Descending Road - SUSAN by Dana W. Paxson

SUSAN

0 NC, Day 0, Hour 14

“Louder?” the woman’s voice asked.

The helmet. Miriam called out, “Yes! Are you human too? Is this a recording? Or a sentine?” Sentines had been artificial biointelligences, outlawed two hundred years before Miriam‘s time.

“I’m the ship’s remembrance of itself. Look inside here again.” The cylinder glowed blue-gray, then filled with white light; when Miriam‘s sight had cleared, the image of a woman’s head lay in the cushions before her, its lips moving, expression changing. “This is what I looked like. I am the ship. My flesh permeates the conduits and organs of this vessel. We are married in the flesh and fiber.” She smiled. “You’re from the First Flight, the Diaspora.” The woman’s face, now clearly visible, frowned. “Has your crew tried to land on the planet yet?”

“No.” Miriam glanced warily around at wall arrays of dark and silent instruments. In one corner, a cobalt wink of light.

“I have to tell your crew about the atmosphere. You’ll need to know what I tell you in order to survive the landing.”

“All right. Are you alive? Do you have a name?” Miriam studied the face, ghostly-pale, crowned with a luxuriant head of red-blonde hair. The lips were full, the eyes large, with irises green and gray-flecked. The eyes glittered; the lines at their corners said pain.

“Not alive as you are. I am indeed like one of the sentines from before your time, but constructed from the patterns of the woman whose body you saw. I will speak to you as she would, now. Call me Susan.

“This ship birthed me, stretched my neurons through all its archives and systems, taught me who I am and what I was to do: elaborate the genes stored in the ship’s matrix into the people they stood for. I birthed the Nains, the little repair creatures. They called me Mother, naturally enough. We came from Earth, about four thousand years after you.”

“From Earth? You mean Earth survived?” Miriam‘s reserve-power warning lamp flashed, once.

“Not easily.” The woman’s face darkened. “Mine was the Third Flight. In the millennia after you left Earth, the human gene pool shrank at times to a few hundred living beings and an array of hidden DNA libraries. Survival was improbable. The wandering star Thorin 74 had altered Earth‘s orbit enough to cause a long-term climatic crisis.”

Miriam blurted, “That was how we got here! They said there was no way to predict what would happen with that star.”

“At the time, this was true. To avoid useless panic, the Hau Ren combine and the Interplanetary Union withheld the uncertainty from the general public. In fact, Hau Ren knew enough, far enough in advance, to initiate the program that sent you here. It was a controlled attempt to move some human eggs out of the Solar System’s basket. Bold, and wise.

“The Second and Third Flights, later on, were supposed to spread human and other Earth life all through the star systems within a ten-thousand-light-year radius of the Sun.

“I am surprised to see you. I had deactivated for millennia; I expected to find descendants of my own ship when the sensors woke me. My colonization mission to this system as part of the Third Flight has apparently failed or departed, but yours, beyond all hope, has succeeded.”

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	SUSAN 0 NC, Day 0, Hour 14 “Louder?” the woman’s voice asked. The helmet. Miriam called out, “Yes! Are you human too? Is this a recording? Or a sentine?” Sentines had been artificial biointelligences, outlawed two hundred years before Miriam‘s time. “I’m the ship’s remembrance of itself. Look inside here again.” The cylinder glowed blue-gray, then filled with white light; when Miriam‘s sight had cleared, the image of a woman’s head lay in the cushions before her, its lips moving, expression changing. “This is what I looked like. I am the ship. My flesh permeates the conduits and organs of this vessel. We are married in the flesh and fiber.” She smiled. “You’re from the First Flight, the Diaspora.” The woman’s face, now clearly visible, frowned. “Has your crew tried to land on the planet yet?” “No.” Miriam glanced warily around at wall arrays of dark and silent instruments. In one corner, a cobalt wink of light. “I have to tell your crew about the atmosphere. You’ll need to know what I tell you in order to survive the landing.” “All right. Are you alive? Do you have a name?” Miriam studied the face, ghostly-pale, crowned with a luxuriant head of red-blonde hair. The lips were full, the eyes large, with irises green and gray-flecked. The eyes glittered; the lines at their corners said pain. “Not alive as you are. I am indeed like one of the sentines from before your time, but constructed from the patterns of the woman whose body you saw. I will speak to you as she would, now. Call me Susan. “This ship birthed me, stretched my neurons through all its archives and systems, taught me who I am and what I was to do: elaborate the genes stored in the ship’s matrix into the people they stood for. I birthed the Nains, the little repair creatures. They called me Mother, naturally enough. We came from Earth, about four thousand years after you.” “From Earth? You mean Earth survived?” Miriam‘s reserve-power warning lamp flashed, once. “Not easily.” The woman’s face darkened. “Mine was the Third Flight. In the millennia after you left Earth, the human gene pool shrank at times to a few hundred living beings and an array of hidden DNA libraries. Survival was improbable. The wandering star Thorin 74 had altered Earth‘s orbit enough to cause a long-term climatic crisis.” Miriam blurted, “That was how we got here! They said there was no way to predict what would happen with that star.” “At the time, this was true. To avoid useless panic, the Hau Ren combine and the Interplanetary Union withheld the uncertainty from the general public. In fact, Hau Ren knew enough, far enough in advance, to initiate the program that sent you here. It was a controlled attempt to move some human eggs out of the Solar System’s basket. Bold, and wise. “The Second and Third Flights, later on, were supposed to spread human and other Earth life all through the star systems within a ten-thousand-light-year radius of the Sun. “I am surprised to see you. I had deactivated for millennia; I expected to find descendants of my own ship when the sensors woke me. My colonization mission to this system as part of the Third Flight has apparently failed or departed, but yours, beyond all hope, has succeeded.”