by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Arctic Fox Android, July 2025
Gold-flecked yellow eyes stared into gold-flecked yellow eyes. The gold flakes were real, twenty-four karat. The yellow eyes, artificial. Even so, one pair of eyes was animated with a simulation of life so perfect that it raised deep, philosophical questions about the nature of life itself. For if an arctic fox android with snowy white silicon fur and a protonic brain can narrow zir eyes in concern at the discovery that zhe too will die someday, causing all the uplifted cats and dogs watching zir reaction to fight back tears, what more is required of a simulation before it becomes the thing itself?
Fact the arctic fox android was alive, and now, holding a time-worn, defunct copy of zir own disembodied head, worn bare of its snowy white faux fur. As Fact held the head in zir paws — staring into zir own unblinking, unseeing eyes — zhe knew that someday, like all zir organic friends, zhe would die. And this would be all that was left behind.
“Fascinating,” Fact said, leading to the various other Tri-Galactic Union officers, both feline and canine, in the starship Initiative’s engine room reacting in a variety of ways — scoffing, turning away unable to watch anymore, overcome by their messy organic emotions. Fact was overcome by emotion as well, but in a different, more orderly way. Zhe knew that sometimes zir understated way of expressing emotion made zir organic friends uncomfortable. But zhe didn’t know what else to say, faced for the first time with zir own mortality.
“Are you sure this is your own head?” chief engineer Lt. LeGuin asked. “It couldn’t be for a different android who simply looks like you? Or some sort of backup, extra head?”
The orange tabby cat wore techno-focal goggles with much higher visual precision than mere organic eyes and could certainly tell for himself that, yes, Fact was holding an absolutely completely identical copy of zir own head, merely aged by a few extra centuries, having somehow traveled back in time to the distant past where it was buried in a cave that had only recently been excavated as part of an archeological dig.
Until the moment that zir own non-operational head had been handed to zir, proving zhe would someday die, Fact had wondered if zhe might — unlike zir organic friends — live forever, outliving everyone zhe knew, over and over again, always forced to start over with new, short-lived organic friends. A daunting prospect — infinity. In comparison, proof of mortality was almost a relief, but Fact suspected most of zir highly mortal friends would not feel the same way.
“I’m sorry, Jordan,” Fact said gently to the orange tabby who was zir best friend. “But I’m sure you can see as well as I can that this head is a perfect match for my own, all the way down to the molecular and atomic level.”
“But–” Lt. LeGuin began, until Fact cut him off with a simple tilt of zir head. The orange tabby held out his paws in a placating gesture, giving up his arguments before making them. “Alright, yes, you’re right. I can see it too.”
“You just don’t want to,” Fact offered.
By this time, the other officers in the engine room had dispersed, returning to their various duties, keeping busy and pretending not to pay attention to their superior officers examining a disembodied android head. Though there was a definite sense of tension in the air.
“You’re right,” Lt. LeGuin agreed. “I don’t want to believe you’ll die, and I’m not ready to accept it. Hand me the, uh, well…” The orange tabby trailed off awkwardly, not quite sure how to refer to the artifact Fact was holding.
Fact’s narrow fox muzzle quirked into a beneficent smile. Zhe didn’t force zir friend to finish the sentence, instead handing over zir extra head without further words. “I assume you want to run more tests.”
“You’re damned right I do,” Lt. LeGuin agreed. The orange tabby gingerly took the aged, broken-down version of his friend’s head into his paws. He cradled it tenderly, knowing it was extremely valuable. It deserved all the care and respect that any living being’s remains would. Perhaps more, since Lt. LeGuin wasn’t convinced that this iteration of his friend’s head couldn’t be fixed. Possibly, eventually — with enough hard work and perhaps a bit of a miracle — perhaps it could be revived. Lt. LeGuin would never give up on Fact.
A large collie dog standing in the entrance to the engine room cleared his throat. He had a commander’s insignia at his collar, nearly covered by the long flowing mane that couldn’t be contained under his uniform. It was commander Bill Wilker, who usually had a cheerful sparkle in his eye. Right now, though, the collie looked troubled. “Lt. Fact,” Cmdr. Wilker said, “if you’ve finished verifying the identity of the…”
Like Lt. LeGuin earlier, Cmdr. Wilker faltered at the prospect of what to call the discomfitting artifact.
“…my head?” Fact offered helpfully.
Cmdr. Wilker cleared his throat again and then said, uncomfortably, “Erm, yes, exactly. If you’re finished here, then the captain has asked that I bring you to the Constellation Club to join us for a drink.”
Fact’s triangular ears flicked with surprise. “How unusual,” zhe said. Generally, if Captain Jacques wanted to speak with an officer, it was done in his briefing room, just off the bridge. Fact couldn’t help feeling that everyone was behaving terribly strangely ever since this extra instantiation of zir head had been brought aboard. Zhe didn’t mind the idea of facing mortality just like everyone else, but zhe was beginning to find zir crewmate’s strange behavior troubling in itself. “I will gladly accompany you.”
* * *
The collie and arctic fox walked together, side by side, through the ship’s corridors in silence. Cmdr. Wilker stood head and shoulders taller than the slight android, and usually, he filled silences with affable banter. In silence, his large presence felt like a weight pulling Fact down — should zhe try to begin the affable banter zirself? If zhe did, would Cmdr. Wilker cooperate? Fact wasn’t usually much for affable banter, so in the abstract, zhe should be fine with the commander’s silence. But the way it differed from his usual behavior… Quite troubling.
It felt to Fact as if zir crewmates wanted zir to be upset by the discovery of zir defunct, disembodied head. Like they were looking for a performance of grief that Fact simply didn’t feel and didn’t want to provide for the benefit of others.
It was a relief to both Cmdr. Wilker and Fact when they walked through the doors to the Constellation Club and found themselves surrounded by the cheerful chatter of off-duty animals enjoying themselves, kicking back, having drinks, and hanging out with friends beside the long, tall wall of windows showing the glittering expanse of stars outside. Most of the officers were uplifted cats and dogs, but the bartender was an uplifted rabbit and the captain — a pink-skinned Sphynx cat — was sitting at a table with a green-furred otteroid. Consul Eliana Tor was an exchange officer from Cetazed. Technically a plant, her green fur was photosynthetic, so unlike other officers, she wore a strappy sundress keeping as much of her grass-like fur uncovered as possible, and she had limited telepathic abilities.
Fact and Consul Tor didn’t know each other well, but each found the other to be a calming presence. Consul Tor’s telepathy couldn’t breach the mechanical nature of Fact’s protonic brain, making zir the only member of the crew who she didn’t have an advantage over by being able to read their feelings. And Fact found comfort in being around another crewmember who was strikingly, startlingly, meaningfully different from the rest of the crew. Another outsider, trying to figure out where they fit in a society that hadn’t been built for them.
While Cmdr. Wilker ordered himself a drink from Galen, the rabbit bartender, Fact went straight over to the captain’s table. Zhe sat down between the Sphynx cat and the green otteroid. The cat held a simple drink in his paws, and the otter was sipping from a complicated, curly straw sticking out of a frothy, foamy concoction with several different layers to it — more of a dessert than a mere drink.
“Captain, Consul,” Fact said, nodding zir head slightly in acknowledgment of each of them. “The commander said my presence was requested.”
The Sphynx cat captain’s muzzle twisted into a fond smile. Being a captain is hard. Any kind of leadership — done properly — is challenging, and Captain Pierre Jacques was a very good captain. So, there was a special place in his prickly, feline heart for the arctic fox android, because Fact was the most well-behaved, polite, effective, efficient, all-purposely useful member of the entire crew. Zhe was strong, intelligent, and while zhe had emotions, they seemed to be muted and entirely under zir control at all times. The perfect officer.
“Yes, Fact,” Captain Jacques practically purred. “I did ask to see you.” He gestured with a furless paw to the green otteroid across the table from him. “And I thought it would be helpful to have Consul Tor join us for this meeting.”
“I’ve had training in grief counseling,” Consul Tor said. “I’m not an expert, but I do have some knowledge and experience. You see, among my own people, the limited nature of my telepathy is considered a severe disability, and so my mother made sure I was subjected to years of counseling. Eventually, I took an interest in studying it myself.”
Fact tilted zir head inquisitively and asked, “Do you feel that you needed the grief counseling?”
Consul Tor’s smile spoke to the connection she and the android felt. “No, I do not. Is that how you feel now? Like the idea of counseling is being foisted on you when none is called for?”
Fact leaned zir head to the side, not quite in a nod of agreement but something like a skewed version of such a gesture. “It is hard to know that I do not need something without having tried it, but I do not think the feeling I’m experiencing right now is grief.”
Cmdr. Wilker pulled out the final chair at their small table and sat down, joining the others. As a fairly large dog, he was able to step right over the back of the chair, which had been designed to suit animals in a wide range of sizes. There was no drink in his paw, so he must have ordered something difficult that Galen would bring over when it was ready. He slid into the conversation-in-progress as naturally as he’d slid into the chair asking, “Then what are you experiencing, Fact?”
The collie’s genial tone was totally disarming, even to an android. So, Fact dug deep in zir mind and tried to give Cmdr. Wilker a real answer. But emotions can be hard to understand, even for androids. Fact’s protonic brain was designed to be complex enough to allow zir to interact with fully sentient, intelligent creatures at their level, and in order to copy that kind of intellect and awareness, a certain amount of similarity is required. So, like organic lifeforms, Fact also had levels of zir mind that weren’t fully consciously accessible, working away in the background like our subconscious.
“I think it would be best,” Fact began haltingly, “if I communicated my feelings through the use of parable.”
Captain Jacques and Cmdr. Wilker exchanged a glance, each of them — Sphynx cat and collie dog — looking delighted by this conversational turn.
“A parable, you say?” Captain Jacques purred leadingly, sounding intrigued.
“Yes,” Fact agreed. “Perhaps you’re familiar with the corpus of stories from ancient pre-uplift Earth history known as Greek mythology?”
The Sphynx cat captain waved a furless paw dismissively. “Of course.”
Cmdr. Wilker barked, “I know a little about them. Thor and Loki, right? The superheroes?”
“No,” Fact corrected. “Those figures come from Norse mythology.”
Unsurprisingly, Consul Tor demurred, saying, “I’m sorry, but I really don’t know anything about Earth’s history.” The green otteroid had only been with the starship Initiative for a few years, hardly enough time to have absorbed the full backlog of cultural references and touchstones shared by most of the members of the crew, almost all of whom were uplifted Earth animals.
“That is alright,” Fact said. “I will tell you the pertinent tale.”
Greek mythology is a tangled web of gods, demigods, and the mortals who alternately feared and worshipped them. But Fact drew out a single golden thread from that intricate tapestry — the story of Helios. A simple story. For whatever antics the rest of the gods got up to, Helios had a role to play that kept him busy, morning to night, every day, forever. For Helios drove the chariot of the sun across the sky.
As Fact described Helios’s role in Greek mythology, Galen came up to the table with Cmdr. Wilker’s drink. After placing the drink on the table in front of the collie, the rabbit stayed to listen to Fact’s story. Her long ears — which usually stood tall — flattened down behind her back, giving the brown-furred bunny a stricken look.
“Is there something wrong?” Consul Tor asked, when Fact concluded.
“I…” With a force of effort, Galen made her ears stand up tall again. Each ear bore a row of gold and silver hoops along its side, making them jingle as they moved, and instead of a uniform, she wore a flowing gown of deep purple silks. Unlike most of the animals onboard, Galen wasn’t actually an officer in the Tri-Galactic Union. She was a civilian bartender. Uplifted Earth rabbits rarely became officers in the extremely hierarchical and vaguely militaristic Tri-Galactic Union. They were, on the whole, far too peaceful and gentle a people to make it through the highly competitive ranks of the union academy. It wasn’t that they couldn’t compete; mostly, they didn’t want to. So, Galen was used to being the only Earth rabbit around. (Sure, there were some Morphican officers who looked a lot like Earth rabbits, but aside from superficial appearances, they were fundamentally alien and carefully controlled all of their emotions with computer implants.)
Galen wasn’t used to telling anyone the secrets of her people.
Galen cleared her throat and tried again, nose twitching furiously as she spoke: “The story of Helios is very important among my people. He’s our… patron saint, if you will? We have our own version of his story, an apocryphal addition to the ancient human stories.”
“Really?” Fact asked with great interest. Zhe loved learning new things. “The story of Helios is very important to me too. I would love to hear your apocryphal addition.”
Galen grabbed herself a chair from a nearby, empty table and pulled it over. “If you don’t mind?” the bunny asked, being perhaps overly polite. Patrons of the Constellation Club always considered it a great honor when Galen would join them — a rare and generally brief occurrence.
“By all means,” Captain Jacques purred. Even the ship’s captain was not immune to the honor being bestowed upon him.
Galen sat down and took a moment to collect her thoughts before beginning: “Some bunnies say this is a bedtime story the first uplifted rabbit mother, Sally Cottontail, told to her kits, and some bunnies believe it actually happened in the dim, distant past of pre-uplift. Either way, it’s been passed down from one generation to the next among rabbits for a very long time.”
The three officers at the table exchanged glances, unsure of what to expect. The cat captain and dog first officer were straightforwardly interested. The green otter could feel the fabric of Galen’s emotions as she began speaking — the great portent that sharing this story with outsiders to her religion held for her. For make no mistake, Galen was a believer. And knowing how much the story meant to the rabbit, Consul Tor almost felt like the rest of the world dropped away around them, because that’s how it felt to Galen.
Fact’s feelings were more complex. The android had such an extensive archival knowledge of Earth’s history stored in zir brain that zhe rarely encountered a story zhe hadn’t heard before. So, zhe was definitely interested. However, the arctic fox also felt a profound personal connection to the figure of Helios, and in a strange way, it felt almost painfully intimate to discover someone else who shared a sense of personal connection to such an obscure legend. Fact almost felt possessive, like zhe didn’t want to share zir favorite arcane deity with anyone else. Until now, it had felt like Helios existed just for zir.
“Long ago when rabbits first hopped upon the green hills of the lush Earth countryside, nibbling on tender grasses and colorful flowers, living a life of innocence–” Galen’s voice fell into a sing-song rhythm as she spoke words that had clearly been repeated hundreds of times before, becoming codified into a particular pattern almost like the lyrics of a song, and her ears fell back behind her again, jingling in pretty accompaniment to her words. “–the god of the underworld, Hades, looked up from his dark, barren caverns and saw their glory — long ears that pointed toward the heavens, puffy white tails like tiny clouds as if they always walked across the sky, and long feet that made them dance with every step, always skipping as they were always happy. And Hades grew jealous. So, he took the form of a snake and crawled through the cracks in his caverns, climbing toward the verdant hills where the rabbits lived…”
Galen paused, drawing a deep breath, as if this part of the story was always hard to tell.
“When Hades reached the hillside, his snake scales were as green as the grass, hiding him from the rabbits’ eyes. Hades wrapped himself around the rabbits, one by one, tying them in his coils as tightly as any rope, and then he dragged them — every last rabbit — down to the underworld, planning to keep them hidden in the darkness forever with only sharp-edged thistles and dry shriveled roots to eat.”
In spite of zir reservations, Fact found zirself completely drawn into the rabbit’s story. Zhe leaned forward and said, encouragingly, “This is quite compelling. How does it end?”
Galen smiled enigmatically. “That is the question, isn’t it?”
“That’s why I asked it,” Fact confirmed.
“I hope it ends happily,” Consul Tor said. The green otter was beginning to feel the strangest chill in her grass-like fur.
“I hope so too,” Galen said, mysteriously.
“Well, go on,” Cmdr. Wilker barked eagerly. “Tell us the end!” His energetic order could have sounded domineering from a different dog, but the collie’s wide grin was too jovial for him to come across as anything other than excited.
Captain Jacques cleared his throat, silencing the heckling, and after a moment, Galen continued.
“The rabbits prayed to every god they could think of, begging each in turn for a boon of help, promising eternal loyalty to any god who would return them to their rightful home under the sun. And in the end, it was the sun himself that answered — a bright, shining god, almost too brilliant to lay their eyes upon. Helios drove his golden chariot down from the sky into the underworld, plunging the whole world into darkness for a day, threatening eternal darkness if Hades didn’t allow him to rescue the rabbits. Faced with such a threat, Hades had no choice but to relent, and Helios took every last rabbit in his shining chariot back to the green hills where they belonged.”
Galen paused, but this time, none of her listeners dared speak. They waited, unsure of whether the story was truly over until the rabbit said, “And that’s why my people pray to Helios still.”
“That’s a beautiful story,” Consul Tor said, feeling perversely like she was making a wish — almost as if she could dissipate the intense sense of portent rolling off Galen in waves of emotion by diminishing this religious legend of her people to a mere, frivolous story.
“Yes, I’m glad you shared it with us,” Captain Pierre Jacques agreed lightly. But then the Sphynx cat turned his piercing attention back toward Fact and said, “Now why were you telling us about this minor deity? I believe you were trying to illustrate some sort of point?”
“Only that Helios lives on a different scale from the mortals on the world below,” Fact said. “He must drive his chariot across the sky over and over again, watching as mortals age, die, and leave him behind.” Fact’s voice grew low and quiet as zhe said, “It always seemed a lonely existence to me, and…” Zhe trailed off with a prim frown.
“You were afraid it might be the existence you’re doomed to live,” Consul Tog suggested thoughtfully, stirring the curly straw in her froth confection of a drink, causing the different layers of foam to mix in pretty ways. It looked like the swirling clouds of gas giant, made small and captured inside a glass.
“You’re not a god, Fact,” Cmdr. Wilker barked, looking like this conversation had gotten over his head, but he still wanted to be involved.
Captain Jacques’ ears flattened. “It seems to me like you’re describing the existence of Sisyphus more than Helios — doomed to carry a boulder over and over again to the top of a hill.” The Sphynx cat captain was widely read and had a particular interest in ancient Earth mythologies.
“Perhaps,” Fact said. “But Sisyphus was being punished by the gods, and my life is not a punishment. And at a more superficial level, I believe I related so strongly to Helios when I first heard the myth partly because his gold chariot in the sky — the sun — made me think of my own golden eyes.”
“Your eyes?” Consul Tor asked with a touch of light laughter in her voice. She loved how Fact could always surprise her. “I wouldn’t expect you to be taken in by such a shallow, surface-level connection.”
“To be fair,” Fact said with a tilt of zir vulpine head, “I was quite young when I first encountered the story.”
“How young?” Cmdr. Wilker asked.
“A few minutes,” Fact replied easily. “I was plugged into a computer database with a broad historical archive right away when I was turned on. I had very limited life experience at the time. In fact, one of the few things that had been said directly to me was that I had–” Fact made air quotes with zir paws around the following words, “–such striking, unusual, golden eyes. So, as you might expect, it was a very large part of my identity at the time. A few minutes later, I had a much better grounding in the nature of the world and would have known better than to get carried away with such superficialities.”
The rest of the animals at the table — Sphynx cat, collie dog, green otter, and tall-eared bunny — exchanged amused glances at the idea of their android friend’s version of a childhood.
“Well, I should really get back to the bar,” Galen said, gathering up the folds of her flowing, silken robes, and getting up from her seat. She gestured to the side of the room away from the tall windows, and when the others looked that way, they saw there were indeed several officers at the bar, trying to look patient and like they weren’t eagerly waiting for the rabbit bartender to return and fix fancy drinks for them. “I may not be an officer, but I still have a duty to perform — lightening the hearts and minds of the crew with drinks and stories, each sweet and sour in the right measure.”
As soon as Galen had left, Captain Jacques looked sharply at Fact with his gray-green eyes. The Sphyx cat’s eyes looked like they could pierce through solid metal if it crossed him. “Tri-Galactic Union command has given me the choice of whether we want to pursue the mystery of how your head ended up buried in a cave in Europe around the time animals were first uplifted or whether they should send a different ship with a different crew.”
“A crew that I’m not part of,” Fact said, picking out the pertinent detail.
“Exactly,” Captain Jacques agreed. “And I think it’s a good idea for them to send a different vessel. I think we should stay as far away from that cave and everything related to it as possible.”
Fact could tell from the strain in the captain’s feline voice and the slumped posture of the collie commander beside him that both of them were struggling with very strong emotions related to the idea of zir own mortality. Even though everyone else aboard the ship had always been mortal, zir friends were somehow especially bothered to discover Fact shared this simple trait with everyone else.
“If my head has already been found in the cave,” Fact said, maintaining a calm, even tone, “then given the strictures of temporal reality, there is likely nothing we can do to avoid whatever eventually led to it arriving there in the first place. And even if there were, Tri-Galactic Union regulations strictly forbid taking any actions that might lead to changes in the established timeline.”
“It?” Cmdr. Wilker barked. “It??? You’re talking about your head, Fact. You. Not it.”
Fact shrugged zir narrow vulpine shoulders. “Perhaps someday. Today though, I am right here, and I am not worried.”
“Perhaps you should be,” Cmdr. Wilker grumbled, sulking over his drink.
Consul Tor said, gently, “You may not be worried, Fact, but clearly, others are.” The room had begun to feel to her like it was sizzling with tension. The empathic otteroid was used to the frothy waves of emotion that the crew of the Initiative wallowed in, day in and day out, without seeming to be aware of how much emotional energy they emanated. But this felt different. It felt like the ionization in the air before a brutal thunderstorm, and Consul Tor wanted nothing more than to feel it dissipate without striking anyone down in a bolt of lightning.
“Very well,” Fact said, solemnly. “If you think it best, Captain, then I will eschew pursuing the mystery behind this discovery, leaving it in the paws of others.”
“I do,” Captain Jacques said grimly. “Do I have your word?”
“You have my word.” Curiosity was written into the fabric of Fact’s personality, but zhe also had a willpower of fortified steel. And furthermore, most mortals do not know how they will die, so preserving the mystery of zir future appealed to Fact.
“Excellent.” Captain Jacques’s whiskers — an oddity for a mostly hairless cat — turned up in a smile. “I’ll inform the admiral immediately–”
As the captain spoke, reality rippled like the surface of a pond, disturbed by sudden, heavy rainfall. The distortion lasted only for a moment, but when it ended, everything had changed. The tall, wide windows along one side of the Constellation Club shrank down to narrow, darkly-tinted viewports. Officers disappeared, and others appeared in their place, all in a flash so fast it could be missed with the blink of an eye. And all the uniforms changed — colors darkening, lines sharpening, and rank insignias growing more gaudily ornate, often accompanied by ostentatious medals ; even Consul Tor’s sundress changed to a darker color with thicker straps. The fancy drinks and delicious meals on all the tables vanished, simple glasses of water and ration bars taking their place.
Consul Tor looked at her own drink — now plain water — in confusion, but Cmdr. Wilker seemed just as happy with his water as he’d been with the drink Galen had mixed for him.
“–and now, I’ll return to the bridge,” Captain Jacques concluded, seemingly unaware that anything strange had happened while he’d been speaking.
“Excuse me, Captain,” Fact said, “but–”
Before the arctic fox android could say another word, zhe was interrupted by Cmdr. Wilker barking, “Are you speaking back to the captain?”
Fact blinked, surprised by the collie’s question. “That is how conversations work, isn’t it?”
“You are speaking to your commanding officer–” Cmdr. Wilker began, but Captain Jacques put out a paw, stopping him.
“I’m sure the lieutenant means no harm,” Captain Jacques purred. “We must understand that zhe’s handling very unusual circumstances today. Regardless, Lieutenant, you have your orders. I would hate to have to court martial such a good officer with a war on, but I’m sure you have your priorities straight and will keep your nose clean. Now I must return to the bridge. We have a war to win!”
Cmdr. Wilker grinned wolfishly. “That’s right! We have some scaly tails to kick!”
“Come with me, Commander,” Captain Jacques purred. “And Consul Tor, perhaps you can help Fact adjust to zir new sense of mortality. But I do expect to see you both back to work by tomorrow.”
The Sphynx cat and collie dog took their leave, and in their wake, Fact and Consul Tor found themselves staring, quizzically at each other. Neither was quite sure what to say; neither was sure what the other might know or not know.
Eventually, cautiously, Fact risked asking, “War?”
Consul Tor lifted a grass-green paw to her head. “I have the worst headache,” the otteroid said. “I can remember the war… months and months of fighting… years and years of conflict… but…”
“But you also remember something else?” Fact prompted, hopefully.
The green otteroid merely nodded.
“What happened?” Fact asked. “And do you think we’re the only ones who know about it? And if so, why would that be?”
“That’s a lot of questions,” Consul Tor objected.
“Perhaps we can break them down,” Fact suggested, “and handle them one at a time.”
“Time,” Consul Tor said, repeating the android’s final word, drawing it out and testing the feel of it in her muzzle. “That has to be the key.”
“An interesting theory,” Fact said. Both of them — android fox and alien otter — were keeping their voices low, instinctively afraid of anyone else overhearing their unusual conversation. “You are positing that we have somehow changed the timeline.”
“I suppose I am,” Consul Tor said, now pressing both paws against her head. She was beginning to understand at least part of the source of her headache — the feelings in the room had changed as thoroughly as the windows, uniforms, and everything else. Where there had been relaxation, fun, and enjoyment, now there was only fear and determination. She remembered living in a world where the Tri-Galactic Union was a force for discovery and exploration, and all the union officers were scientists and diplomats. But now, somehow superimposed on the other memories, she also remembered a Tri-Galactic Union that fought to defend this corner of the galaxy from invading Xophidians, a warlike race of snake aliens. She had joined the crew of Initiative as an exchange officer after the Tri-Galactic Union had freed Cetazed from Xophidian oppression. She’d watched her own mother die during a Xophidian attack…
“Oh, Fact,” Consul Tor said, “I don’t like this at all. Do you remember everything… twice… as well?”
“Yes,” Fact said softly. “The change happened just after I made my promise to the captain, didn’t it?”
Consul Tor nodded. “We have to fix it.”
“I do not like to break a promise,” Fact said, “but in this case, I believe I must.”
“We can’t ask anyone for help,” Consul Tor said bleakly.
“Are you sure?” Fact asked, pressing the point, because it would be so much easier to pursue this mystery with help. Zhe especially wanted to seek out help from Lt. LeGuin — the orange tabby engineer was zir best friend and would certainly be helpful.
Consul Tor shook her head emphatically. “I can sense the emotions here — this is a police state. Everyone is scared; no one can be trusted. We have to solve this alone.”
Reluctantly, Fact nodded in agreement. “For the moment, no one is paying attention to our whereabouts or activities, since you’re ostensibly providing me with grief counseling. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage.”
“Yes,” Consul Tor agreed, looking steadily at the arctic fox beside her. She didn’t dare look around the room nervously, even though she wanted to. It was too important that the two of them not draw attention to themselves. “We should begin by going to one of our quarters. We’ll need the privacy.”
Fact’s narrow muzzle twisted into a frown. “It would seem, according to my new memories, that I don’t have quarters in this timeline. They’ve been deemed an unnecessary extravagance, and I generally just stand in a corner of the engine room to recharge when required.”
Consul Tor’s small round ears skewed as much to the sides as they could. “That’s horrible, Fact. I’m so sorry. Though… for what it’s worth, I’m now remembering that most officers sleep in crowded barracks in this timeline.”
“Do you still have private quarters?”
Consul Tor nodded. “Fortunately, my aquatic nature required it. Follow me.”
* * *
Consul Tor’s quarters were smaller in this timeline, but they were, if anything, more aggressively decorated with soothingly peaceful and cozy touches. Shimmering paintings of Cetazed on the walls showed the planet’s two oceans — blue above and rich purple below — mixing at their seam as cheerful green-furred otteroid’s splashed and dove between the two densities of liquid. Creeping vines crawled from colorfully glazed pots up along trellises that crisscrossed over the room in arches, blossoming with tiny star-like flowers in pink and white that smelled of gentle perfume. Silken drapes adorned the sides of the one window that looked out on the stars, and plush pillows surrounded the round pool that filled the middle of the small room which was itself covered with lily pads and featured several large, golden fish swimming in slow circles. But best of all, full-spectrum lights of various hues twinkled in every corner, filling the room with deliciously layered flavors of light.
Consul Tor had created a tiny oasis of warmth and beauty in this warlike timeline, and as she looked at the room — which she had decorated — the otteroid found herself tucking away ideas for how to improve the decorations in her room in the normal timeline… assuming she and Fact were able to set things right and return there.
The green otter and white fox, displaced in time, each settled among the velvety pillows with a computer pad and began researching their situation. Fact was able to quickly ascertain that Lt. LeGuin had been similarly ordered to leave the mystery of Fact’s extra head alone. With a little more digging, zhe was also able to ascertain that the orange tabby was not following orders — he was continuing to study the derelict head and storing all his findings in a secret, firewalled, encrypted file. If Fact didn’t know the tabby so extremely well, zhe likely wouldn’t have been able to discover the hidden file.
Fact found it strangely calming in this surreally militaristic twisted version of zir own universe to know that zir knowledge of Lt. LeGuin still held up. Perhaps the Initiative was at war, and its architecture had changed… but the orange tabby holding its engines together with duct tape when necessary was still basically the same person. Someone Fact could rely on. Even if zhe did believe Consul Tor was correct and that they shouldn’t rope anyone else into their misbegotten situation…
Lt. LeGuin already had enough to worry about with breaking the captain’s orders. He didn’t need more on his plate. Regardless, the research the tabby engineer was doing already proved useful: electron microscope scans of the head had revealed traces of extremely rare alien microbes that traced back to a particular moon in the Xophidian home star system. The microscopic organisms lived on that moon and that moon alone. So, at some point, Fact’s derelict head had either been on that moon or come into close contact with something from that moon, carrying the microbes.
Furthermore, Fact only recognized these microbes and knew about their native habitat because zhe stored a nearly encyclopedic knowledge in zir massive mind, and in their original reality, the Xophidians had been members of the Tri-Galactic Union, meaning the snake aliens had shared databases worth of information about their home star system which had then been stored in union computers that Fact had combed through and memorized.
Fact carried memories of data the Xophidians had shared with the union in that reality that no one in the Tri-Galactic Union had access to in this timeline. Zhe was trying not to think about what that would mean for zir safety and freedom if anyone in this timeline found out about it. Zhe might know enough to turn the tides of a war… zhe certainly knew enough to turn the heads of war-minded admirals and get zirself thrown into endless interrogations, both to mine the information in zir brain and to badger zir incredulously about where the information had come from.
Given that the biggest change between this current universe and the one Fact and Consul Tor wanted to return home to involved the Xophidians, the arctic fox was inclined to believe this clue regarding one of their moons and a microbe — albeit a tenuous lead — was worth pursuing.
“We’ll need a shuttlecraft to get there,” Consul Tor pointed out after Fact told her about the moon.
“I am aware,” Fact said. “I believe we will have to steal one.”
The green otteroid’s brow contorted in surprise. “I wouldn’t have expected such a suggestion from you.”
Fact tilted zir head forward, triangular ears standing tall, and said, “The notoriously jovial and good-natured Cmdr. Wilker jumped all over me for speaking back to my captain, and the captain himself has already threatened to court martial me. I doubt that requesting the use of a shuttlecraft in order to infiltrate enemy territory for the purposes of disobeying his direct orders to drop this issue would go over well.”
“No, I suppose not,” Consul Tor agreed with the hint of a smile.
“So we are agreed?” Fact asked.
There was very little the green otter liked about what she’d seen of this current timeline, but if she had to be trapped in a war-torn, darkened-mirror version of her own universe, Consul Tor couldn’t think of a better officer than Fact to have at her side. The vulpine android was as intelligent and strong as any individual could be, but on top of that, zhe kept a cool head and even temper. That would be valuable to anyone, but to an empath who was already awash in the feelings of the Initiative’s crew at all times whether she wanted to be or not, it was more than invaluable. It was an anchor in a restless sea.
Consul Tor couldn’t stand the idea of staying in this timeline. Even if it meant stealing a shuttlecraft and flying straight into the territory of enemy snake aliens, they had to try.
“Yes,” she said. “We’ll steal a shuttlecraft.”
Continue on to Part 2…
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