Analog Science Fiction and Fact - June 2013

the local database had been synced with the
Commonwealth central library, the version of
her that had been restored from backup was
living with her family in one of the oldest celestial
cities, Eden-2. I compared her video ID
with that of Shay Antigo and found marked
differences. Mika’s face was more slender, her
features sharper than Shay’s, her eyes green
not gray . . . but people changed their features
all the time.
I wanted to hear what the surviving Mika
Brennan knew about her long-ago disappearance.
So I generated a ghost within my atrium
and, leaving my physical presence behind to
continue searching the historical records, I
passed through the station’s data gate.
There is no awareness during the journey
between data gates and none in the receiving
platform. It’s like stepping through a door,
from one world to another. In my next moment
of awareness I existed in a virtual reality
within Mika Brennan’s atrium, one that perfectly
reflected the hard reality around her.
Most people get nervous when a cop
comes to talk to them. Mika Brennan only
seemed perplexed. “Officer Zeke Choy?” she
asked, her head cocked to one side. “The request
said you had questions? About my
death?”
We were in a park in Eden-2. Not far away,
two young girls were climbing boldly through
a jungle tree. They shared Mika’s lean features,
her thick, dark hair, and the deep,
clove-brown color of her skin. “Mommy,
watch!” one of them shouted.
My ghost existed within Mika’s atrium. I
was written onto her reality, so that from her
perspective, I was as solid and real as the two
kids—but from the kids’ perspective I did not
exist. At best, I was a phantom that only
Mommy could see.
“I’m talking,” she called back to them.
“We’ll play in a minute.” Then she cocked an
eyebrow at me. “At least I hope you don’t
plan to detain me?”
“I’d like to hear the story of what happened
to you out there. It might have some bearing
on a current case.”
“I went out there more than once, you
know.”
That surprised me, but then I hadn’t bothered
to pull a complete dossier.
OUT IN THE DARK
JUNE 2013
She nodded. “I don’t remember what happened
that first time, of course. That branch
of my existence ended. I presume there was
an accident. After a couple of years with no
word from me, no word of my ship, my parents
sought permission to restore me from a
backup made before I left.” Her gaze followed
the progress of the girls as they clambered
around the jungle tree. “It shook me up,
knowing I’d died out there. But that other me,
she’d sent a lot of video journals to my parents.
I watched them, and I came to understand
that I’d loved it out there in the raw,
cold dark. We went places where no one had
ever been, where no one was ever meant to
be.” She grinned. “And anyway, she’d left me
with a lot of debt. So I went out again, and
twelve years ago, I got lucky. We found a rock
loaded with rare metals. Everything I owed to
anybody was paid off, with wealth to spare,
so I came home.” She nodded at the two kids.
“And started the next phase of my life.”
I asked her if she knew anything about indies
living in holdings out in the rocks, raising
families there. She snorted. “Fables. People
like to tell stories, but that’s all they are. I remember
one time, a couple, a man and a
woman, were marooned on a rock. They did
some excavating. Lived there a few months,
while their ship self-repaired. And then they
got the fuck out of there as soon as they
could.” She looked up at me, with an open,
honest gaze that I admired. “No one lives out
there. Not that I ever saw, or heard, and I was
out there more than twenty years.”
I asked her if she’d ever go out again, and
she laughed, bright-eyed and buoyant.
“Maybe. We have forever, don’t we? To do
anything we want?” She turned again to the
kids. “Not any time soon, though.”
“So you didn’t leave a husk out there?”
“No. You understand . . . the years in microgee,
the constant radiation. Even with ongoing
repairs, the integrity of the husk is
doubtful. If I ever go back, I’ll start fresh. I can
afford a new husk. So I had my old one dissolved
and the matter sold off. There’s nothing
of me out there anymore.”
Back at Sato Station, I started to pull Mika’s
DNA record from her latest scan, but I hesitated.
There were implications to what I might
find. Mika could be drawn into this case, even
63