as much,¡± I said and gestured at the metal frame around my neck. ¡°Quite an overkill, if you ask me.¡±


    He looked at me for a second, perhaps wondering why I was still trying to keep an upbeat tone. ¡°If it was just about your escape, sure, but I don¡¯t think that¡¯s it.¡±


    ¡°What is it, then?¡±


    ¡°I think¡­ Well, I think she¡¯s afraid you¡¯ll kill yourself. You¡¯re unpredictable, to her, and for that reason dangerous. She saw you risk your own survival more than once. She probably believes that you¡¯d get out of the airlock without your helmet on, if she didn¡¯t chain you. She probably thinks you¡¯d do it just to spite her.¡±


    Despite myself, I smiled. She wasn¡¯t wrong. ¡°So why did she let you in here?¡±


    He shrugged. ¡°Maybe she expects me to turn you to her point of view, or maybe she expects me to explain to you what happened, so she won¡¯t have to waste time on the details. Maybe she¡¯s doing it out of kindness to me.¡±


    ¡°I find that difficult to believe. So, barring divine intervention, I¡¯m pretty much fucked. But what about you?¡±


    He eyed his boots. ¡°From the way she talks, it seems like she wants to make some changes around here, and she wants me to be a part of them. It¡¯s not like I can escape, or fight her. Might as well stick around and see what¡¯s up. Maybe I could actually help someone¡ªreally help someone, this time.¡±


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be here.¡± I groaned, rubbing both cheeks with my one good hand. ¡°You don¡¯t have much time left, and you shouldn¡¯t spend your last hours humoring an old man.¡±


    He coughed nervously. ¡°So, about that¡­¡± he said, as if beginning another confession, then stopped.


    Despite the numbness and pain, that strange way in which he said it, the guilt in his voice, were enough to tell me what I needed to know. ¡°These aren¡¯t your last hours, are they?¡± I said. ¡°She¡¯s giving you oxygen.¡±


    He still couldn¡¯t look at me. ¡°I can¡¯t help anyone if I¡¯m dead. And if she listens to me; she knows she has someone to trust¡­¡±


    ¡°She trusted me.¡±


    He raised his eyes to mine then. For the first time, his tone was accusatory. ¡°Yeah, and who knows how long it¡¯ll take me to fix the damage that did.¡±


    I blinked. When had he grown a spine? Under any other circumstances, I would have been proud of him. ¡°You can¡¯t convince her to give up immortality.¡±


    ¡°Maybe not, but taking her down with force didn¡¯t work either.¡±


    ¡°Because you wouldn¡¯t let me kill her!¡±


    ¡°Would you have? Really?¡±


    ¡°Maybe, maybe not. But Rachel would, for sure.¡±


    He raised an eyebrow. He knew that I knew something about her that he didn¡¯t, and it hurt him. I wanted it to, I realized. I felt so tired, so deflated, and not just because of the blood loss.


    David was silent for a moment, and when he finally spoke, there was no anger in his voice. ¡°I didn¡¯t want you to spend your last hours alone in the dark. Not after all that you¡¯ve done. All that you¡¯ve tried to do. I know you hurt us, and that if you had talked to her, like I asked you to, I might still have Rachel. She didn¡¯t want to die. That¡¯s the first thing she told us, that she didn¡¯t want to die. You and I didn¡¯t mind as much, and here we are now, and she¡¯s gone.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t want it to end like this,¡± I said. ¡°You know that.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sold on the idea of Last Day Town,¡± he said, a little abruptly. ¡°The names, the ¡®roles¡¯. I believe that you¡¯ve seen it in action, but I still have doubts that this place could become something so peaceful, when everyone has to endure such intense stress. But I don¡¯t think that¡¯s the point.¡±


    He turned quiet again, but I didn¡¯t urge him on.


    ¡°I think,¡± he continued, ¡°that the point is that we can¡¯t afford to be alone. We can¡¯t afford to be unkind. Even here. Especially here.¡±


    ¡°And yet you won¡¯t fight.¡±


    He took a deep breath. ¡°I tried your way. Now I¡¯m asking you to trust me and try mine.¡±


    ¡°Seems very convenient, that your way leaves you in a position that doesn¡¯t involve choking to death.¡±


    I¡¯d wanted the words to draw blood, but he seemed more sorry than offended. Saddened that I¡¯d lowered myself so much. ¡°I came here to bring some comfort, to hear you out. These may be your last words; is this what you want them to be?¡±


    ¡°These are your last words, too, whether you choose to admit it or not.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Listen,¡± he said. ¡°No one really knows what¡ª¡±


    His suit comm crackled to life. I didn¡¯t understand what was being said, but I recognized the smile in the rasping voice. He waited for her to finish and nodded, then realized that she couldn¡¯t see him nod and said, ¡°Right away.¡±


    He looked at me, and his face twisted. He reached out and grabbed my gloved hand. A soft grip, which I felt through layers of bag. The first time anyone had done that in a while. I expected him to look away, ashamed to leave me alone with her, but he didn¡¯t. He looked at me, without fear or apology. He was just there.


    I slapped his hand away with my good hand, but it still hurt, the movement bothering the fresh wound.


    He took a shuffling step back, his lips pursed. Without a word, he turned away and climbed into the airlock. He closed the zipper behind him, then fumbled through the layers for the next. I realized that I would probably never see him again. That I might never see anyone again, except for Vempress. I searched for something to say to him, to make him turn back or, if nothing else, to leave another piece of myself with him, but there was nothing to say. The cell was suddenly very cold.

 King I

    Estimated oxygen time: ???


    The chamber was perfectly dark. There was not a single visor for illumination, and no way to tell the passage of time, though it was passing nonetheless, quicker than ever. The sounds of bag-on-bag friction resonated in the chamber¡¯s air, meaning that someone was moving through the airlock. The zipper opened from the other side, and the pressure in the chamber dropped, popping my ears.


    She entered, carrying an empty, folded suit, with a helmet already connected, but did not approach. She stood by the door, as far from me as possible, unscrewed her own helmet and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, her expression blank.


    ¡°You fucked up,¡± she said. ¡°I almost trusted you, and you fucked it all up. I wanted to see if you would speak the truth, if you were actually trying to help, but as soon as I set you free you started conspiring against me. The little whispers, the silences on comm, the double speak. I thought that I must be paranoid from sleeplessness. I thought I had to trust someone, at some point, if I wanted to stay sane. But of course.¡± She shook her head, and passed her fingers through her dark hair. ¡°Of course you used that trust against me.¡±


    I looked for something to say; found nothing.


    ¡°Nothing? You have nothing to say? Nothing clever or defiant, nothing that will make me hate you enough to just keep you alive? Not a single word, huh?¡± She wasn¡¯t smiling anymore. Her anger was warm, real. ¡°Say something. Say something or I will fucking stab you.¡±


    ¡°What can I say? What is there to say? I lost. You defeated me, Vempress, or maybe you already defeated me as Diocletian, or as Yael. Not much of an achievement, though, it seems everyone along the way beat me. They threw me out of the world¡­. and I couldn¡¯t do anything to stop them. They got exactly what they wanted, us killing and torturing each other. It must seem so funny to them that you¡¯re doing this to me. And in all of this, I can¡¯t find a single soul to help. Everyone around me¡¯s going through the same torture, and I can¡¯t do anything.¡±


    She looked at me, disgust in her eyes. ¡°Tell me why. I offered you oxygen, for the love of God. How could you refuse?¡±


    ¡°I met a woman.¡± The words rang in their simplicity, a contrast to the complicated circumstances we were in. ¡°She tried saving my life, in her own way, when we were in prison. Even though we had so little time, she was kind to me when I was lost, saved me from falling apart. And I told her about this place as I remembered it. I told her that it¡¯s great: a celebration of the human spirit, something you can take pride in having been a part of. Can you believe it? That I¡¯d call this hellhole a celebration of anything? I could take one day with your boot on my neck, but I couldn¡¯t live with myself if I let her come here, expecting Last Day Town, and finding this. Do you understand? Not that it would matter. She¡¯ll die here just like I¡¯ll die here, defeated and afraid and crushed with shame, and I can¡¯t do anything to stop that.¡± I took a long, shaky breath. ¡°But if I could ask you for one thing, if there¡¯s any kindness left in you, if you could let Pythia spend a little time with the newcomers, anything, I¡¯m begging y-¡°


    ¡°What exactly do you think I¡¯m doing here?¡± She asked sharply. If she expected me to answer, I didn¡¯t know how. ¡°Do you think I¡¯m having fun? That I chose any of this?¡± She spoke quietly, but in every word there was a fury I¡¯d never heard before. ¡°I didn¡¯t even do anything to be here. I¡¯m not a criminal, but I got the same treatment as you. And you dare to talk about how badly you were beaten? You chose this fight, you worm. You chose to come here, instead of minding your own business. You¡¯re surprised there¡¯s a price to pay for your actions, and you think it¡¯s somehow my responsibility to save you. You really expect me to risk my survival so you can impress your crush, post-mortem?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not -¡±


    ¡°Tell me,¡± she growled. ¡°Is she innocent? Was she arrested by mistake, or did she do something to earn her place here?¡±


    I thought back about the gesture Keren had made in the prison¡¯s dining chamber, her hands creating a quickly expanding sphere, her lips mouthing a silent ¡®boom¡¯, eyes shining with glory. I remained silent.


    ¡°Thought so,¡± Vempress said. ¡°And yet you expect me to risk my neck for both of you. For any of the killers and rapists and anarchists hiding in these caves, thinking up ways they can cause someone pain for the last time before they die. You act as if I¡¯m the insane one, but you¡¯re the one ignoring reality.¡±


    ¡°But it worked before!¡± I protested. ¡°You¡¯ve seen Last Day Town. It was real!¡±


    ¡°It relied on people being too scared of each other to act on their true wishes. The moment someone became strong enough to stop fearing the others, it was as good as broken. It was only a matter of time until someone like me showed up. It collapsed so easily, but I¡¯ll build something more stable, this time. And you can take credit for being the failure that inspired the innovation. Something that will hold for as long as I wait.¡± Absentmindedly, she pressed her palm against her belly.


    ¡°What are you waiting for?¡±


    She froze, maybe realizing she¡¯d said too much, and shook her head.


    ¡°Tell me,¡± I said, but instead of that softness I¡¯d practiced as Pythia, there was now a desperation in my voice. ¡°What¡¯s worth waiting for?¡±


    Perhaps she was aching to say to someone, anyone, or maybe I was just too insignificant as a human being for her to care anymore, but she said, ¡°The appeal. Maybe yours made it through, unofficial as it was. My family must have tried to appeal, or maybe someone who was at the proceedings and saw how unjust it all was. And when that appeal is granted, they¡¯ll come back for me. All I have to do is survive until then.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you understand?¡± I said. ¡°They¡¯re throwing out everyone who even knows that this place exists. They can¡¯t just have you back inside, talki¨C ¡±


    She moved so fast I couldn¡¯t even gasp. Her wide, terrified eyes were all that I could see, her teeth clenched as if she was about to scream. I felt where the blade was pressing against my throat by the distinct burning of frostbite. If she killed me now, I¡¯d barely know.


    Neither of us moved. Neither breathed. I looked at her like a rat looking at a hawk, awed. She breathed once, twice. Her teeth parted, her mouth closed, and her eyes narrowed again. She moved back, and the blade ripped my frozen skin, a spoonful in my bucket of pain.


    ¡°I¡¯ll wait here for as long as it takes,¡± she said, very quietly. ¡°Even if it means waiting for the prime minister to resign and the laws to be overturned, I¡¯ll endure. That is what I believe. I will not warn you a second time.¡±


    I tried to think of something to say to placate her, not because of what she would do, but just because she truly terrified me, but anything I could have said would only make her angrier. I kept my mouth shut.


    She went to fix the suit she¡¯d brought with her, pulled up the wrench and plugged in an oxygen tank; her movements fluid and well-practiced, unhurried. The suit immediately started swelling up, like a balloon.


    ¡°The suit you came with is almost out of oxygen, and I¡¯m going to need you with at least twelve more hours in the new tank.¡±


    ¡°What for?¡± I asked, confused.


    ¡°I¡¯m going ahead with my plan, and I¡¯m going to need four highly loyal residents, no more. But I would like you to have a few words with them.¡±


    ¡°Me? Wouldn¡¯t Davi-¡°


    ¡°Pythia will be there as an example of what happens to those who do as they¡¯re told. I need you there to show them what happens to those who don¡¯t. You will die there; you must be relieved to hear. Don¡¯t start whining. I¡¯m going to make you another deal, give you a chance to help her.¡±


    ¡°What do you want me to do?¡± I asked. The tears had, by then, pooled in my eyes, and I wiped them away with the dirty sleeve. The rough bag scratched my face.


    ¡°You do exactly what I say. No clever stuff. You give up your remaining hours, beg forgiveness for conspiring and praise me as the new King of this town. And in return, I¡¯ll make sure your girl gets to spend her twenty-four hours in peace. No one will touch her under my watch. Diocletian will ask every female resident for their name, and if it¡¯s hers, they¡¯ll set her free. What was her name, again?¡±


    ¡°Keren. Her name is Keren.¡± I wanted to drop down and kiss her feet, but the tired look on her face warned against it. Also, I was still bound in a steel collar. ¡°Thank you. Yael, thank you so much for this-¡±


    She laughed suddenly, a change of demeanor so sharp a chill flooded me. ¡°God,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m going to enjoy this.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I mumbled.


    ¡°You betrayed me. There¡¯s no coming back from that. I¡¯m not giving you anything.¡±


    ¡°But... what you just said, about Keren¡­¡± We made a deal.


    ¡°Do you think anyone cares about you or your girlfriend? You¡¯re in such a pathetic state that killing you won¡¯t even serve as punishment. I¡¯m going to have to get creative with you,¡± she said, and her face was filled with genuine, scientific curiosity as she added, ¡°I have some ideas already.¡±


    A rolling, barking breath escaped my chest, and it took me a moment to realize it was laughter.


    ¡°Do you think this is funny? Do you think I¡¯m doing a bit? We¡¯ll see if you have such an easy time laughing when I¡¯m making you into a cautionary tale for the others.¡±


    It only made me laugh harder, that she thought that I still had the guts to defy her. That there was still something left in me to crush.


    She must have mistaken my despair for a sort of resilience, because she kept on crushing. ¡°You think you¡¯re beyond hurting now? I¡¯ve seen that look, and I know that you¡¯re cleverer than is healthy for you, so it¡¯s a good thing you gave me Keren¡¯s name, just now. Wrong me again, and I¡¯ll make sure every Keren that gets here gets the royal treatment. What will make you actually afraid for her, hmm? Not to just kill her outright, no; I¡¯ll even expend some of my oxygen to make sure she lasts long enough to really suffer. I¡¯ll use this very chamber, so it¡¯ll be easier for you to imagine her here, chained to this very wall, knowing that it¡¯s all your fault, hating you more and more with every breath. I¡¯ll even let my Residents play with her, as a reward for good behavior. Can you imagine how much steam they¡¯ll have to blow off, living with my boot on their neck, day after day? They¡¯ll need to take it out on someone. Isn¡¯t that what Pythia would have wanted, that I take care of the Residents¡¯ mental health?¡±


    I¡¯d stopped laughing. She leaned forward, bringing her face closer to mine, savoring the reaction that must have showed on my face. ¡°How long will she last? Weeks? Months?¡± she asked, and I shivered with every word, with every image. I couldn¡¯t speak. ¡°Good,¡± she concluded, and burped, filling the air with the distinct, aggressive smell of a malnourished stomach. ¡°Now don¡¯t move. I¡¯m going to weld you out of this thing.¡±


    ¡°Where are we going?¡± I asked, my broken voice like that of a sniveling child.


    ¡°We aren¡¯t going anywhere,¡± she said as she pulled the torch from her suit. ¡°I¡¯m going to put you in a suit, and you¡¯re going to walk back to the airlock by yourself. I¡¯ll meet you there in an hour.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    She didn¡¯t answer, but instead went to stand by my damaged arm, out of my reach. I felt the breath of the torch on my neck, so hot I could feel it tanning my skin; Even Vempress stopped for a second to put her helmet back on.


    I was soon free from the contraption, but it didn¡¯t change much. I didn¡¯t want to imagine how pathetic I¡¯d look if I tried to overpower her, with or without the blade.


    ¡°Why what?¡± she said.


    ¡°Why are you letting me go free?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not free, dumbass: I¡¯m holding you by the balls. If you go anywhere else, if you even dare die on the way, Keren,¡± she pronounced the name sweetly, savoring it, ¡°will pay for it. Do you understand?¡±


    I nodded grimly.


    ¡°Peachy. Now strip.¡±


    I unzipped the suit. I wanted to avoid moving my damaged shoulder, but there was no way to get out of the suit with one hand. She stepped in and pulled at my sleeve. I reached for the other hand. ¡°Wait, I¡¯ll do that one mys¡ª¡± She yanked the other arm with joyful brutality, and the pain brought fresh tears to my eyes.


    I turned slowly to look at my bare shoulder. It was bleeding jelly-like, congealed blood, and she taped the wound down with two more squares of tape, sticking so hard to the skin I didn¡¯t think they¡¯d ever come off. This sealed it completely, leaving no outward bleeding. Whether or not it was bleeding inside, I couldn¡¯t know.


    ¡°Hurry up,¡± she commanded, her arms crossed, and I peeled the suit down to my pelvis. Removing a catheter isn¡¯t easy when you have two hands, let alone one, but I hurried; I didn¡¯t want her to help with that too. She watched, as I struggled to pull the thin tube out of my penis, in the same uninterested way you would watch a spider molt. After I was done with sanitation, I pulled down each leg sleeve.


    She threw the new suit at me. I put my legs inside, and wrestled to draw the tight sleeves over my waist with one arm. I finally managed to slither my legs in, not bothering to connect the catheter, then put my good arm in its sleeve. I took a deep breath before moving the bad one, tried and failed to put it in a sleeve without grunting. I picked up the helmet one-handed and barely managed to put it on top of my head.


    She grunted and moved closer, taking the helmet with both hands. I wished that I had thought of hiding a shiv somewhere on my suit; I could have stabbed her right there, between the ribs. I wished that my hand was iron, and I could puncture her lung with a fist. I might as well have wished to breathe in vacuum.


    She screwed the helmet into the suit and clicked it into place in one confident motion. I watched the visor calculate the ratio between my body mass and consumption to the oxygen in the storage. Twelve hours, fifty-four minutes. I didn¡¯t expect to last that long.


    Vempress took one lunging step and opened both of the airlock zippers, and in that single popping of pressure she was thrown out of Pythia¡¯s shuttle, jetting herself upwards. I stumbled through the door after her and fell onto the rock.


    ¡°One hour,¡± she said.


    On my knees, I watched her fly away.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 12:24:55


    The clearing outside the shuttle was quiet. Everything seemed like it had before I¡¯d entered the chamber for the last time. None of the events David had told me happened here had left a single trace. I wished someone had left one of the sticks¡ªanything to help me move. Every dragging step I took to the edge of the crater was painful.


    One hour. That was the time it took me to get here with David, after his arrival, and I doubted I could move that quickly now. I took a deep breath, and realized that this suit smelled different¡ªa flowery smell, like a woman¡¯s hair, and sweat. Better not to think about that. I jumped down, landed perfectly against the first foothold, then descended farther, my good arm cradling my bad one. By the second step I had already missed.


    I bumped against the rock with my back and bounced forward into a roll, managing to almost avoid any impact on my shoulder. I came to a stop with a grunt, and lay on the ground for a moment to catch my breath. Not much longer, I told myself as I started walking again, settling on a stride that was just slow enough to keep the pain from flaring up.


    The sky was lit again, and I saw that there were bodies lying not far off, that looked as if they¡¯d been thrown from the edge of the crater. Five in total, too far away to recognize, which was probably for the best.


    I looked at the view, instead. A strange, oval asteroid hung low over the horizon. What kind of impacts had it endured to look like that? Where were the asteroids that had shaped it? The beauty of it all struck me¡ªthe stars, the asteroids, even the grey rock of the crater. Everything was as beautiful as it was painful. Far ahead, just above the edge, I thought I could make out the shape of the cliff-face above Anaxagoras¡¯s cave, where I¡¯d once seen a woman tell her fellows how proud she was of them, in the little time she had. To my right was Ctesibius¡¯s cliff, a stark shadow against the sky, where a woman had apologized to me for risking my life, even though it was the only thing she could do to distract herself in her final moments. To my left, like a fracture in the face of Ceres, was the chasm. There had been a time when I didn¡¯t know how far down it went.


    Soon, I thought, and in the lonely quiet, there was nothing to mask the fear. But not just fear: relief, too. Soon you won¡¯t have to worry anymore. Just finish this one last trial. You¡¯ve been through worse. Never this wounded, sure, but there are worse things than internal bleeding and fatigue.


    Remember what you¡¯re doing this for. Keren. How she risked herself to help you, and held your hand, ignoring the punishment. What an idiot, huh? Just like you. How she worried that you might go into death afraid. Well, here you are, and she did end up giving you something to be distracted by. Maybe that¡¯s enough. The way she smiled at you. The way her eyes shone. The way her hair flowed around her. The gentle curve of her neck, her back, the way her hair moves when she walks. There was that one time, wasn¡¯t there, when you looked at her back, watching her go, and understood what she meant all along. You looked at her back, and you realized that you¡¯d die at the end of that very moment. It made sense then, but now it seems like nonsense. If you died then, who the hell are you now? A spark, coming from the void to experience this torture and then disappear again. Who the hell does that help?


    I saw a figure then, gliding across the plain toward me with a metal rod in their hands. It had only then occurred to me that there might be more residents that I may have not had the fortune to meet. Perhaps the one Vempress had tossed into the crater had somehow survived and was coming back for revenge. I lifted my hands above my head. ¡°Please,¡± I tried to shout, but my voice came out a whisper. ¡°Please don¡¯t kill me. I know you want to, but I can¡¯t die yet.¡±


    ¡°Yossi?¡± a cheerful voice said. ¡°Is that you, slouching out there in the desert?¡±


    ¡°Alex?¡±


    ¡°Did you just say you can¡¯t die?¡± He came to a stop just in front of me, still vigorous and beautiful like nothing had changed, but his expression changed when he looked at me. ¡°Wow,¡± he said. ¡°You look¡­ fucked.¡±


    ¡°I feel fucked,¡± I said.


    ¡°I was sure you were a goner,¡± he said, as if it were no big deal. ¡°How did you get free?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not free. She knows Keren¡¯s name,¡± I said, then, realizing it wouldn¡¯t make much sense, added, ¡°Someone I know from jail.¡± I shook my head. ¡°She has a hostage, will have a hostage in the future. If I don¡¯t do exactly as she tells me¡­¡± I shuddered, thinking of the images Vempress had described. ¡°Keren will pay for it.¡±


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Ok. So what are you going to do?¡±


    ¡°I have to get to the airlock.¡±


    ¡°Need a hand?¡±


    ¡°I think I should do it alone. I might be in trouble just for talking to you.¡± I turned away, took one hasty step forward, slipped on a patch of dust, and slid to a fall on my side.


    ¡°But you¡¯d also get in trouble for being late, wouldn¡¯t you?¡±


    How does he know? I got myself up. ¡°I¡¯ll make it.¡±


    ¡°How long?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°How long did she give you?¡±


    ¡°One hour. Less, now.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t make it like that.¡±


    ¡°I have to try.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll be late, and you¡¯ll get punished.¡±


    ¡°What do you propose, then?¡±


    ¡°Let me carry you. At least half of the way. You¡¯ll have to limp the rest.¡±


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not like I have anything better to do.¡±


    ¡°And what if she sees us?¡±


    ¡°From a distance, we might look like one person. And I¡¯ll drop you off far enough from the airlock for you to make the entrance yourself.¡±


    ¡°Fine,¡± I said, not knowing if it was because I agreed with his logic, or just because I didn¡¯t want to be alone again.


    He picked me up on his back, like a cross. I put my good arm around his shoulder and tucked the bad one between our bodies, and he started hopping, using the long stick to propel us forward.


    ¡°Slower, Jesus; you¡¯re going to rip my arm off.¡±


    ¡°Sorry. No need to shout, though. At this distance, you can whisper.¡±


    We were silent for a while. His rowing motions were smoother now. ¡°Alex?¡±


    ¡°Yossi?¡±


    ¡°Were you looking for me?¡±


    ¡°I was.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    He hesitated. ¡°I wondered if you could help me with something.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I can help anyone right now.¡±


    ¡°You could listen while I told you a story,¡± he whispered. ¡°If that¡¯s no bother.¡±


    A confession? ¡°Really?¡± Well, that, technically, I could still do. ¡°You didn¡¯t seem interested, back then. Also, I thought you and David¡­¡± I didn¡¯t bother finishing the sentence.


    ¡°I hadn¡¯t confessed to David, only made a prediction I didn¡¯t want the others to hear¡ªone that sadly came true. But I¡¯d like to, now. I¡¯ve always liked the idea. Appreciated that there was a reason that tradition was being kept around but didn¡¯t get what it was. Also, I mean, when in Rome, right?¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± We had a deal, and I should stand by my word. ¡°In the name of Line Pythia, I am your confessor.¡±


    #


    She slaps him across the face, opens the door, leaves, and closes the door behind her. Alex doesn¡¯t move. He can almost see her getting away, then stopping, considering whether to open the door and slap him again, only to finally decide against it.


    He sits for a long time, not moving. Then he gets up, as if nothing¡¯s wrong, changes his shirt and goes to the casino to play cards. There¡¯s a moment, before each time the cards are revealed, at the height of the anticipation, in which he can forget her, one moment at a time. He¡¯s playing like shit tonight, but it doesn¡¯t really matter, as long as he doesn¡¯t know whether he will win or lose, he keeps playing. So, he keeps losing.


    Does he even prefer triumph to defeat? Yes. But that¡¯s not the point¡ªthe point is that he can¡¯t tell what¡¯s going to happen. He takes a couple of loans, each of which from a different shady element, with an escalating degree of danger. It¡¯s a gambling problem, Alex tells himself, and that¡¯s not exactly a lie.


    When the last game comes around, Alex changes attitude. He had his fun, managed not to think about his girlfriend - now ex - for most of the night, but now it¡¯s time to take this seriously. If he loses now, he will never be able to repay it. He sees it happening already¡ªthe mafia will buy his debts from the school of small fry lenders he owes, for much less than what they¡¯ve actually lost, and then they¡¯ll own him.


    Alex is the only one at the table without a hat or shades. He sits ramrod straight on an uncomfortable wooden chair in the small, dark room, his face impassive. He considers taking another glance at the two cards pressed between his hand and the table, but it¡¯s an obvious tell, and anyway, he¡¯s the kind of person who remembers what he sees. His heart is beating quickly from excitement as well as fear, emotions he¡¯s no longer certain are separate things. He raises by just the right amount, showing enough confidence that others think that he might still be bluffing.


    The other players take their turns. Fold; fold; fold; call. The room grows even hotter, even more tense. The caller stares at him through the shades, but Alex isn¡¯t rattled. When you know the math, you don¡¯t need to pay too much mind to other people¡¯s expressions. If the calculations aren¡¯t wrong, and they rarely are, there¡¯s about a one in six chance that one or more of the hands on the table is stronger than his. As he raises again, he realizes that the situation is analogous to a Russian Roulette: A five to six chance of winning a lot of money, and a one to six of a lethal result. Why did he put himself here?


    The caller calls again, his shades not leaving Alex¡¯s face even for an instant, as if it might broadcast something useful. Alex finally peeks at the cards, which are naturally still the same as he remembered. The caller¡¯s waiting for him to show, and Alex relishes the illusion that it¡¯s only after they both reveal the cards that one of them will win, while the other loses. The haunting truth, the one Alex is playing these games to escape, is that the result is already there, in the cards in their hands even before they are revealed. It was there when the cards were dealt; when Alex¡¯s older brother first taught him how to play poker, when the first boring machine landed on Ceres. There was nothing to decide, only to move along the track.


    Sometimes Alex manages not to think about it. Sometimes he keeps it at an intellectual level, distant. But at that moment he feels it with all his being. Lives it. The universe happens once. It can only happen once, one way, and Alex is a part of the universe that¡¯s also happening. He isn¡¯t lost in the world. He is the world. The room goes silent except for a high-pitched tone in his ears. As he looks at his own thumb and forefinger, rubbing the two cards together, the image snaps into sharp focus. Yes. He is the universe, getting to see another part of the universe. He is happening, now. Everything is happening, and it can¡¯t be stopped¡ªonly experienced.


    He flips the cards. This is what he came for¡ªthe exhilaration that comes from believing the illusion, if only for a little while. Across the table, the cards are raised, brought close to the dark shades, and they prompt the kind of grin that comes from wanting to smile for a long time but holding it in. Alex doesn¡¯t need to see the cards to know that, in this game of Russian Roulette, he¡¯s not going to hear an anticlimactic tick. The beauty of Russian Roulette, he realizes, as he watches the cards placed gracefully against the table, is that unlike in this game, no one ever knows that they lost.


    All the eyes at the table are on Alex now. He stoically pushes forward his chips, and the columns collapse into a shapeless pile. One of the administrators is suddenly standing behind him, blocking some of the light. He puts a slip of paper on the table, in the space that used to hold the bountiful towers of chips. Alex puts it in his pocket, knowing the information it holds.


    ¡°You come to the place that¡¯s written, at the time that¡¯s written, and we talk about how we proceed, ok?¡± the man says in accented Hebrew.


    ¡°Yes,¡± he says. ¡°Ok.¡±


    Alex understands his place in the universe, his lack of control, but he also knows a second, auxiliary truth: knowing doesn¡¯t make it any easier.


    The next day, he gets up on the couch to the sounds of his mother making breakfast in the kitchen, brushes his teeth, kisses her on the cheek, and goes to the address, a walking distance away. Ceres is so small the mafia doesn¡¯t really have to worry about you getting away, he thinks as he walks through narrow corridors. Where would you go? There¡¯s no border to Mexico to cross, like in the old movies, and if you had the money to go to Mars or Europa, you wouldn¡¯t have any problem paying what you owed the mafia, anyway.


    When he enters the little apartment, he does so with a calm smile, making sure to keep his legs from shaking. If he¡¯s going to be tortured, the only control he can assert is over himself.


    It¡¯s just one room, filthy, with a kitchenette, a tiny bathroom with just a toilet, two chairs, and a couple of thick mattresses lying on the floor, the type he used to fall on when he practiced full-g gymnastics as a teenager.


    A small man sits on one of the chairs by the wall of bare spongy rock, a cup of black coffee in his hand. If you were to build a man out of bundles of steel wire and drape a loose shirt over it, you¡¯d probably get a similar effect. He doesn¡¯t look like an ¡°Elisha.¡± He does, however, look like someone who can take a serious beating and not make a big deal out of it. Like someone who can watch another person endure a great pain and not lose a single minute¡¯s sleep over it.


    Over the next week, Elisha beats the knowledge into Alex. The arts of killing another person with your hands were outlawed on the dwarf planet, and the ones now being taught were slimmed down, stripped of their robes and bows and Japanese terminology, and left lean and efficient, in practice as well as theory.


    For the first time in Alex¡¯s life, his willpower is tested¡ªbut he doesn¡¯t complain. Not out of some great principle, he knows that Elisha didn¡¯t choose what part of the world he gets to play, just like Alex didn¡¯t.


    It takes three days for Alex to realize that Elisha is actually making an effort to teach, that he could have beaten Alex much harder if his own amusement had been the goal. They practice the same moves¡ªchoke, defend, wrestle back into a rear headlock, choke, defend, again and again and again. By the time he learns how to hide his face in the back of his victim¡¯s neck, his entire face is swollen from being elbowed. By the time he learns how to hook his legs around the victim¡¯s, his back is already hurting from being thrown against the floor.


    On the last day of that hellish week, he finally manages a perfect choke. Elisha taps twice against Alex¡¯s forearm, more of a congratulating formality than any type of submission, but Alex¡¯s arms don¡¯t loosen. After a week of defeat, doesn¡¯t he deserve to win, just once?


    Elisha taps again, and Alex tightens his hold. Elisha must have started feeling the horrible and sadly familiar sensation one feels when oxygen runs out, and carbon dioxide floods the bloodstream. Alex is just beginning to consider letting go when Elisha wiggles, a complex motion of the hips, something completely foreign to everything they¡¯ve practiced. Alex doesn¡¯t understand the mechanics of what¡¯s happening, but he finds his hold broken. His body tumbles through space and he lands painfully on his head and shoulder.


    He sits up as Elisha rolls into a standing position and laughs. ¡°You¡¯re good to go,¡± he says. Alex wonders if that statement is correct.


    That day, Elisha teaches Alex about all the different things one can use as a noose, if they wish to make it look like someone¡¯s choked themselves. ¡°It doesn¡¯t have to be medically accurate,¡± he explains. ¡°Pathologist takes the one look at the belt around the neck, writes down ¡®suicide by hanging¡¯, and everyone¡¯s happy. But the pathologist¡¯s sympathy is finite. No stabbing, no bashing head with hard object unless you don¡¯t have the choice.¡± Then he gives Alex a pack of sleeping pills and sends him home.


    Not a day passes before Alex gets a message¡ªon paper, no less, delivered by courier. A name, an address, a printed photo, a code to the apartment¡¯s door. It feels antique and special, like a sword.


    What would happen if Alex refused? Easy. They¡¯d find another like him, a loser, a thrill seeker who found the ultimate thrill, and they¡¯d send them a slip with Alex¡¯s address, Alex¡¯s picture, and the code to Alex¡¯s apartment, and he¡¯ll be dead in a matter of hours. It¡¯s not like he¡¯s going to grow old either way¡ªat some point the police will catch up to him, throw him in a cell and then out into the vacuum. He obeys, paying with the lives of others for a couple more days of life¡ªthe time in prison, plus how long it would take the cops to decide to catch up to him. He is surprised at how much the idea of dying at some unknown point feels more manageable than dying today.


    He brushes his teeth, dresses, then sneaks through Ceres¡¯ corridors, minding the map of areas not covered by police cameras¡ªthe poorer the area, the less it is covered. Alex doesn¡¯t ask himself where the mafia got this information from.


    He punches the code to his first victim¡¯s apartment door, expecting to be jumped in an act of desperate self defense, but to his surprise the man just sits there on a stool, staring at his hands. He has long, oily blonde hair falling over a patchy stubble, and he smells bad, or maybe the entire apartment smells bad. Not much of a difference, with an apartment so small.


    ¡°Are you here to kill me?¡± He asks as Alex closes the door behind him.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Do you think you can?¡± The man¡¯s sleepwalking tone hints that it is not a taunt. He brings one fist closer to his eyes, slowly twists it around, as if there is something to glimpse between the clenched fingers. ¡°Now I¡¯m one configuration of atoms, and I can think, and now I¡¯m another configuration, and I¡¯m still thinking, so we say I didn¡¯t die. But if you kill me, and my body gets flushed down the great toilet of Ceres, fed to the fungi that nourish the colony, my brain will turn to rotten mush, then steak-flavored, tomato-flavored or wheat-flavored fungus substitute, then eaten again to make other brains, who are still thinking. One sentient arrangement transitioning into other sentient arrangements. Hard to say I¡¯ll even be dead.¡± He breathes out loudly through his nose. ¡°Are you real or am I hallucinating you?¡±


    ¡°Real. Both. How high are you?¡±


    ¡°As high as it gets.¡±


    ¡°Will it dull the pain?¡±


    ¡°On the contrary. I wanted to be awake for this; present. Sobriety, by design, is dull.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to defend yourself?¡±


    ¡°What for? They¡¯ll just send another one, indistinguishable from you. If I were willing to kill just for another day of life, I¡¯d be standing where you are.¡±


    Alex likes the guy, unfortunately. ¡°It won¡¯t take long.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what she said,¡± the man smiles, still not looking at Alex. ¡°Come on now, no point in hesitating. You¡¯ve already made up your mind. The funny thing is that if we all refused, they¡¯d have nothing to threaten us with. But you missed your chance of being the guy who refused, to reincarnate that role. Now, if you change your mind, you¡¯re going to be the guy who bitched out halfway. And you don¡¯t want that, do you?¡±


    Alex¡¯s arms are now wrapped around the man¡¯s neck. He doesn¡¯t really remember having made the decision to do so, but the man is right. He can¡¯t back away now.


    It is very late when he opens the door to his apartment. His mother is in her pajamas, by the kitchen table playing solitaire. She didn¡¯t see him for a week now¡ªhe made sure they wouldn¡¯t be home at the same time, and when he couldn¡¯t he made sure to sleep with his face down until she went away.


    She takes one look at him and gets back to the cards. She quotes:


    Why does your sword so drip with blood?


    And why so sad are ye, O?


    And he answers:


    The curse of hell from me shall you bear,


    Such counsels you gave to me, O.


    ¡°That bad, huh? You¡¯ll feel better in the morning,¡± she predicts.


    He doesn¡¯t. But the next time is easier; the one after that, easier still. He gives up on trying to sleep without the pills Elisha gave him. It¡¯s a different kind of sleeping, heavy and without the playfulness of dreams. He used to be so good at sleeping. He regrets letting them take that from him.


    One morning, while he is still shaking off the haze of the unnatural sleep, a message comes up on his screen, with the picture and address, and door code. Even if they wouldn¡¯t have explicitly written it, the fact that the information isn¡¯t sent on safe paper would have been enough to testify to the urgency of the job. The girl in the image doesn¡¯t look like a terrorist. Neither plain nor beautiful, but there is something in the way she smiles at the camera, a confidence that is free of any doubt or pride. She¡¯s cute, Alex admits, and suspects that he would have liked her, too, if he had any choice but to kill her.


    He hounds down the streets, letting the masses overcrowding the halls hide his face, but the corridors he is being led into are so narrow and short he would be surprised if the cameras worked there at all. He gets to her apartment just as she is opening it to get out, a suitcase in her hand. She sees him, and immediately recognizes him ¨C not his face, but his role. She tries to get back to the apartment, to close the door, but he¡¯s quicker, slamming her down into the floor of her single room apartment. He expected her to try gouging his eyes out, but instead she goes for the suitcase, fumbling with a valve in its side.


    The suitcase makes a loud hiss, and something very strange happens to Alex. The woman crawls out of his grip easily. It¡¯s not that his limbs don¡¯t obey him, as much as that he doesn¡¯t know how to command them. He doesn¡¯t understand where she went; tries to get up; makes it halfway.


    There¡¯s nothing wrong with his vision, but he can¡¯t really grasp how far the floor is from his foot, barely blocking the floor coming up to him. He decides to stick to the safety of the lying down, and looks up at the woman. He finds her looking down at him, and she is so beautiful that he wants to cry. Whatever happened to him, she seems unaffected. ¡°First time, huh?¡± Her voice slithers smoothly into his brain, unfiltered.


    First time of what?


    He manages to bring himself up on all fours, though the touch of the rug against the palm of his hand is intensely distracting. She crouches beside him, like one does when talking to a child.


    ¡°Are there more? Do you know where they sent others, after me or my partner?¡± Her almond shaped eyes scan him with such intense worry that he worries with her, not knowing for whom.


    It takes him a long time to remember that he is an assassin, that she is asking him about other assassins. He goes over his memories with horror and disgust, as if they were someone else¡¯s. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he mumbles, or just moves his lips silently, he¡¯s not sure. Her face, a phenomenon so complicated he could study it for lifetimes and not be done, nods with understanding. She looks towards the door, the muscles of her neck sing about the need to escape, and with great effort turns back to him. Her eyes are the only thing in the world.


    ¡°Sometimes we do something bad, and instead of regretting it and say that we¡¯re sorry, we keep doing bad things to justify the bad things that we have already done. But we can always regret and be good. Will you try to be good?¡±


    He cries. ¡°I will. I¡¯m sorry,¡± he either says or thinks. Then, to his absolute astonishment, she kneels and hugs him. She is the entire world, she is the mother of all things, and she is hugging him. It hurts, a knife under his heart, tearing him open, but the pain is freeing and he lets it wash over him. Like an egg being cracked open, he releases everything.


    She must have gone at some point, because he is alone now, in her apartment. Some sense of normality returns. He can walk straight enough no one will give him a second look, he can hold a straight face, but inside something is changed. He knows that they will kill him for letting her go, but that¡¯s not it.


    He has no more excuses. He has to go and talk to her, even if it means getting slapped again.


    He walks straight to her house, and doesn¡¯t give himself a chance to hesitate before buzzing at the door. From the time it takes the door open, he knows that she is going to tell him to go to hell (he always loved that about her, that she never used ¡®fuck¡¯ as a curse word) but the moment she sees his face, her expression softens.


    ¡°What happened?¡± she asks. ¡°Were you injured?¡±


    ¡°No. It¡¯s not important. I came to apologize.¡±


    ¡°For sleeping with another man?¡± That offbeat burst of anger would have surprised anyone else. ¡°Is that what you came to apologize about, or for lying to me about it?¡±


    ¡°Neither. I¡¯m sorry for not talking to you about it. We would have had a big fight, but eventually you would have accepted it as something that we do.¡±


    She almost disagrees, but she learned long ago not to argue with his predictions. ¡°What were you thinking?¡± How beautiful is her anger, the curving of her brows and lips, dangerous and warm like wildfire.


    ¡°I truly am sorry.¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m literally asking you. I want to understand¡ªwhat went through your mind?¡±


    ¡°That it¡¯s a gamble, whether or not you¡¯re going to find out.¡±


    She sighs. ¡°And you just had to take it.¡±


    There was no other way, he wants to say, but doesn¡¯t. It would just make her angry.


    She looks to the side, taking no joy in having figured him out. ¡°Do you remember when we first met?¡±


    ¡°Hard not to. You caught me by the collar and you said that you¡¯d respect it if I didn¡¯t fall in love with you right then and then there, but you¡¯d be disappointed.¡±


    ¡°And what did you say?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t remember. I just remember falling in love with you right then and there.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s when you fell in love with me? I was literally trying the worst pick up line I could think of.¡±


    ¡°You surprised me. I couldn¡¯t know what¡¯s the next thing that you were going to say or do.¡±


    ¡°Until you did.¡±


    He shrugs. There was no stopping of the expansion of the border encompassing all of the things he could predict, nor the intense boredom that came with it.


    ¡°Will I see you again?¡± She asks.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he says, and feels freer than he can remember ever being.


    #


    Alex is afraid. He sits on the sofa, still not quite sober, and looks at the palms of his hands, astonished that something can be a part of him and foreign at the same time. He knows that it¡¯s only a matter of time until the mafia will come for him. They might have forgiven him for fucking that one job if he returned into the fold, worked twice as hard, but he simply doesn¡¯t want to. He promised that he wouldn¡¯t. But if he is so afraid, why is there a smile on his face?


    He has never let superstitions have a place in his heart, but today he does, just a little one. It used to be considered good luck, before going on a trip, to sit down quietly for a moment. Alex had always known that the reason for the tradition is to give everyone a chance to remember if there¡¯s anything they forgot to pack, but today he allows himself not to think like that. It doesn¡¯t work if you think about the trip itself, he remembers being told. You need to let your mind empty, not thinking of the future or past, and this will grant you a successful trip.


    But the memories come unbidden. He thinks about high stakes card games, about lying to the woman he still loves, about sneaking off to find his lover, tracing the veins on his beautiful arms in the darkness.


    The real tragedy is that it wasn¡¯t even that great. He sinned not out of hedonism¡ªthe sins¡¯ only purpose to distract him from truth; artificial surprises to help him forget, if only for a moment, how predetermined it all is. A rebellion, but against whom? God, what a piece of shit he¡¯s been. It doesn¡¯t matter, because soon death will wipe him clean, like a sand mandala. Reshuffle his particles from the old form to strange new ones. Whether the forms are beautiful or corrupted, they¡¯re gone just the same when the sand is flattened, aren¡¯t they? More importantly, is he the sand, or the mandala drawn on it?


    But something warns him not to find comfort in that. Alex¡¯s passion for the unexpected dragged him through many different texts, different religions, and he remembers anything he finds meaningful, let alone terrifying. It takes him an instant to recall the certain passage from the Mishna that changed his life:


    Don¡¯t let your own desire promise you that afterlife will be your sanctuary;


    Despite yourself you are made and


    Despite yourself you are born and


    Despite yourself you live and


    Despite yourself you die and


    Despite yourself you will be judged by the king of all kings, the Holy One Blessed Be He, God Almighty.


    He curses and opens his eyes. He had in him the tools to live a proper life. Why didn¡¯t he? That isn¡¯t an accusation, but an honest question. He knows the shape of the universe was determined at its genesis. But why did he happen the way he did?


    He doesn¡¯t blame himself, can¡¯t, but he regrets, and for the first time in his life, for a reason unknown to him, he prays.


    God, if you were to grant me just one more day in this world, I swear to you that I would live properly, and if, in your great wisdom, you permit it, that one righteous day shall stand against all of the wicked days of my life.


    The door opens. To Alex¡¯s surprise, the men at the door are in uniform.

 King II

    Estimated oxygen time: 11:57:24


    How strong is human habit, I thought after hearing Alex¡¯s confession. All that determination, and still when I found him he was climbing that wall, ready to give up again.


    ¡°You still with us?¡± he asked the moment he was done, not letting the silence linger. ¡°Or did my story bore you to death?¡±


    ¡°Still here,¡± I croaked. ¡°Just surprised.¡±


    ¡°Surprised to find out what kind of person I am?¡±


    ¡°Surprised you could do that sort of thing. You remind me of her.¡±


    ¡°The future hostage?¡±


    ¡°Yes. The way you stay you.¡±


    ¡°God,¡± he said, and for the first time he sounded tired. ¡°I wish that were true.¡±


    Now he accepted the silence. I had settled by then into a comfortable numbness, watching the constellations, made of points of light both transient and static. But that wasn¡¯t true, was it? All of it was moving, changing. It was just that some parts were changing faster than others.


    ¡°Yossi?¡±


    ¡°Hmm?¡±


    ¡°Can I ask you a question?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    ¡°Do you know her? Keren.¡±


    ¡°What does that mean? Of course.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking about how surprised you were by my confession. By what I¡¯ve done and haven¡¯t done. Can you really say you know this girl? What she likes to eat, how she resolves an argument? What kind of face does she make in her sleep?¡±


    I didn¡¯t even know if she liked the porridge in jail; I thought she did. I remembered how she¡¯d almost resolved one argument, though, charging forward with her fists clenched. ¡°Maybe not. What¡¯s your point, then? That I give this up? Because I might.¡±


    ¡°Not that you should give up. If you think you¡¯re not going to die in the next hour, there¡¯s more that you could do.¡±


    ¡°Like what?¡±


    ?He sighed so deeply I felt his chest deflate. ¡°?Look at our shadows, walking beside us. They don¡¯t know where they are going, and they don¡¯t know why. Maybe, if I were a shadow, I¡¯d think that I was choosing where to go, even if it was the real person who was blocking the light that would decide. I could let go of my idea that I¡¯m changing anything, and still keep moving.¡±


    I looked sideways, at the shapeless blot of shadow and tried to understand what the hell Alex¡¯s point was.


    ¡°Stop planning, he said, as if responding to my thoughts. ¡°Stop trying to decide what should happen. Just¡­ let things unfold, and trust that it will be alright.¡±


    Why would anything be alright? ¡°I¡¯ve had a really shitty day, ok? I don¡¯t want a pep talk.¡±


    ¡°Then what do you want?¡±


    I want Vempress dead, I thought, but didn¡¯t say. ¡°I think you know.¡±


    He was silent again. In front of us, the airlock was close enough to reflect the strobing light from the edges of the smaller crater. ¡°Yeah,¡± he said finally. ¡°I know.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you hate her?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t. There¡¯s only one person I¡¯ve ever managed to hate, and it isn¡¯t either of you. How can you hate someone who¡¯s so desperately afraid?¡±


    Another long silence. I¡¯d asked him to kill before I knew what he¡¯d been through, what he was trying to atone for, and he¡¯d forgiven me for it. Now I¡¯d asked him again, even though I knew what it would take from him.


    He exhaled loudly, theatrically. ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll take care of it.¡±


    ¡°I understand if you¡¯re mad.¡±


    ¡°Not mad either.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want her to kill you,¡± I whispered.


    ¡°At least we know what happens if she does.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I die,¡± he said, and I heard the smile in his voice. It reminded me of someone but I didn¡¯t remember whom. ¡°Come on: lighten up, will you? The ride¡¯s almost over. Try to enjoy what you have left.¡±


    Enjoy the last hours of your life, bleeding in a sealed bag, barely awake. Waiting to die -no, waiting to be humiliated, toyed with and killed. Fuck you, Alex.


    I closed my eyes. It was impossible to think of anything other than my final hour. I tried to remember Keren¡¯s face, and our talks in the cafeteria, but everything seemed so far away, fading like a dream.


    ¡°What about you?¡± Alex asked. ¡°Did you get a chance to confess?¡±


    ¡°What do I have to confess? Dear Pythia, I¡¯m a fucking idiot. Always have been. The end,¡± I told Alex. ¡°I¡¯m tired, and I wish I could have done more.¡±


    I did remember Keren then. I knew that she¡¯d be angry at me for thinking about what was or should have been and ignoring this person who existed right here, right now, even though he¡¯d soon be nothing but a dry corpse. This person who¡¯d chosen to spend what little time he had left carrying me on his back. And what had I done? Asked him to spend his last hours killing.


    ¡°Are you really going to do it?¡± I asked him.


    ¡°I¡¯ll do what needs doing,¡± he said, avoiding the harsh, specific terms like one avoids a thorny bush.


    ¡°Do you think it¡¯ll actually work?¡± I sounded like an old man, helpless and confused.


    ¡°Some things will happen, one way or another, and after they do, someone will stand and judge if they worked or not. Close enough?¡±


    I raised my head to look at the crater. What was left of the way seemed impossibly long, but I didn¡¯t want to risk him being seen by Vempress if she was waiting there. It had been dangerous enough to take Alex so far, now that I thought about it. ¡°Put me down,¡± I asked, and he lowered me gently to the ground. ¡°You know, I finally figured it out. There¡¯s no real meaning to anything we do out here. All of this would be wiped clean, and it doesn¡¯t matter. We just pretend it does, because we¡¯re afraid.¡±


    ¡°But that¡¯s wrong, you idiot,¡± he said, and for the first time there was anger in his voice, admonishment.


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re alive, you¡¯re suffering, and that¡¯s meaning. You feel sadness and joy, and those are real. There¡¯s meaning wherever you go.¡± His voice deepened. More than the confession itself, these words were the song of his life. ¡°You can¡¯t go without it any more than an asteroid can go out of space¡ªwherever you go, there¡¯s meaning, even if that meaning is despair over what you think is a lack of meaning. Even if it¡¯s suffering. Without meaning, this would have been nothing but cold rocks, starlight, and wet automatons going through their motions, and the consequences of their actions wouldn¡¯t matter either way. But good and bad are real. You feel them in your bones. That¡¯s all the meaning you need. Don¡¯t give up yet.¡±


    ¡°What does that mean?¡±


    He shrugged. ¡°You¡¯ll figure it out. Goodbye for now.¡±


    ¡°For now. Thanks, Alex.¡±


    He batted a hand, as if blocking my compliment. ¡°My pleasure.¡± He set off on his way, quickly, now that he could move unhindered.


    The philosophy didn¡¯t help, not really, but I wasn¡¯t as afraid as I was before. Not as alone. Soon, I thought, and took one shaky step forward, marveling at how every single fiber of my being strobed with pain. I wondered what was going to happen next.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: 11:52:12


    I didn¡¯t see her coming. I was staggering upwards towards the airlock when something came quickly from the side, snagging me suddenly and painfully upwards. I grabbed it - a taut ribbon of suit. I tried looking to the other end of it, but the world was spinning around me, and it¡¯s not that seeing Vempress would have helped.


    I slammed against the smaller crater¡¯s floor like a slab of fake meat onto a cutting board. I managed to protect my visor with my good arm, and an electric numbness spread from my elbow to the rest of it. I lay on the ground for a moment, waiting to see if my breath would return. It did, in the form of a long, tired groan. The pain wasn¡¯t as strong as before, as if my body had begun to realize that I wasn¡¯t paying much attention to its messages anymore, and stopped trying. I rolled over.


    I was right by the airlock. Standing on the rock across the metal hatch was David, a blade strapped to one side and the canister on the other. He looked at me for a moment, then broke away, guilt on his face. Beside him were two residents I¡¯d never seen before¡ªa man and a woman, standing on the toes of their boots in a display of compliance. They looked tired and greasy, as if they¡¯d been out here for a while. One of them had Anaxagoras¡¯s gloves on, but if they¡¯d found weapons, they hadn¡¯t brought them here. They gazed at the sky in awe. Neither Alex nor Vempress was in the airlock, but above us I could vaguely make out a silhouette against the stars.


    Her voice, though, was clear. ¡°Speak.¡±


    I opened my mouth, but I didn¡¯t know what it was that I was supposed to say. ¡°I¡­¡±


    ¡°Residents of Last Day Town!¡± David called, clarifying my mistake ceremonially. I turned to him, as did the two residents, their expressions equal parts despair and hope. ¡°Listen carefully, because I¡¯m about to explain how you¡¯re going to survive.¡± He pointed at the woman. ¡°You, how long do you have left?¡± Despite the rude words, his tone was still soft and empathetic.


    ¡°Six and a half hours,¡± she said.


    He pointed at the man. ¡°And you?¡±


    ¡°Two hours, twenty-five minutes,¡± he said, in a voice that made it clear he didn¡¯t quite believe what he was saying. ¡°Please, you¡ª¡±


    ¡°Quiet,¡± Vempress said, a hoarse voice from above. ¡°Continue.¡±


    David coughed. There was something different about him, the power at his back now, he was commanding, authoritative. Even if it weren¡¯t for Vempress above them, I think they would listen to him just the same. ¡°Every single person who has ever been thrown out here wanted one thing - more time. More oxygen. It¡¯s a tragedy to be thrown out here, and it¡¯s a tragedy to die out here. But it¡¯s a much bigger tragedy to know that you could have done something to save yourself, and haven¡¯t. When Vempress had first reached the Pit, as soon it was formed, she realized this. She was among the first here, and she put order to the chaos.¡±


    The man looked at the side of his visor, then back at David. His mouth opened, then closed.


    ¡°Above anything else, Vempress wants to survive. But that doesn¡¯t mean we cannot live well in her shadow,¡± David looked up for a moment, as if to see if his words pleased her. ¡°If we serve her well, she¡¯ll give us some of her oxygen so that we may live on and on and on. She¡¯ll give us everything we need¡ªfood and water and shelter; even time to sleep.¡±


    The man was fidgeting now, but he kept silent. David looked at his face, and a grimace passed across his own like a shadow.


    ¡°But if one of us were to get greedy and tried to betray her, there would be hell to pay. A punishment worse than death. As this man, will soon be made example of.¡±


    David looked down at me, sorrow in his eyes, then up at her, and finally at the residents. He carried on, his voice unchanged. ¡°You might be wondering why we¡¯re recruiting you. Why there aren¡¯t already people in your place, doing what I just told you that you would do. The answer is that this man,¡± he pointed down towards me, ¡°tried to overthrow Vempress, to turn this into a place where everyone is equal.¡±


    So did you.


    David continued. ¡°That is, equal enough to die the same futile death. If you met him, he might have told you about how things were before. Those are lies.¡± He said it so smoothly, so confidently, that even I, for a moment, thought he was speaking the truth. ¡°Lies that he used to convince some of the residents to attack Vempress. Those residents are now dead.¡± He paused, to let the meaning of that sink in. ¡°The Pit has always been like this, except for short bouts of chaos. But in the end, Vempress always restores order.¡± The new residents nodded warily, signaling that they were way beyond receptive to his message.


    ¡°Admit it,¡± Vempress commanded. This time she was clearly talking to me. I wanted to deny it, to tell the truth. But Vempress and David already knew the truth, and to the newcomers it wouldn¡¯t matter either way. I thought of Keren cursing me as Vempress tortured her for days or weeks...


    ¡°It¡¯s true.¡± My voice sounded like someone else¡¯s; someone I hated and despised. ¡°Everything he said is true.¡±


    ¡°Elaborate.¡±


    ¡°Last Day Town is just a story. I made it up.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    I knew that there was something she wanted to hear, but my mind wasn¡¯t clear yet.


    ¡°Why?¡± She was still hidden, above, but her presence somehow intensified.


    ¡°I wanted to make a difference,¡± I spat, as if she¡¯d knocked the words out of my mouth. ¡°I wanted to be the one who decided how things would work, and I didn¡¯t care what I¡¯d have to do to get it.¡± Somehow, I managed to make this lie sound honest, even in my own ears.


    ¡°You really didn¡¯t.¡± She said, pleasure thick in her voice ¡°And now you¡¯ll pay.¡±


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    The eyes of all three followed something from above me, right down to the horizon. I felt the gentle pressure of a jetpack exhaust against my suit as she landed beside me. I didn¡¯t even turn to look.


    She lifted me by the suit¡¯s life support. She must have pulled with one arm, because the other held the blade just above my shoulder, so it entered my field of vision to my right. I tried to guess what would happen next. I knew that she wouldn¡¯t let me breathe vacuum or slit my throat¡ªthat wouldn¡¯t be enough for her. Not that it mattered. There was no hope for this body, regardless of oxygen supply.


    The sound of the wrench screwing the bolts against the piping reverberated through my suit, surprising me. She wasn¡¯t going to cut me open, I realized, because she¡¯d found something worse to do.


    My muscles tightened. If I moved forward, pushed my throat against the blade¡­ My brain reeled with enabling lies¡ªKeren might not even come here at all; she might be exonerate, or¡­ Anything that would let me forfeit this punishment. But I didn¡¯t dare move. I didn¡¯t dare avoid my responsibility. I shook. My teeth clenched. Just do it; get it over with, I wanted to say, but my lips refused to move.


    The metal shut off, a grave sound, and I began to suffocate. The air was fine at the start, but I couldn¡¯t help hyperventilating. It became warmer, more humid. Less like clean air, more like waste, like exhaust, and every breath felt more and more like I wasn¡¯t breathing at all, like I wasn¡¯t taking it in. Each breath worse than the one before it. The feeling was not of my lungs bursting, but of pure panic¡ªmy lungs pumped faster and faster, but no matter how much air got in and out, I couldn¡¯t breathe.


    I regretted everything. I shouldn¡¯t have tried to outsmart Vempress. I shouldn¡¯t have tried to make anything better for Keren. I shouldn¡¯t have visited Last Day Town with the hope of changing anything. I thought of Anaxagoras, of Pythia, of how ruthless it had once seemed to me to cut someone out of their suit. Now that fate seemed fortunate beyond belief. Fuck all of that¡ªI reached for Vempress¡¯s blade, to push it into my shoulder and be done with it, but it wasn¡¯t there anymore.


    I turned around, but she¡¯d already retreated to a safe distance, leaving me to struggle. I lost balance, my legs getting in each other¡¯s way, and started falling slowly. I barely felt it when I hit the rock.


    I saw David there, terrified as if it were him that was about to be tortured. The woman, looking at me with horror, and the man beside her, detached and indifferent behind a glaring red color.


    Wait: what red color?


    It was coming from my visor. The oxygen meter showed zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds, which made no sense. Am I dead? No, you can¡¯t think when you¡¯re dead. Maybe I¡¯d read it wrong; my vision had gotten blurry, after all. Something had happened to make my vision blurry, hadn¡¯t it? Something was wrong with my lungs¡ªthey were pumping and pumping but I didn¡¯t feel like I was breathing. Why wasn¡¯t anyone helping me? I must have been punished for something. No reason to keep me alive in this state if I wasn''t being punished for something. I grasped at memories: I¡¯d failed someone; betrayed someone¡¯s trust. I was ashamed of myself for betraying someone, but who? Someone flying, pretending to smile. Pretending she wasn¡¯t afraid.


    Keren? Was Keren choking me to death because I¡¯d fucked everything up? Or was it Ayelet, finally taking revenge for how I¡¯d ruined the beautiful life we were supposed to have together. I deserved it, either way. But Keren was still in jail, and Ayelet wasn¡¯t going to be thrown out. Was she? I wish that I could see, but everything was black. None of it made sense. Reality didn¡¯t make sense. I coughed, again and again.


    Maybe Alex could kill her, whoever she was. He¡¯d been trained for it¡ªor was that another dream? That hoarse laughter, somewhere out there in the darkness. Rachel, maybe? I remembered asking her to kill, but was it me that she was supposed to shiv? If so, why hadn¡¯t she done it already? Wherever she was, she must have been distracted, enjoying herself. If Alex came now, he could stab her with whatever he¡¯d found, or even just beat her, or me¡ª anything, just make this end...


    Someone rolled me onto my belly, and I heard the beautiful, heavenly sound of metal sliding on metal as the wrench reconnected my oxygen back, bringing me back to life. My tired lungs brought in fresh, wonderful air. I barely had in me the strength to breathe, but every breath was sweet, and a feeling of pure, intoxicated joy filled me. My vision cleared, the black screen between me and the world dissolving.


    My visor was covered in spittle, but I saw that the display had turned from red to violet. The numbers made sense again. Almost twelve hours. The pieces fell back into place¡ªVempress behind me, punishing me for the failed attempt to capture her, while giving the new Residents of Last Day Town a taste of what they had to look forward to, if they dared rebel.


    I raised my head off the ground. The residents looked at me with horror. David wore the expression of a child trying to choke down tears. Good, I thought. He deserves to feel guilty.


    ¡°Speak,¡± she said, from above.


    David swallowed. ¡°What you just watched Vempress use is The Wrench, and it¡¯s the tool that will let us survive here. If you tend to your duties well, Vempress will take away your used oxygen tanks and give you new ones. But oxygen doesn¡¯t grow on trees, not out here¨C if we want it, we¡¯ll have to take it. More accurately, make sure Vempress can take it¡ªkill or incapacitate the newcomers that come through this airlock once every two hours, without any cuts in their suits. That¡¯s all she asks of us, and in return she¡¯ll take care of everything else.¡±


    The two residents nodded. Their heels were touching the ground now.


    ¡°Ask the women their names,¡± Vempress said. ¡°If her name is Keren, you leave her alive. For me?.¡± There was a smile in her voice again, a crooked expression, full of teeth. I shuddered. ¡°Now lie still, so I can unscrew your oxygen again.¡±


    ¡°How many times are you going to do this?¡± The male newcomer asked.


    ¡°Vempress,¡± David corrected him. ¡°How many times are you going to do this, Vempress?¡±


    ¡°Until the oxygen runs out,¡± she said. ¡°Unless he dies first.¡±


    ¡°Please Vempress,¡± David cried, a hand reaching forward in plea. ¡°We could use the time better.¡±


    ¡°Silence, Pythia. Tell me, Visitor, are you one of those people who pretend that they are immortal in some way, to try to distract themselves from how undeniably fucked they are? If you are, I suggest you start doing so now.¡±


    I closed my eyes and waited, but nothing happened for ten shallow breaths, then twenty. I opened my eyes.


    Alex descended from the plane in a great leap and landed in front of us, at the edge of the little crater. He stabbed the rock with a metal pole and brought himself to an accurate, decisive stop. The absolute fucking idiot: why didn¡¯t he sneak up from behind? Why didn¡¯t he just kill her? What¡¯s he waiting for?


    ¡°Excuse me,¡± he said, panting with effort. The light of the airlock strobed white, and I saw his face for an instant, furrowed with worry, but also determined. ¡°My name is Alex. A pleasure to finally meet you.¡±


    She¡¯d pulled me up to my knees, and stood behind me. Over my shoulder the blade peeked again, pointing absently in Alex¡¯s direction. ¡°I know you,¡± she said.


    ¡°We¡¯ve actually met before,¡± he conceded, ¡°though not as formally as I would have liked. We never got a chance to talk.¡±


    ¡°You were there, by the shuttle.¡±


    ¡°I was.¡± From this distance, I couldn¡¯t tell if he was looking at her, or at me. ¡°I was there when we tried to¡­ dethrone you.¡±


    ¡°But you didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°No. I ran away the moment it became clear you were going to win.¡±


    ¡°And you expect that to make us allies?¡± There was amusement in her voice, she was enjoying his defiance, just like she¡¯d enjoyed mine. I didn¡¯t like where this was going. Just kill her already.


    ¡°Hard to imagine, isn¡¯t it?¡± He seemed too comfortable, too confident.


    ¡°What should I do, then?¡± she said, using that ancient trick again, trying to draw on uncertainty.


    Alex didn¡¯t squirm. ¡°That¡¯s not for me to decide. I can only do what I¡¯ll do, and you will what you will.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not afraid to die, is that it?¡±


    ¡°There are things I fear more.¡±


    She hesitated. ¡°Even if that¡¯s true, I have no reason to kill you. And I need one more Resident,¡± she said, her words thick with her old purr. ¡°You haven¡¯t done anything. I forgive you.¡± The blade was still pointed right at him.


    He tilted his head to one side, considering. ¡°Oh, that is clever,¡± he said. ¡°Forgiving me now, so that anyone trying to rebel will know that each of their comrades could betray them and still be forgiven by you, weakening overall trust. Nice. But I didn¡¯t ask for forgiveness. It¡¯s not yours to give.¡±


    ¡°Oh, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not God.¡± His words had that ring again, of a deep truth being spoken.


    I could almost feel her smiling in the silence behind me, even before she answered. ¡°Out here I am.¡±


    His gaze sharpened, and I could feel the culmination of all the knowledge he¡¯d collected about her, from me, perhaps from David, and his own eyes, divining the words it would take to shake her out of her inhuman self-control, if only for a moment. ¡°Gods don¡¯t die.¡±


    And it worked. The rage that coursed through Vempress¡¯s body was so violent that I felt it seize both of us.


    The entire world quieted in anticipation as he chose the right words. ¡°And you¡¯re going to die out here. Sooner or later, your time will come, just like it will for the rest of us.¡±


    She threw me down, and for a moment I was relieved that she would leave me alone. Then I heard her working wrench with jerky movements. I took a breath, stretching my ribs so wide it hurt.


    She dislodged the oxygen tank from my back, then used my damaged shoulder as a foothold and kicked me back, and everything went blank with the pain, like white lightning cutting through my body.


    I came to an instant later and raised my head. She was halfway up the rise to Alex, blade in one hand, wrench in the other. Her battle cry echoed through my otherwise silent helmet¡ªthe awful silence as my life support stopped working. I kept the air in my lungs; my heart already beat like it was trying to punch its way out of my chest.


    The only reason Alex wasn¡¯t already dying was that she¡¯d forgotten about the spear gun; that, in her rage, she wanted to strike him down, not shoot him from afar. Was that what he¡¯d planned all along?


    He raised one hand, not a combat maneuver but a gesture, as if urging an old friend to calm down and listen. She ignored it and swung the blade. I recognized the form of her swing¡ªexpertly lunging forward, pre-compensating for her target¡¯s retreat. But Alex didn¡¯t retreat; he just stood there; his hand held up to be sliced open; the one thing she hadn¡¯t expected him to do: nothing. Her swing was too wild to stop, and the blow that was supposed to nick his suit sliced into his arm, all the way to the bone.


    He didn¡¯t move, aside from the stutter of the impact. All was quiet except the air escaping through the narrow space between the blade and the edge of the tear. There was no blood; the hypercooled metal had frozen it into place. The blade must have cut all the way to the bone. How stoic, how impossibly heroic, to remain sile -


    He screamed, primal and wordless, voicing pain and injustice and cruel futility.


    Vempress tried to pull back the blade, but it was lodged in the frozen mass of flesh and blood of what used to be his arm. He raised the other one and struck the brittle metal with a closed fist, breaking the weapon into fragments. She cried out and pulled back the handle, only a lone metal shard sticking out of it now. She screamed, almost as he had, and thrust the broken sword into his chest. His scream turned into an exhausted moan, and he gripped both of her hands, even with a piece of grey metal jutting out of one of his forearms.


    ¡°Pythia!¡± she barked, and twisted the weapon lodged inside Alex¡¯s flesh, his grip too weak to stop her. A spray of red droplets burst out of the hole, and Alex whimpered.


    The Residents watched, confused, as David pulled himself to the edge of the crater, where Alex and Vempress stood in their deadly embrace. When he reached them, still crawling, he froze.


    ¡°Get him off!¡± Vempress commanded, her voice like the crack of a whip, but still David didn¡¯t move, his blade clasped impotently at his side.


    Alex turned to him and said, quietly, ¡°Today, please.¡± Only then did I realize why they¡¯d spoken behind my back. Oh, you clever bastards.


    Vempress threw a confused glance at David, who finally moved. His teeth were clenched so hard that muscles flexed all the way from his jaw to his temple. His eyes were wide open, as if he was preparing to endure great pain. His hand closed around the speargun that was tied to her with a band, while the other unclasped the blade at his side and cut the band. She shrieked at him as he took her weapons, as if he had torn away her bag, leaving her helpless and exposed, and he threw the speargun at my direction. It fell halfway between me and them, and I started falling toward it.


    He released the torch and let it drop beside him, but as he grabbed the wrench, she grabbed it too, with one hand. She must have managed to get one hand loose.


    The three of them struggled but she gripped the tool so hard, even with one hand, that he could not pull it away. With a violence I hadn¡¯t thought he was capable of, David rose off the ground and placed both of his boots against the woman, pulling the tool away. After a moment he fell onto his back, victory in his hands. His expressions changed too quickly for me to decipher, my vision obscured.


    She looked down at him as he fell, then to the controls, as she tried controlling the jet with her free arm, the one opposite the interface. A man was holding one arm closer to the controls, and his face was frozen. Mummified? Still, he looked at me, his face an odd mask of mixed suffering and acceptance, regretting nothing. Saved. Her expression was the opposite, and they seemed like they were one creature; like a two-headed god. Then the other man, what was his name? looked at me, and begged me not to do something. But what?


    There was a speargun in my hands, and I was pointing it right at her. First of all, dispose of the threat. One man moved out of the way, the other couldn¡¯t be hurt anymore. She looked at me with such hate that it might have stopped me if I had literally anything to lose. I pulled the trigger, felt the powerful spring strain my good shoulder and the spear shot out right at her. I thought I¡¯d missed until I noticed the dust swirling around them as she began rising into space along with her human-made manacle.


    She¡¯s leaking, I celebrated. I killed her. Then I noticed the loose pipe in the jetpack, spewing its content uncontrollably. I hadn¡¯t hit the suit, but one of the jetpack¡¯s pipes. Dammit. They gained speed and height, Vempress and Alex, those were their names, revolving, until they were too fast and far to return. We all watched them until they shrank into nothingness. I thought, strangely, that wherever they were going, they were bound to at least have one final, interesting conversation.


    The man stood there with the tools in his hand and looked at me, obviously unsure what he was supposed to do next. I remembered thinking that he¡¯d had a plan. Even through the fog closing on my mind, I could piece together what needed to be done.


    ¡°Torch,¡± I gasped, voiceless. ¡°Wrench.¡±


    He was confused. ¡°But, you can¡¯t reconnect your own oxygen¡­¡±


    ¡°Now!¡±


    He threw them at me, and I managed to catch them, fumbling in the advancing darkness. I held the weapon in one hand, the life-stealing tool in the other.


    I couldn¡¯t let that thing exist. If it did, Vempress, yes, that was her name, Vempress could keep taking oxygen from anyone. Where is she? How did I get The Wrench? It didn¡¯t matter now. Fuck her and her damned immortality.


    ¡°Are we going to steal oxygen for you now?¡± a woman said, her voice dry. I looked around at the residents, trying to find the voice. One seemed subdued, an expression of humiliated acceptance; another¡¯s face was keen, focused; the third seemed devastated by sorrow. All flinched when I looked at them. Why was it so hard to focus my eyes? I felt like I was going to pass out, and I couldn¡¯t afford that.


    I gazed at the tools in my hands. Without the tools of power, there could be no King. And that is who I will allow myself to become if the blue-eyed man connected my oxygen. A liar, a manipulator, doing anything to have some control, no matter how much suffering it caused others. I saw the future clearly, how using the tool once meant using it again, and again, until we became exactly what we tried to kill¡­


    I flicked the trigger on the torch, feeling the gentle thrust of the little white flame, and brought the wrench against it. Only the now exists, and in this moment, I am the most noble, the most beautiful that I can be. This is my legacy. It started changing colors, and the plastic bent and melted, quickly losing all form. I found the speargun laying at my feet, and did the same to it. I threw the torch as high as I could, still on, and the flame pushed it, spun it farther and farther away.


    Why was it so hard to think? The oxygen, I finally remembered. I need to reconnect my oxygen. I looked at the deformed lump that had once been the wrench, and realized.


    Oh.


    A woman cried out in grief. Yael? Keren? Ayelet? None of them were here. I looked at the Residents, howling despair and rage at what I¡¯d done to them, some trying to fall to their knees but floating in space, curled up into balls. Horrible guilt shone in a man¡¯s blue, compassionate eyes. They¡¯re going to remember this. Remember me.


    I hadn¡¯t thought about what I¡¯d take from them by succeeding here, and I was taken aback by their grief.


    Funny. Despite everything that had happened here, I hadn¡¯t found the time to grieve. But this was the last chance ¨C all I¡¯d wanted to do was fix the damage I¡¯d done. Did I even do that?


    Was it all going to be better? If she came here, and she suffered and died, like many other dozens over many other days, would that count? They¡¯d choke, or if their friends weren¡¯t cowards, they¡¯d have someone kill them before they went mad as their life-support collapsed. You can¡¯t change anything.


    I laughed, a long laugh that turned into a long, painful cough, as my lungs tried to push out an obstacle that wasn¡¯t there. In the darkness, one of them came closer, warily, and I reached out to him with a fumbling hand. When he took it in his, I felt a sense of gratitude I hadn¡¯t known was possible.


    It became darker still; my vision diminished to a pinpoint. Within that pinpoint, everything was lit with the colors of precious metals. I looked up and saw something gold and silver passing far above us, gleaming in the darkness. I almost remembered what it was.


    Swifts flying in the sunset? No, Tsur, lounging in front of the living room screen, watching swifts in flight in an old Earth documentary. He is becoming so much like his old man, isn¡¯t he? ¡°Listen,¡± I say, and I tell him everything, everything that I have to say, though I can¡¯t remember what it is even as I¡¯m saying it.


    He is gone now, and the beautiful light is gone too. All around me are faces, their expressions grave in that shadow of that twinkling, dying light.


    Now, as they hold my hands, they are cutting me out of my suit.

 Epilogue - Legacies

    Vox Populi, Vox Dei (Latin, ''the voice of the people is the voice of God'')


    ¨C Source unknown


    A woman in a space suit waits in the airlock, staring at the man sitting behind the transparent pane. He¡¯s too scared of her to stare back. He betrays himself, first and foremost, by looking away from the consequences of his actions, and the woman pities him, even as she sees his hand moving towards the touchscreen, clicking the commands that will kill her. At that moment, before the final key is struck, before the airlock opens, before she even knows what the outside looks like, she feels whole. She doesn¡¯t regret anything, she doesn¡¯t expect anything, and she can just observe the world as it is. The man in front of her is drowning in the pain of his own betrayal, and the woman accepts that she can do nothing for him. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she says.


    He chooses not to respond.


    Then that moment is over, and another one comes. Now she is sucked out by the gentle pull of vacuum and floats out into space. The starry sky is the first thing she notices. IT¡¯s been a long time since she saw it for herself, the stars, the sky not black or grey but something entirely different, emptiness punctuated by light. Now she flies, focusing on the feeling of weightlessness, of rotation; a slow but wild motion. There¡¯s a crater beneath her, and she¡¯s so laughably small, like a mote of dust. She lands on one hand and allows her body to turn over into a standing position, and is pleased by the grace of the motion. She sees numbers running at the corner of her visor, but pays them no mind.


    The little lights by the airlock¡¯s door flash a bright white, and she sees that she¡¯s not alone there¡ªa dozen or so people in spacesuits just like hers are kneeling by a mummified body whose spacesuit was cut open. A figure stands with their back to the woman, a knife in their hands. They place it in a pocket in their suit, shaking, and the woman watches curiously as the others move closer to lay their hands on the figure, comforting. No one seems to have noticed her.


    Then, through the radio receiver on her helmet, she hears their crude voices join into harmony¡ªsome singing confidently, others mumbling intermittently the words that they remember. The woman stands and listens, as they sing:


    God full of mercy,


    Who resides in heaven,


    Find for her a rightful resting place,


    On the wings of the divine,


    Among the saints and the pure,


    Like the incandescent heavens,


    They shine on us


    Let him string her soul in the string of life


    And so, the merciful will hide her under his wing forever,


    God is her residence,


    Let her rest in peace,


    And say,


    Amen.


    ¡°Amen,¡± the woman says.


    They all turn to her. The figure closest to her, the one who¡¯d held the knife, looks startled. ¡°You¡¯re early,¡± she says. The sky becomes bright, and the woman can see the other¡¯s face: light brown eyes set slightly too far apart in a dark, freckled face. When she smiles, there¡¯s a little gap in her front teeth. The woman likes her immediately.


    ¡°Sorry, I guess?¡±


    ¡°No, I mean, it¡¯s not your fault. They messed up the schedule. You were supposed to be here in a couple of minutes, and we should have been waiting to welcome you.¡±


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m here now.¡±


    ¡°Are you ok, though? Newcomers tend to be¡­ louder.¡±


    The woman looks within herself. Yes, she is ok. She nods. ¡°So, what¡¯s the welcoming process?¡±


    ¡°First of all, there¡¯s a question I need to ask you. Is your name Keren, by any chance?¡±


    ¡°It is,¡± Keren says.


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s too b¡ªwait, really?¡± The others exchange glances.


    ¡°Yes? That¡¯s my name. What¡¯s so weird?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve been waiting for someone named Keren.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the thing.¡± The other woman seems embarrassed. ¡°We don¡¯t exactly know. We were just told that every time someone comes, we should ask them if their name is Keren.¡±


    A warmth spreads in Keren¡¯s chest, like a pinch on the strings of her heart. It aches, but she doesn¡¯t resist it.


    ¡°Peace, Keren,¡± the woman says. ¡°Welcome to Last Day Town.¡±


    Before Keren can answer, the others greet her and introduce themselves. She doesn¡¯t remember any of the names, but that¡¯s not what they do that for. Lastly, the woman with the gap in her teeth introduces herself. ¡°My name is Edna; I¡¯m the Supreme Elder of Last Day Town, and I¡¯ll be your mentor.¡±


    ¡°Mentor?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll show you around, show you the ropes, hear your confession.¡± She turns to the others. ¡°The ceremony is over, Residents. See you in two hours.¡±


    The crowd disperses, leaving the two of them alone. They both stand silently for a while. A couple takes places by a board of either chess or checkers, trying to remember whose turn it is; a group with different tools sculpts, in rock, a crude shape that looks a bit like a person; others sit, talk, hug, and even dance in the shifting light. Keren looks up at the sky and realizes that the light is coming from a passing asteroid, pocked with damage from whatever mysterious adventures it¡¯s been on in the asteroid belt, whatever encounters it¡¯s had with other bodies that left it changed forever, or at least until it changed even more. ¡°Wow,¡± she says softly.


    ¡°You¡¯re really not afraid, are you?¡± Edna asks.


    Keren pulls her eyes down from the asteroid and looks at Edna, who smiles in return. Keren looks inside herself, and sees in the vista of her soul, the tide of fear coming at times, going at times, like an ocean lapping at a sandy beach, taking nothing away. She neither fights nor embrace it.¡°I am afraid, actually. It¡¯s just¡­ not the thing I most am. You?¡±


    Edna nods, a small, concise motion. ¡°Not as much as I thought I¡¯d be. And the praying helps.¡±


    ¡°And who are you praying to?¡±


    ¡°God,¡± she says, without a trace of irony.


    ¡°Really? I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve met anyone who prays to god before. Does everyone here do it?¡±


    ¡°No, not exactly. But I¡¯m not supposed to talk to you about faith so soon.¡±


    Keren finds it amusing that anything is supposed to be or not to be something when time is so short, when reality is so absurd. Then again, that has been the case for a while now. ¡°What are we supposed to be talking about, then?¡±


    ¡°First, you confess. You get everything off of your chest, make peace. If nothing else, this is the place where we make peace.¡±


    ¡°Pass.¡±


    Edna blinks. ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    ¡°I already made my peace.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to tell your story? People used to kill for that.¡±


    What¡¯s the thing Keren lacks¡ªthe thing that makes people love telling the narrative of their lives so much? It doesn¡¯t matter¡ªit¡¯s enough that she doesn¡¯t. ¡°If I can forfeit that, I will. What else are we supposed to talk about?¡±


    Edna tilts her head to the side, as if Keren¡¯s subversion of her expectations pointed at something flawed in the worldview of one of them, and Edna doesn¡¯t yet know who. ¡°The law of the land, and the story of Last Day Town. Would you like to hear that, instead?¡±


    Keren wipes the dust off of a flat rock, and sits down. ¡°Yeah, that sounds interesting.¡±


    Edna tells her the history of Last Day Town: how it used to be a lively place; how the Residents worked on projects together, from a spaceship that was never completed to long poems, passed from mouth to ear. The Residents couldn¡¯t take away one another¡¯s oxygen because of the way the suits were built, and they accepted their final day - until The Visitor came. He wasn¡¯t thrown like the rest, but came around the asteroid to see for himself, and tell everyone inside what was happening here. But as soon as he came in, one of the residents figured they could get at his spaceship and stole it, giving back only after he promised to send back enough oxygen to survive for years.


    Keren knows enough to understand that¡¯s not the actual story, but also knows that myths know how to construct themselves, and don¡¯t need her to interfere.


    The story continues with The Visitor being ejected only to find out that the lines are completely gone¡ªThe same Resident that stole the spacecraft had taken The Wrench from it, and used it to steal oxygen from others, calling herself Vempress, and killed Residents to stay alive.


    Keren¡¯s heart soured, at hearing that. The day after Yossi left, she kept thinking about him. About what he was doing on the outside¡ªwhether he¡¯d joined the line he¡¯d hoped he would; whether he¡¯d held it together all the way to the end. But she¡¯d imagined Last Day Town as he¡¯d described it, and, as is usually the case with the worlds we build in our own heads, it had nothing to do with reality.


    Edna tells Keren how The Visitor prostrated himself in front of Vempress, giving her what every tyrant wants, and she adopted him as her mouthpiece to the rest of the residents. She even offered him oxygen, but he couldn¡¯t accept it.


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°Because it was his fault things came to be the way they did. If he didn¡¯t visit, if he didn¡¯t lose The Wrench to the Town, the Resident that got hold of it wouldn''t have become Vempress. He had to make things right.¡±


    ¡°Did he?¡±


    He didn¡¯t, it turned out. While he tried to conspire with the residents behind Vempress¡¯s back to kill her, they took the Visitor¡¯s example and conspired behind his back, making his conspiracy fail so that one of them could become her right hand. And so, when Vempress was distracted by the ecstasy of torturing the Visitor for his betrayal, the Residents sabotaged her jetpack. Not killing her, but sending her away. The problem was, she had already disconnected his oxygen tank.


    ¡°So he died,¡± Keren says, the grief in her voice thick to her own ears. ¡°And he wasn¡¯t even the one to beat Vempress, in the end.¡±


    Not exactly. When she flew away, she¡¯d dropped her tools. The blade and gun were a no brainer to destroy, but The Wrench, the one that had allowed her to take oxygen from others, could also allow the Visitor to reconnect his own. They disposed of the person that became Vempress, but in his last breath, the Visitor was the one to destroy the tool that let her become what she became. ¡°And that¡¯s the moral of the myth,¡± Edna says, speaking to herself as well as Keren. ¡°That¡¯s why we cannot afford to be cruel, cannot afford to be unkind. Even here. Especially here. Because this place will take your sanity and tear it apart, and no one should be judged for going insane under such circumstances. Instead, we should hold each other fast from falling into the pit in the first place.¡±


    Keren tries to imagine the man that she met in the line of the dining chamber, the man who didn¡¯t even try to stop another from spitting into his food, enduring so much when it meant helping someone else. I¡¯m so proud of you, she thinks, knowing that there is nothing that he would have liked to hear more. Tears flood her eyes. She takes a deep breath, shakes her head. ¡°He did it. He managed to leave something behind.¡±


    The woman smiles again and waves her palm, miming a salmon swimming upstream. ¡°You knew him, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°A little bit. He said he would try to leave something worth remembering, but I thought he would tell the story, not live it. Now all that¡¯s left of him is that story.¡±


    ¡°More than a story. Do you know what the wars of mankind are almost always about? Laws. Sure, resources are nice, but the real war is about who gets to decide. Right, wrong, fact or fiction. It isn¡¯t only that history is written by the victors ¨C they become victors in order to write history. Last Day Town is no different. The visitor gave his life so that we could have The Four Commandments and One.¡±


    ¡°Commandments? Like in the bible?¡±


    ¡°Sort of. Here they are - No killing: that one¡¯s self-explanatory. No stealing¡ªpossessions can only be given. No stealing of oxygen, or even talking about it, unless you¡¯re introducing it to someone, like I am doing right now you. Note that this is stated separately from both theft and murder. He used his literal last breaths to make that distinction. Next up: No leaving this crater, right around the airlock, on pain of silence. You see that sharp edge where it turns into a plateau? If anyone goes over that edge the only one that is allowed to talk to them is the Supreme Elder, and she is allowed to kill anyone else that does. That¡¯s more of a punishment than you can imagine, that silence. Do you understand these commandments that have laid down upon you, like they have been upon me?¡±


    ¡°I understand them,¡± Keren says, though she doesn¡¯t accept them, yet. ¡°But that¡¯s only four.¡±


    ¡°Good. Here¡¯s the exciting part: If a Resident wants to change any of the rules, they can, but they must be willing to sacrifice for it¡ªthe only way to change the law is trial by combat. If a Resident has twelve hours or more on them, they can propose a new law. The Supreme Elder either accepts, or passes the challenge to the Second Elder, who also chooses whether to accept or pass. If every single resident of Last Day Town passes, the new law is accepted. If not, the challenger fights for the new law.¡±


    ¡°Do people actually do this?¡±


    ¡°I never saw it, but if God permits, you might get to see it in your lifetime. What could be more exciting than watching a society change?¡±


    Keren considers her options. Whatever she is to do with this day, she isn¡¯t going to hurry anywhere.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have a lot of time, do you?¡±


    ¡°How rude: you don¡¯t just ask a lady how long she has to live!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, no: I jest. It says an hour and forty seven minutes.¡±


    ¡°Then would you like to confess to me?¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    Keren shrugs. ¡°I¡¯m curious.¡±


    Enda laughs.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°This is really strange.¡±


    ¡°Is it so weird to be curious?¡±


    ¡°Not that. This is embarrassing but, when I was first offered to confess, I made something up. I was too ashamed to tell the truth. I¡¯m a really good liar, but I¡¯ve regretted it ever since.¡±


    ¡°That is funny.¡±


    She explains to Keren how they will isolate each other from the rest, turning off their radios and touching their visors to each other, but just before they do, she hesitates again.


    ¡°Maybe I shouldn¡¯t. I don¡¯t want to take away from that smooth equanimity of yours.¡±


    What could this woman say that could possibly shake Keren? She is pleasantly curious. ¡°Come on, Edna,¡± Keren says. ¡°We ain¡¯t got all day.¡±


    #


    The Shadow-Man, for that is the name Edna had been given, is tired, the kind of tired sleep won''t fix. A single explosion, a single medicine shipment lost, was all that was needed to send the prime minister into a rage, and after the rage came guilt, to an almost suicidal degree. He¡¯d sent word to some wannabe journalist about Last Day Town itself, in some hope to turn the tide against himself. Against the whole of them.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    She disposed of the journalist, of course. If she hadn¡¯t the entire structure would fall, right on her silly little head. She knew, when she sent the police to his location, that she would have to go, sooner or later, for defying the will of the ruler, even if it saved them both. And there she was now, ready for the new shadow man to have her as his first victim. There wasn''t any other way for this to play out.


    She pours herself cognac, half a glass, just like her grandmother taught her, sets up a chess board if only to look at the light shining off the real wood and seem smart, even to herself.


    She¡¯d asked him, before, why weren¡¯t they bypassing the airlock¡¯s safety features, rigging it so they could ¡®exile to Earth¡¯ people without any oxygen in their suits, or without suits at all.


    Don''t waste your time on it. Not what I¡¯m paying you for. He shouted it to the entire office. As long as they die out of this asteroid, I don¡¯t mind if they take their time. Then he laughed, and the Shadowman laughed along. God, how pragmatic they thought themselves to be. But the guilt was already there, wasn¡¯t it?


    She doesn¡¯t have time for that now. A decision needs to be made.


    The Shadowman received two messages. Attempts at communication would be more accurate. One appeared in her computer as if on its own, with no sender or source, the other was left where she would eventually go looking.


    Her screen turned black, the letters appearing in white. No introduction, no apology for the interruption. It started with a paragraph about her favorite bird, the willow warbler, and how it was discovered that their singing patterns were not hardwired into them, but taught, bird to bird, and people had taken to create whole flocks of them that courted each other with motifs from Mozart and Paganini. Why, the anonymous sender wrote, when nature chose the song randomly, we deemed it just, but we were appalled when it was a person who chose the song, even if the birds'' singing was all the better for it? Why apologize for teaching birds what songs they were allowed to sing?


    She sighed. The parallel to her own work was glaringly obvious, and the choice of the warbler specifically testified to an intimate knowledge of her. It was a strong opening, perhaps too strong.


    It was not written by a human being, those lines were enough to show. If it were a Ceresian that hacked her computer, they wouldn¡¯t have taken their time like that. It was Earth, what was left of it. And how has that machine learned to talk, if it was not our own voices, digested and regurgitated to us, a complex echo of our entirety as a culture? The rest of the message offered sanctuary on the greying planet, not that it could be trusted. Once she is thrown out, it said, an Earth-bound drone will come out of hiding and pick her up. All she had to do for it was accept, and once she is on Earth she will advise the machine on matters of Ceresian politics.


    It had a lot of computing power, it confessed, but it didn''t know how to think, not like her. And it needed to manipulate people. She had already made the decision to defect to the winning side, in the small arena of Ceres. Why not make the same move on the interplanetary scale?


    The insinuation was clear¨CIf she refuses, she admits her life was a mistake. If she accepts, she gets to feel proud of the decisions she''d already made. A clever manipulation, albeit a little rough. Maybe it really does need her to conquer the rest of the solar system. Maybe it¡¯s faking that need, and as soon as she got to Earth she''d be interrogated for every single piece of information she knew, tortured with a patience only a machine could muster, then disposed of.


    The other message was a single file, the only one Dina Arnon uploaded to a secure server, even though she had in fact wanted it to be found. Her little attempt to poison the air supply failed, and her partner was caught with a briefcase full of highly dangerous psychoactive chemicals, (trying to cause some sort of mass hysteria, perhaps?) but she had evaded being arrested, evaded an assassination. From whatever hole where she hid from the police officers swarming the tunnels, she wrote:


    Dear Shadowman,


    I am losing.


    The rest of the letter is long, and written badly, hastily. Edna can almost see the woman looking behind her shoulder as she types down whatever she thinks. She explains her dream, to change the minds of people. To Let them decide for their true selves. With half of her stash confiscated, she can''t hope to affect a big enough block of the population. She is lost. She has lost.


    Dina doesn''t even know what kind of help she is asking for, but she is asking for it from anyone who would listen. She dares not ask her allies for help, knowing that it will set the Shadowman after them. So why not go straight to the source?


    Love, she signs, and Edna can¡¯t help but read it as an imperative, Dina.


    The shadowwoman downs her cognac, and writes a set of answers in her head. Two for the lifeless intelligence, two for the honest terrorists.


    First set:


    To the machine - I accept your offer. Come take me away.


    To Dina - I''m sorry. We¡¯re all just trying to survive.


    Second set:


    To the machine - Go back to the hell we shouldn¡¯t have summoned you from.


    To Dina - You don''t have to change everyone''s mind, my dear. Those who are being stepped on will get on board as soon as the boot gets off their neck. It''s those who are doing the stepping that need to clear their head, see things anew. I''ve deleted your presence, as much as I could. Some police officers might notice, but the cameras won¡¯t auto-recognize you. I wish I could have given you any passcodes, but all I can give you is the location and time of the prime minister¡¯s pool-party, next week. A pretty-eyed girl like you shouldn¡¯t have much trouble getting in, even with that bulky suitcase. Good luck.


    The Shadowman sighs, pours again, drinks again. She picks up a black horse-figurine off the checkered board and thinks about chivalry.


    She wishes she could have hidden herself like she could Dina, but she can¡¯t¨Cher successor won¡¯t be fooled so easily. She can only decide what to do with her remaining time. But she¡¯d already decided which set of messages she wants to send, didn¡¯t she?


    #


    ¡°Do you think she¡¯ll make it?¡± Keren asks as they turn on their radios, thinking of the kindergarten teacher she¡¯d once met, who introduced her to the group she ended up blowing the prime minister¡¯s shipment with. She really did have pretty eyes.


    ¡°Maybe, maybe not. But I dare hope.¡±


    Hope, you coward, is what Yossi said, the first time Keren met him. And she did. She tried. Perhaps, if people like Dina tried, things could still change, inside. A small world like Last Day Town could be saved, so why not a big one?


    ¡°And that hope, does it make it easier?¡±


    Edna scoffs. ¡°I wish. It makes it harder. You see, I¡¯m not afraid for my own life. Not really.¡± She sticks out her tongue, as if to make light of it all. ¡°The oxygen will run out, I¡¯ll choke, and this body will shut down. But will I be gone? I¡¯m a cloud of many thoughts, and while a precious few might be endemic to this specific person, the majority of them are commonplace. There is very little that is unique in Edna Bernstein, and the rest is shared by many. Most of what you are is the shared parts, not the unique parts. And the shared parts will survive my death. I don¡¯t fear death because I¡¯m mostly immortal, just like you, and if I leave a few ideas here, then I won¡¯t die at all.¡±


    ¡°Then¡­¡±


    ¡°But if Ceres dies, all the parts of myself that I loved so much won¡¯t be kept in this leviathan, in this one true God that is made out of all of us combined. That¡¯s what made it so scary. This Dina, she wasn¡¯t afraid to die, and she wasn¡¯t afraid to change herself, or the world. Ceres has to die in part, or it will die whole.¡±


    ¡°Just like we did.¡±


    ¡°Just like we did. And it comforts me, a little, to know that it¡¯s not just in my hands. That I can trust others to take some of the load. That¡¯s what I did here, on my last day. Prepared to die.¡±


    ¡°And are you?¡±


    ¡°As I will ever be. And you? Do you think that you could find, within you, a way to pray? A belief to hold the pain and fear at bay?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Keren says. The word is quiet, but there¡¯s more than enough power in her lack of hesitation.


    ¡°Nothing?¡± Edna asks.


    ¡°People say that they don¡¯t believe in anything, but they believe that time flows forward, that they¡¯ve lived their life, that they¡¯re going to die. People suffer from believing that there is an I, and that I is going to be gone. You, Edna, overcome that fear by framing things so you won¡¯t be gone when the oxygen runs out. I, on the other hand, don¡¯t think one can die at all. Where we are, the future is not, and where the future is, we are not. The person who was saying the last sentence is already gone, and the person saying this sentence will also be gone soon, as well as the person listening to it.¡± For a moment, a warm memory floods her, of Yossi in the dining chamber, trying very hard to look like he understands what she¡¯s talking about, and she lets it come and go. ¡°Poof. The very last moment isn¡¯t any different than any other moment, except that you might choose to use it to imagine death and think about how much you don¡¯t want it to come. The worst feeling you can have is knowing that the thing you fear most is coming¡ªbut it¡¯s not. It¡¯s an illusion.¡±


    ¡°I just wonder if it¡¯ll work like you think it will, when the timer runs out.¡±


    ¡°Not my problem. My only duty is to discern honestly between truth and lie. It¡¯s not my job to curate ideas based on their usefulness.¡±


    ¡°Funny. That¡¯s exactly what I thought my job was. To make sure bad notions won¡¯t contaminate Ceres.¡± Something in her face hardens, and when she speaks, she sounds like she¡¯s pushing the words out by force. The shift in her mood is sudden, but that¡¯s how it is, sometimes, with this sort of thing. ¡°I personally gave the command to have people arrested, tried, and thrown out here to choke. Dozens, hundreds of people, who were in touch with the wrong people, even if they didn¡¯t come across any sensitive information, all under the excuse that I was keeping Ceres united against a greater threat. Even you, Keren¡­ Tagor, was it?¡± She looks at Keren, eyes torn open, then looks down, her helmet between her palms. ¡°God, you must hate me so much.¡±


    ¡°What was your mistake, Edna?¡± Keren''s voice is stern, but not cold.


    ¡°What does it matter? It¡¯s in the past, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°You regret it now. Reconcile it, now. What do you regret?¡±


    ¡°I wanted to keep Ceres alive. I really did. To make it better,¡± The Shadowman says, still looking down at the rock. ¡°But I stayed in the shadows, like a coward. The things that remain of you aren¡¯t what you say, but what you do. That¡¯s why people followed Moses and his laws, and why The Visitor managed to change Last Day Town. I didn¡¯t only ruin my own life, but hundreds, God, perhaps millions of lives. And in all honesty, I can¡¯t say for sure that I made anyone any safer for it. How could that be forgiven?¡±


    So that¡¯s what my killer looks like, Keren thinks. Pained, remorseful, tragic. No surprises there.


    ¡°Like this,¡± Keren says. Edna raises her eyes from the rock floor to meet Keren¡¯s eyes. ¡°I forgive you.¡± It is the truth.


    Edna starts crying. ¡°Thank you.¡±


    ¡°Thank you. You¡¯re a great mentor.¡±


    ¡°Really? I sure tried my best.¡± She reaches out to hold her hand. ¡°You know, I¡¯m kind of glad that we never rigged the airlock so it will let us throw people out without suits, or without oxygen.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Because I got to talk to you. Even in this place that is literally the stuff of nightmares, God resides here, too. Perhaps it is a little god, and still it was my holy honor to see its face. Now it¡¯s time for me to fuck off.¡±


    Keren squeezes both of her hands. ¡°Don¡¯t you have a little longer?¡±


    ¡°I do, but I don¡¯t want to seem like I waited for the last minute.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re really not afraid?¡±


    ¡°Of course I am. But I have to put on a brave face.¡± She winks, and the tears stick to her eyelashes. ¡°Lead by example, for once in my life, instead of just talking big.¡± Keren nods, and Edna nods back. ¡°Hey, everybody!¡± Edna shouts to the others. ¡°I¡¯m good to go!¡±


    ¡°Taking an early leave, huh?¡± a woman calls back. ¡°Nothing like exercising the illusion of control.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re only as good as our mentors,¡± Edna says, and shrugs.


    ¡°Then will you also recite a death poem?¡±


    Edna consideres it for a moment. ¡°I forgot about that.¡± Her brows knot in concentration, as if she¡¯s trying to recall the exact wording, and finally she nods. ¡°Yes.¡±


    They huddle around her. Hug her. She hands the knife to the person who called back to her¡ªa small woman with curly hair all about the inside of her helmet, who takes it with an agonized expression. Edna takes a deep breath, her hand in Keren¡¯s fluttering like a fragile, winged thing and when she speaks, there is only that moment, and nothing else. She quotes:


    For from man thou came, and unto man thou shall return.


    ¡°Is that Yehuda Amichai?¡± Keren asks.


    ¡°It is.¡± Edna smiles. ¡°Now ask yourself¨Cwhy does the fact that you recognize it makes me like you even more?¡± She turns to the woman holding a knife beside her, and nods. ¡°Do it.¡±


    Keren doesn¡¯t look away. She doesn¡¯t think as much as suddenly know that if each moment is separate then they are flowing neither forward or backward, and their order is an illusion created by our memories. She might as well imagine the flow in reverse: One moment the woman doesn¡¯t exist, but in the next she does. Not much different than birth: oxygen atoms coming from far away in space, absorbed by this woman¡¯s lungs, entering her bloodstream, reviving her mind. The knife touching the separate layers of her suit, connecting the folds, locking the air inside, raising the pressure as the suit tightens; the woman spending twenty-four hours in the suit, dropping back into the airlock, and spending a life in the shadows, giving commands that she knows are wrong, studying ornithology and mythology as a hobby, growing young, forgetting how to write, forgetting how to speak, growing smaller and more feeble until finally separating into a sperm and egg cell, the atoms going back and playing their games, dancing their dance all the way to the beginning of time.


    She looks away, and her eyes meet the oxygen timer at the corner of her visor.


    #


    Estimated oxygen time: So little.


    Keren puts her palms together, praying for an anchor to pull her back to the present, and almost in answer the Residents start to sing, the harmony like a wave washing over her, engulfing her. This time, she understands a little better what the words mean. She joins in.


    #


    After her mentor is taken to her final resting place, just outside the small crater, a new arrival comes, screaming and kicking, still space-borne, and is quickly tended by the same woman who cut Edna¡¯s suit open, the current Supreme Elder. All of the residents, Keren included, introduce themselves, but the newcomer seems entirely unimpressed. The Supreme Elder dismisses them, and Keren goes around talking to the chess players, listening to the poets and storytellers. All of them make the same jokes, struggling with the same fears. None of it holds her attention, not really. Eventually, she sits at the edge of the crater, in the company of no one but the dried and frozen former residents and the stars, preparing for a day of staring at space and musing. Not an entirely bad day, all in all, albeit a bit boring.


    Something moves out on the plane, catching her attention. Something that looks more and more like a person in a space suit making their way towards her. Isn¡¯t it forbidden to leave the crater?


    The figure moves strangely, above the ground without dropping to step on it, and incredibly fast, growing from a hint of a spacesuit to a man with separate limbs and the stick he uses to propel himself. Keren thinks he¡¯ll go over the entire crater in one leap, but instead he releases a lasso to drag behind him, catching on to a rock and stopping mid-space with an audible ¡°oof!¡±


    He lands hard just outside of the crater and looks at Keren, who looks back in silence. He¡¯s tall, with a bushy beard, straight Grecian nose, and large, intelligent brown eyes. He winks at her. It¡¯s charming, if bizarre.


    Quickly the rest of the residents notice him and come to the edge. The Supreme Elder comes forward. ¡°I know you,¡± she says. ¡°You were here when I arrived. You left in order to search for something¡ªyou and someone else. Did you find what you were looking for?¡±


    His face is pure pride. ¡°It took us hours of searching, but we did. Treasures of strange culture and technology. It was easier once we figured these out.¡± He taps the metal stick against the rock. Keren notices then that his hands are with thick mittens made of patchwork suits.


    ¡°Where¡¯s the other one?¡±


    ¡°He went ahead. Wanted to see if he could make it far enough to see the sun. I remember you, too, you know¡ªI was only two hours here when you arrived. I remember you cursed very creatively. Look at you now, the Supreme Elder¡ªthough I¡¯m technically more senior than you are.¡±


    ¡°A seniority you forfeited by leaving. You should have returned here for your last minutes. Instead, you¡¯re going to spend your last hour ignored, by the law.¡±


    ¡°The law? Seriously?¡± He looks at Keren again, as if to say, can you believe these people?


    ¡°The law is what stands between order and chaos. It¡¯s the reason you got anything explained to you at all. It¡¯s the reason you could take the time to choose whether or not to break it, and I will not hesitate to do what it takes to keep it upheld. Don¡¯t you dare diminish it.¡± Her tone is level, but her fists clench. There¡¯s a knife in one of them¡ªthe same one that cut Edna out of her suit.


    He tries to shrug nonchalantly, but frustration shows in the movement of his shoulder. ¡°Fine, whatever. One hour here, one hour there; don¡¯t let them talk to me, if that¡¯s what you think is right. But at least let me tell you what I saw.¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Keren turns to the woman. There is something dark in her greenish eyes, mournful.


    ¡°Why the fuck not? What do you care?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t let you leave a gospel behind. Out here, that¡¯s the closest to survival we can get.¡±


    ¡°It isn¡¯t about me. I don¡¯t care if nobody remembers who I am. There¡¯s so much to find out there, so much we could make. Don¡¯t they deserve to know?¡±


    ¡°Not if it breaks them apart, no,¡± she says, her voice as grave as stone. ¡°We have everything we need right here. What do we need progress for? It starts with something small like a stick and a glove, and before you know it people are stealing¡­¡± She stops before saying the word. The faces in the crowd show varying levels of agreement, from certainty to confusion. Some are curious, others don¡¯t see what the big deal is.


    ¡°What¡¯s stopping me from just saying it now?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll kill you,¡± she says, and turns half a glance towards the rest. ¡°We all will.¡±


    Keren isn¡¯t sure that they will. She won¡¯t.


    ¡°You will try.¡± He shifts his grip on the metal rod in his hand. ¡°You¡¯re officially the Supreme Elder now. If I kill you, I can change the law and make it legal to go outside, can¡¯t I?¡±


    ¡°Rule changes can only be decided in combat, not spontaneous murder. You¡¯d need at least twelve hours on you to call for it, which I know you don¡¯t have.¡±


    Just above The Returner¡¯s head, a red star shines, and Keren thinks of her mother and her love, her desire for Keren to live her life unbound. ¡°I have more than twelve hours.¡± She hears her own voice, so confident and truthful, as if it is the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it is.


    Every single face turns to her. The Supreme Elder grimaces. ¡°Honey, why get involved? You still have the rest of your day ahead of you.¡±


    ¡°I want to be free,¡± she says simply. ¡°I want to see what he¡¯s talking about.¡±


    The Returner smiles, a warm and lovely thing.


    The Elder tsks, visibly grinding her teeth. ¡°The Formers made these laws for us, made this town for us, so we won¡¯t have to suffer what they went through. You¡¯re free now, to do as you want¡ªin here. And you¡¯d throw it all away on a whim?¡±


    Keren glances at the red planet again, and something inside her blossoms. ¡°Enough talking. I challenge you, Last Day Town¡¯s Supreme Elder, to a duel in order to instigate the change proposed. If I win, whoever wishes to go out may do so, and this man will be exonerated of all crimes, and teach what he¡¯s learned. Do you accept, or pass the duty to the next elder in line?¡± If the Supreme Elder forfeits, and the next does as well, Keren might get what she wants without anyone getting hurt.


    ¡°I can¡¯t pass this burden to anyone else,¡± the Elder says, her eyes lowered, her fingers fidgeting around the knife. ¡°I accept.¡±


    The crater is silent for a while. A large ship enters the sky, a black, gleaming leviathan, carrying behind it a drag-net full of metal that gleams breathtakingly in the sunlight. Keren lets herself forget about the concerns of the world for a moment, but her attention shifts when someone hands her a club of steel rebar, and a crudely ripped patch of suit to hold it with. She wraps it around the base of the weapon to create a handle and closes her fingers around it.


    The weapon is heavy and short, with round edges filed smooth, so cold it has a bluish hue, that it hurts to hold even with the extra layer of insulation. She notices the contrast between it and the knife that the elder wields, another manifestation of the system¡¯s, any system¡¯s, natural tendency to resist change.


    ¡°Careful,¡± The Returner says. ¡°Steel¡¯s as fragile as glass at these temperatures.¡±


    Is that right? She leans towards a nearby rock, and with a flick of her wrist whips the baton against it, breaking a fragment off and leaving a sharp edge behind. She inspects the glasslike blade under the golden light, and grins like the first human to ever fashion a stone axe.


    The Elder¡¯s eyes open wide, and her grip tightens around her knife. She beckons Keren to the center of the crater and says a few ceremonial words, but Keren¡¯s so focused now that the words don¡¯t quite reach her. The residents circle around them, and the returning man watches from the edge of the crater, leaning on his stick. She might die, but that¡¯s always true, isn¡¯t it? All songs are death songs. As she walks towards the center of the circle she makes up her own death song. It goes like this:


    In this now in time


    A bird chirps another¡¯s song


    Spring among the stars