Free The Explorer by James Smythe

disagrees with him. The wait time at that point was only a few minutes, because of how close we still were to home, but I remember that it felt like forever, having to deliver that news. ‘This is the crew of the Ishiguro ,’ Quinn says into the computer microphone, ‘and we’ve just come out of the pods, just checking in. Ship is stable, fuel reserves at 93%, which is in line with expectations. Captain Arlen Bester didn’t wake up after stasis, however; attempts to resuscitate him have been unsuccessful. Time of death was called at oh-seven-forty hours.’ He left out all of the details – about his blue skin, his chalky eyes – because there was no need to pass them on. We were warned, when we signed all of our disclaimers and NDAs, hundreds of pages of the things, that the beds could malfunction. It was one of the multitudinous ways that we could die, and DARPA couldn’t – wouldn’t – be held responsible. When Quinn’s finished, he suggests that we say something. We’re already standing around Arlen’s body as if it’s a proper funeral; all that’s missing are the clods of dirt to throw onto the coffin, the priest, the black suits. He turns to the other me, the original me, tells me that I should do it. ‘You’re good with words,’ he says. I remember my speech; I remember how it fell out of my mouth, like I was being sick in fits and bursts.
    As the other me talks about Arlen’s beard, about what a cool guy he was, tells stories about stuff that happened in training, I hang onto the wall and wonder once again if I’m completely insane, and if any of this is real at all. I notice my leg, where I hurt it – where I remember the blood, the bone sticking through, so painful – and realize that, even though it still hurts, the wound isn’t sensitive. I wind up my trouser leg, expecting blood, a scab, a gash, but it’s healed. Along the line of my knee is a scar, like a sideways grimace, but it’s healed. I ball my hand to a fist and hit it, trying to see if it flinches with pain, and it does, but it’s only dull, like an echo, a memory of how sharp the pain used to be. As I keep listening to the crew it hurts more and more, until it’s aching again, creasing along the line where it feels slightly healed, where the scar is; until the pain starts creeping up my whole body.
    I must have remembered it wrong. I must have. Despite how it looks, after a while it hurts so badly that I’m shaking slightly. The pain gets worse with each passing second. I have no idea how I’ll make it go away, and I shake and moan, because none of this makes any sense.
    The crew are running diagnostics, sweeping the ship for anything that might not have been spotted. At the time – and again, now, as I listen to it for the second time in my life, word for word the same – Guy told us it was to make sure that we were safe.
    ‘Think of this thing as a rubber boat,’ he says. ‘You go for hours along a river that’s calm; it’s great, nothing wrong. You hit some rapids all of a sudden, and it gets a puncture, something tiny, barely even visible; you might not realize. But, you know, you made it through the rapids safe, and you’re alive, so you relax. When you’re then in the huge river, or the sea, in this instance, it doesn’t matter how still it is, how calm and relaxing: if you don’t find that puncture, that could be the thing that kills you.’ We had to search for the puncture, in case it existed. ‘This is nothing to do with Arlen’s death: it’s standard protocol. There’s nothing to worry about, it’s just something we have to do. Back to work, you know? Better to be safe than sorry,’ Guy said. Each member of the crew was assigned a room; each member scoured that room to check its integrity. I put myself behind the boxes, in between them; they’re curved, like a U in the room, a perfect human-sized space for me, and there’s space under them where they’ve been strapped down, where I can hide,