RIDERS

0 NC, Day 0, Hour 14

“What difference does a dead body make?” Miriam snapped.

Again Susan hadn’t waited to speak. “You can harvest seed from the body, if it’s well-preserved.”

Miriam‘s eyes widened. “What?”

The woman’s voice speeded up. “Use our gene carriers, the Riders. My builders made them from microscopic creatures called tardigrades, to hold the genetic material from several million people. Sixty Riders fit on a pinhead. They can live and preserve their cargo under extremes of cold, acceleration, and radiation. One of them gave me each of my Mother-lives on the journey.

“They infect a man, then leave him, and take some of his semen. Then they wait, until a woman comes to take them, and they infect her in turn, with themselves, and then with his seed. Others simply carry eggs for women, when the women need them.”

Miriam stared around, her skin tingling. “They must have died by this time.” Allan‘s baby. Could she have his baby?

“Not at all. They go dormant, sporulate; they’re very tough. The young are the size of a grain of pollen. Look behind the panel flashing green on your right. You’ll find a box of small sealed, clear glassy tubes about a millimeter in diameter and a centimeter long. Each yellowish tube holds Riders for one man, each red one for one woman. My ship’s core held nearly twenty million of them, fully infected with genetic material; they’re mostly gone now. The blue ones you’d find are the Nains, for ship emergencies. Use the clear tubes, with the Riders without any genetic material in them yet.”

The panel held a tray, with the box of tubes. Miriam retrieved it quickly. “Use them on his body?”

“Yes. Warm his genitals to ten degrees Centigrade, let the Riders loose nearest the store of seed, and gather them when they reassemble. Then you can take them into yourself whenever you want. They will need only about an hour. It is easiest if you just lie with the body – than they’ll do the whole job at once.”

Lie with his body. For an hour. Miriam recoiled. “I don’t know.”

The woman scowled. “You went ten thousand years in sleep, came all the way to this strange ship, unafraid, watched others die? Why not this?” The woman’s image darkened, then returned. “Stop resisting. This is what you want. Please, take this gift – it is all I have. Goodbye.” Her face faded; the mummified body came once again into focus.

Miriam shook her head and whispered, “Goodbye.” Next to her helmet floated the small box of tubes. Came all the way to this strange ship, unafraid. She thought of Carrie Annakouri, come so far, and now dead.

She tucked the box into the long leg pouch on her suit, and wheeled for the crawlway. The flashing green light on the panel went out, then the entire chamber went black.

Her suit pressure alarm now bloomed red-orange. The leak was increasing, and she was still in pressure; what would vacuum do to her suit?

She reached the lock. Ah. There it was: a jet of dust at the back of her left knee. Needing time to think, she dug out a gray patch and slapped it over the leak. The alarm turned yellow again, then faded. She called on her suit link, “I’m back.”

14