Remember the Starfighter (37 page)

The tavern was one of the few in town, and sparsely populated during what was the late afternoon. The clientele only numbered at less than a dozen people, the drinks largely confined to a few algae-based brews.

Julian sat at the bar, declining a drink. But still, he ordered a special request, pointing at the glass safe on a corner shelf. On this occasion, he needed the genuine article, no other substitute would do.

“Gei wo, gei wo,” he said, trying to speak the few words of New Mandarin he knew. For days now, he had been saving up the credits, hoping to acquire from what was the only source of whiskey on the whole planet. It would come at a steep price, the cost enough to book passage on an interstellar transport, or at least buy two year’s worth of “Lift time.”

The bartender, an old man balding with a flake of white hair, hobbled toward the square safe, his legs bound to his mechanical braces. Rubbing his two hands together, he dialed in the pass code, and pulled the bottle out. It was nearly full, a thin gap of air between the alcohol and its top. The bartender then gestured with three of his fingers, the skin interlaced in a glove of embedded wires. 

“San,” he said, his eyes hidden behind a thin red optical visor.

Julian agreed, not caring so much about the price, but if it was actually real. He took the bottle in his hands, the language on its casing unreadable. “Whee-si-gee,” the bartender exclaimed. “Shi Didao.”

With the liquid amber almost in his possession, Julian opened the container and smelled its contents. “Yeah. Whiskey,” he said with a grin. “It’s real.” 

The bartender then took back the bottle as Julian reached in his pocket to pull out the vial. It was almost the size of a shot glass, and soon filled to the brim, and sealed with the twist of a cap.

To make the exchange final, Julian took the gold piece out of his jacket pocket, the cyber-coin loaded with the 300 credits. The bartender scanned it with his own, the archaic form of currency decrypting and transferring over to its new owner.

Pleased, the bartender hobbled along and offered Julian a drink, but still he refused. “No, I’m just waiting for a friend,” he said, hoping the old man understood. He didn’t and placed the freshly poured pint next to his side, the oddly colored concoction foaming in a leafy green.

Julian let it sit, and looked to his comm-band for the time. Alysdeon had wanted to see him, and so he asked that they meet at the tavern, the last of his errands almost done. After over a week of odd jobs, Julian was on the verge of gathering all the items. Just a few more exchanges, he thought, and soon he would be done. He smiled at the vial of whiskey, only to hear a voice thump from behind.

On the other end of the tavern, the singer, a young pale girl, had taken the stage on the brick platform. She was exceptionally tall, but stood in a slouch, her shoulders heavy. Similar to the bartender, she wore an optical visor, the red lens only covering one of her eyes. The other remained free and altered, the seamless implant helping to complete the timid smile on her pallid face.

“Wei Di-er Gai-ya,” she said to the white microphone in her hands, the words familiar enough that Julian understood.
For Second Gaia
, the singer said, before beginning the hymn.

Julian listened to the song, as the surrounding speaker played the melody. He was oblivious to what it was about, the language probably a dialect of Old Mandarin. But in spite of that, he enjoyed it, the moment almost bittersweet.

“Second Gaia,” he said under his breath. Julian looked at the glass of beer next to him, and raised it to the ceiling. “Gray Squadron,” he added, before finally taking a sip.

He then felt the touch on his back, and immediately assumed. Julian licked his lips, running his other hand through his hair.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

He stopped short, when he realized he wasn’t speaking to Alysdeon.

“Captain Nverson,” the young woman said.

Julian thought at first that maybe it was a stranger, and that she had found the wrong man. She was clothed differently than anyone else on the colony, wearing a white buttoned-up blouse over a long gray skirt. He paused, confused. But as he looked at the woman again, he realized that she was wearing something he had seen before. Something that had survived from Earth. Julian lowered his head, and stared up at her unblemished face.

“Arendi? Is that you?”

Not only was she dressed differently, but her tangled hair had been gathered into a ponytail draped across her back. She was fully functional, blinking her eyes, and turning her head. It was nothing like before, when all she had been was comatose — her broken body left to lie helplessly on the operating table. 

“You look so...” Julian said, grasping for what to say. “Like someone else.”

She nervously looked away.

“You look great,” Julian added, trying to correct himself. He pulled up a nearby stool, and asked her to sit.

“I...,” she said. “I don’t know.”

“Please. It’s so good to see you again,” he said, as she reluctantly placed herself on the seat. “You’ve recovered. Just as Alysdeon said you would.”

She nodded again, fidgeting with her hands in her lap. 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s just ...a different experience.”

Julian looked around, concerned.

“Is Alysdeon with you?”

“No. But she escorted me here. She said she had some urgent business to attend to. She plans on seeing us later.”

“Well, don’t worry. I’ve been on the colony for three weeks now. It has some rough edges, but the people here are nice. No harm will come to you. It won’t be like what happened with SpaceCore.”

She took a breath and exhaled, trying to relax.

“I’m sorry for what happened before. I—”

“No,” she replied, cutting him off. “Don’t be.”

Arendi was about to continue, when he saw him stare at her. The things she wanted to say to him. This captain. A human. A real human. She could go on. But Arendi stopped, the thoughts founded on emotion, rather than any logic. It seemed irrational to repeat what she had thought days before. She did not know him. He did not know her. How could he?

She placed her soft hands on the bar table, keeping them steady.

“I’m glad to have recovered,” Arendi replied. “I’m glad to be here.”

Julian detected the pause, but thought little of it.

“And that dress,” he went on.

“Yes. Different.”

She felt smaller now. Exposed, but open. The hands moving without the heft of the armor.

“The specialist said it was from Earth, from the 28
th
century. There were others, but I chose this one.”

She held the skirt in her hands, a vacant look taking over her face. 

“It is ... Nice...” she said.

Julian wasn’t sure if that was a statement, or a question. He simply nodded. “It is,” he said. “It’s very nice.”

As he looked back at the dress, a pair of other customers passed by holding their glass drinks. He could tell people were watching. Maybe it was because of Arendi’s dressed-up appearance. Or maybe it was because both of them were outsiders, their bodies carrying none of the signature augmentations so many of the colonists bore.

Arendi noticed it, the strange devices adorning the clientele’s arms, legs and faces. She didn’t wish to be rude, and so focused on the glass cups in their hands, almost everyone drinking something or the other.

“This is a bar?”

She glanced at the pint of beer and the vial of whiskey next to Julian.

“Yeah. It’s small, but it has a nice atmosphere. Do you want a drink?”

“No. I couldn’t process it. But thank you.”

A stupid question.
Julian hid behind the frothy beer in his hand, thinking what else to say. He was not much of a conversationalist, and found himself suddenly lost. Arendi, however, couldn’t tell. She was simply curious and wanted to observe, her sight gazing off to the other end of the tavern, the song still in the air.

“Yeah,” he said, hearing the tune. “They also have a few performances here and there. It’s not bad.”

He took another drink, as she continued to look off, paying attention to the young girl on the stage. Arendi was surprised by the woman’s pale skin and her awkward height. But she was singing more passionately now, closing her remaining eye, and hymning into the microphone in her hand. 

Julian could only appreciate the beat, and guess at the meaning it carried. Maybe it was just a simple ode for Second Gaia, he assumed. Some kind of rousing anthem.

For Arendi, the song was not lost, nor were its lyrics; the ancient words were clear. 

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Do you know what she is saying?”

“Yes,” she replied. It was not a foreign language to her, but just one among the many dialects of humanity stored inside her mind.

“She’s singing about the moon of Earth,” Arendi added. “It represents her heart.”

The old district located at Shin-Feng was one of the smaller human settlements on the planet. But Arendi was caught off guard by its lack of technology. To her, the town seemed more like a village, the dozens of stocky buildings all huddled together on top of a hillside.

She found herself near the center of it, crossing through a narrow alleyway between buildings constructed out of a local form of cement. They were all colored in a faded florescence, winding up along the jagged street in colors of red, blue and yellow; the bright sun was still shining over them, but gradually dipping into the south.

Arendi took each step, struggling to balance. She felt the stone bricks beneath her borrowed shoes, and wondered if she was moving correctly. Then she looked down at her skirt. Such a wayward piece of clothing, she thought, to have a long and unruly piece of fabric flow around her legs. Maybe this was all a mistake. To come here and to be among them. But so far, Arendi had seen few humans on the street. Only the signs of their existence. The rows of drying clothes outside a window; a pair of potted plants in a slump of leaves; an empty food stand silent on a corner.

“Here we are,” Julian said, stopping at the shop. It was lodged inside a four-story building, the store a simple establishment with two windows facing out to the street.

Arendi looked at a sign over the open door, and read the language. “Memories,” she said. “A gift store.”

With the vial of alcohol in hand, Julian walked through and began talking to the clerk, an older woman, with curls in her finely braided black hair. She wore a mysterious device over her eyes, a red lens covering her vision. However, she seemed unimpeded, obliging to Julian’s request with an excited nod, while shelves of goods surrounded her.

A store, she thought. A place where people bought and then consumed products.
It all made sense, although the notion of “buying something” had never occurred to Arendi. She was curious, and was about to enter, when the machine came to meet her.

“What wonderful hair do you have,” it exclaimed.

As kind as the words were, Arendi felt the fear. She thought he heard the voice of a man, only to turn and see that it was a floating drone.

She backed away, and looked at it; the machine was a large bulbous sphere, plated in blue and black. Arendi noticed its long and stick-like arms, the tiny fingers open and flexing. It was eager to talk, even as it displayed no discernible facial features, a ring of blinking lights rotating at its axis.

“A cut, would you like?” the machine asked, the voice speaking in an exotic, but human accent. She could hear the spin of its engines, the air blowing like a fan.

Arendi shook her head. “A cut?”

“Yes, your hair. It’s most beautiful.”

She touched the back of her head, feeling the black strands in her fingers. The back was long, reaching down past her shoulders. 

Before she could respond, the drone pointed to the building behind. It was on the opposite side of the gift shop, in a concrete building nearly the same, but with its main window adorned in a shrine of pictures. Arendi saw them, and noticed that each picture held the photo of an unknown woman, the hair styles and colors all different between them.

“Please. I give you the best cut,” the floating sphere said. Presumably, it was the store’s resident barber.

“A cut?” Arendi asked again, curious.

It was such an odd question. Arendi’s hair did not grow. It was also not real, but synthesized out of artificial fibers. It was something she did not even need, just a feature all humans happened to have. She did not know what to say.

“Uh, hey, what’s going on?”

Julian had exited the gift store and noticed Arendi’s confused face. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yes. It’s OK,” said the drone. “I just ask, if she want a cut?”

“Oh,” Julian replied. “Hmmm, that could be nice.”

He squinted at the window on the other building, and looked at the different hair styles hanging behind the glass.

“Is there one you like?” Julian asked.

Arendi cautiously approached, taking in the selection. The photos were all of beautiful women and a few men, each with refined and glossy hair, in styles that seemed more abstract and vain. She would have just walked away and refused, if not for one picture Julian pointed to. For some reason, Arendi found herself drawn to style, the hair cut short, the style simple and free of fuss.

“This one,” she said. “I like this one.”

The drone inspected the photo. It then made a sound in what could only be described as human laughter.

“Yes! Perfect.”

Julian was also pleased, opening his arm, and motioning Arendi to enter the store.

“You go ahead. I’ll just be on the other side, getting things fixed up,” he said. “You should look great.”