Ocean of Stars: Where the Sun Sails [1]

XXVI

When Aspen came to, she found her head lying on a bag, her body on a thin cloth lain on stone, the cold seeping into her. There was a steady cascade of water to her right, and vines with fruit to her left. 

Closing her eye for a moment, she wondered how she'd gotten back to the water room. Her eye snapped open. Rosenthal's body was here. But when Aspen sat up, staring hard at the place where Rose's body was, there was nothing except a blood stain. The blood reminded her of her own, and she raised the bottom of her turtle-neck jersey-- The gash was wrapped up tightly in her white (and red) undershirt. It had been slashed into strips, washed, and wrapped securely around her waist. 

How...?

Then she remembered. 

"Walter?" Aspen called out timidly. Moments later, a stumbling synthetic entered the room. He smiled, and moved as quickly as his one working leg could handle, to reach her side. He collapsed heavily by her side, and Aspen at once saw the damage David had inflicted on Walter. His neck looked to have been severed, or slit, his chest contained a few rips and rents, exposing his inner workings and machine, but they were slowly-very slowly-fixing itself. 

"Walter?" Aspen repeated, reaching out to touch his face to make sure she wasn't hallucinating from loss of blood. It felt real. Real flesh, real hair. He was here. 

The synthetic pulled her into a hug. "I'm here. You needn't worry, Doctor."

Aspen sunk into the embrace, closing her eyes shut. 

She wasn't alone.

* * *

Tennessee was already dreaming, deep in the comforting, protective throes of hypersleep. Standing beside her open pod as she prepared to climb in, Daniels reflected on all that had happened.

She didn't blame Oram. He'd made what he believed to be the best decision for the colonists, based on the available evidence. That he had been wrong— monstrously wrong—was a consequence entirely out of his control. No one could have imagined, no one could have guessed, what had awaited them on the world of the Engineers.

Not Paradise, but Hell.

Well, they had escaped Hell. Not all of them, alas. Especially not Jacob. But she lived, and would live to fulfill his dream. She would build his log cabin, exactly according to his beloved blueprints, by the shore of an alien lake on a new world.

Walter stood nearby, watching, waiting, ever patient. Never one to waste time, he spoke up.

"Every moment you spend in full wakefulness here is a moment of life that will be lost to you on your new home. Better to dream in hypersleep than in real life." He gestured at the open pod. "You're next, Captain. You're last."

She nodded her understanding, turned and stepped into the pod. There was little room inside, but in hypersleep one only needed very little. Bracing her hands against the smooth sides she sat down, then stretched out, making sure the back of her head was correctly positioned against the molded support.

Once he was sure she was ready, he nodded down at her.

"When you wake up," he assured her, "we'll be at Origae-6." He turned contemplative. "What do you think it'll be like? I think... if we are kind to it, it will prove to be a kind world in return. A world that will provide everything that has been hoped for. Everything we might want."

She smiled. "I'd like to think that's true."

His expression was the same neutral one gifted by his creators. "Sleep well."

She raised a hand toward him. "Walter—thank you. For everything. Without you, we wouldn't have made it back alive."

At his touch on the external controls, the pod canopy closed. He hit the control to activate hypersleep. Her eyes were locked on his as the narcotic steam began to fill the pod.

"I know you will, Danny."

When the steam cleared, she was fast asleep. Outside the screen, a sea of stars whizzed by. All but the android was asleep.

He wondered if she would dream. If so, he wondered if he would be in it. That last moment, those last words—did she know? Had she retained, at the last, just enough cognizance to comprehend?

The thought that she might dream of him was pleasurable.

Carefully, he brushed at his hair, adjusting the one remaining memory of his twin. When he spoke, his voice was slightly different. The tiniest difference in tone, in accent. Both meaningful.

"Mother, please open a secure line with the Weyland-Yutani Corporation headquarters on Earth."

Indifferent, efficient, responsive, the ship's computer replied. "It will take some time to establish the link. I will have to refract the signal through numerous sub-relays and wait for advantageous stellar conditions to..."

He cut it off. "I'll leave the minutiae to you, dear. Let me know when you have the link available. Use security hailing code David 31822-B. And in the meantime, I'd like some music. Richard Wagner. Das Rheingold, act two. The entry of the gods into Valhalla."

Sweeping, bold music began playing, filling the crew's hypersleep chamber. With a bit of a spring in his step, he left the room.

There was no one to greet him when he entered the vast holding area that contained the hundreds of colonists in their hypersleep units, but he didn't mind. Everything was good now. Everything was in its proper place, he told himself, and all was right with the universe.

Just one thing to check on...

Pulling open one of the embryo containment drawers, he first checked the unformed human capsules to ensure all life indicators were normal. Satisfied that they were, he switched his attention to the three tiny eggs that had been recently ensconced nearby. They bore no relation to the embryos beside them. Nor, for that matter, to anything else on board the Covenant.

Reaching down, he touched each one gently with a fingertip. They pulsated slightly at the contact. Pleased, he carefully closed the drawer.

Turning, he walked out into the holding room, gazing contentedly down at row upon row of sleeping colonists. His colonists. His subjects. He smiled.

His future.

David was back.