Sequence Six: Fellow Travelers

Shaul Ortiz paused just inside his stateroom to take in a breath and savor this, the first moment of a new life. The air was recycled, of course, but first-class environmental engineering ensured that there was no trace of stuffiness in the pressurized cabin.

Ortiz and eleven hundred other passengers had journey of three years ahead of them. The latest colony project targeted a planet called Chelas -- newly named after an Indigenous American god and known before that simply as KOI-3284.01. An advance group had gotten the bare bones of a settlement up and running; now, it was time to open the floodgates and drain off some of the excess energy, superfluous work force, and sheer human restlessness that plagued any inhabited planet above a critical population threshold.

Ortiz himself had always been the restless sort, impatient and unwilling to settle for the reality of diminishing resources and thinning opportunities. When the most recent colony project was in its heyday, he'd been too young, too inexperienced, and too clueless; he had lacked connections and resources.

But even in a time and place of intense competition, Ortiz had prevailed. He'd carved out a niche for himself and, when even that self-made perch had begun to feel restricted, he'd leapt at the chance to take to the stars. The latest colony project had launched just in time; the walls, Ortiz thought to himself with a smile of giddy relief, had begun closing in.

The moments Ortiz lived for were those of arrival: The points at which he'd achieved a hard-sought goal or completed a journey. They were the very same moments that served as points of departure for something new, something even more audacious. This was his grandest departure yet...the sky, Ortiz mused, truly was the limit.

But the magic split second between arrival and striving renewed -- a timeless breathing space between ambitions -- was quick to fade, and Ortiz wanted to savor it. He stood very still for a count of hyper-conscious inhalations and releases. Old worries fell away. New energy seeped into him.

At last, he was ready.

Ortiz left his luggage to unpack later, and headed for the Stellar Lounge.

***

The ship was modern, and large. Other passengers gathered at standing tables, low tables, and the bar and kept watch on the countdown. The transition from normal space to hypercontinuum was said to be unforgettably spectacular, the display resulting from supercharged leptons sliding over each other until they reached a point of transition and quantum-fluxed into tachyons. By shaping the lepton field into a tube, and then remaining situated precisely within that tube, the ship would surf its way out of normal space and then spend three years hurtling outside ordinary four-dimensional space-time. In this way, ship and human cargo would traverse 473 light years in only 36 months and four days. When they arrived at Chelas, they'd still be in the nineteenth century -- 1877 PCC. Three years would have passed on Earth, as they had on the ship. Three years would also have passed on Chelas.

There were still 72 minutes before the ship's lepton star drive began cycling up. Ortiz sat back, his cocktail cold and inviting. He planned to sip slowly: The ship's atmospheric mix was slightly oxygen-poor, and he didn't want to get too drunk to stay in complete control.

He also didn't want to miss anything of interest, such as the handsome, dark-eyed man he suddenly realized was watching him. The man offered a shy half-smile; Ortiz smiled invitingly in return, and the man approached his standing table.

"May I join you?" he asked.

"Please," Ortiz said. "There's plenty of room."

Most of the other people in the Stellar Lounge had congregated to the sofas and the bar, where they could be seated. Ortiz liked to stay on his feet, where he would be the first to react to any opportunity... or, he thought, any risk. Though this young man looked far too sweet to pose a threat, one could never be too certain.

But that was paranoia, deeply ingrained from so many years of vigorous... and sometimes brutal... gamesmanship in the brutal world of commerce. Ortiz told himself he was going to have to learn to take things down a little, or else add an extra layer of self-monitoring. No one was going to threaten him on a starship, where all 1,100 of them were going to be confined in community with one another. Ortiz, too, needed to learn how to get along more smoothly than he ever had.

The young man set his own drink on the table and stuck out his hand. "Ramis Omoula," he introduced himself.

"Ramis." Ortiz took his hand. It was warm, very warm. Ortiz felt that this, too, could be a fresh beginning. He was in no hurry to let go.

Over the next seventy minutes, the two engaged in increasingly enthusiastic conversation, talking -- in generalities at first, then more intimately -- about their lives, interests, pursuits, and hobbies.

Absorbed in one another, the men almost missed the light show when the lepton drive thrummed to life and the sky around the ship began to pulsate with light of unearthly beauty.

***

Three years went by with a luxurious lack of hurry. And yet, Ramis reflected to himself, those years had also evaporated with astonishing speed. He was going to miss the languor of space travel.

As the colony ship drew closer to its destination and the hours to arrival ticked by, Ramis clung to the slowness and the out-of-time character of the journey. He settled back in his armchair -- the one that took up a little too much space in the stateroom he and Ortiz had shared for all but a couple of months of their shared time aboard the colony vessel.

In a way, the changes Ramis had observed in Ortiz over the last few weeks were unsurprising. Unhurried days were all very well, but interstellar travel was stressful by nature, and people responded in all sorts of unpredictable and striking ways. But in other respects, the changes that had come over Ortiz were so stark and so remarkable that even Ramis, to whom career and travels had lent a cosmopolitan outlook, had found them striking.

The first changes had been small, and Ramis had noticed them a couple of months back. Ortiz started getting out of bed earlier, and sleeping less; he used to talk about the vivid dreams he had each night, but now he claimed never to remember his dreams at all; he'd become fanatical about cinnamon, adding it to his coffee and even chewing on real cinnamon sticks he had brought aboard, but, until recently, neglected to extract from their vacuum pouches.

Ramis had taken note of those changes, of course, but it was the more drastic changes that followed that really grabbed his attention. Ortiz had always been driven, but now he was edgier, more restless, and even starting to get irritable. To be honest, in the early days of their relationship Ortiz had been so laid back as to seem Zen... if not downright detached. It used to bother Ramis a little, and this new impatience was almost invigorating by contrast.
When Ramos asked about it, Ortiz said that he'd feel calmer and more like his old self once he had a planetary surface under his feet and a wide-open sky over his head.

But Ramis doubted that was all there was to it; Ortiz had begun talking about people in a very different way than his used to, complaining for days on end about slights and oversights, making snide remarks about personal appearance, and seeming to take affront at the characteristics of others, such as impatience or thoughtlessness -- with no evident self-awareness of his own growing pushiness. Ortiz seemed more energetic, but he'd also grown far less thoughtful. Ramos thought his conduct was becoming downright rude.

But even those personality changes were overshadowed by what seemed to be changed to Ortiz's physical being. A few days earlier, nestled in bed with Ortiz, Ramis had noted that he didn't smell quite the same way he used to. And for the past month, Ortiz had been increasingly favoring his left hand for various tasks. When, two night ago at supper, Ortiz had plucked up a pair of chopsticks with his left hand and wielded them with perfectly natural dexterity, Ramis had finally known for a certainly what was happening.

Now it was time to confront his lover about it.

Ramis sat patiently, waiting for Ortiz to return from his afternoon workout at the health center -- another new habit, though one that Ramos had to admit was serving Ortiz well.

At one minute past five o'clock p.m., Ortiz -- newly fit, looking pumped up -- came strolling through the door.

"You're a little late," Ramis observed.

Ortiz took the sight of him in with a glance: Even in the armchair, Ramos seemed coiled and uptight.

"What, are you afraid I'm fooling around with the blond kid from Deck 12 again? Well, I'm not. Even though he was in the steam room and he looked like he could have been persuaded pretty easily."

"I don't care who you fool around with," Ramis said. "But I do think we ought to talk."

Ortiz, now in the other room, called back, "Oh yeah?" His voice had a nasty tone, one that Ramos was hearing more and more. Ortiz popped back through the door into the living room. "Is it time for the same old aria? The one about me growing cold and distant?"

"Sort of," Ramis replied.

"So?" Ortiz crossed to the bar. Liquor was outrageously expensive on board colony transports, but that hadn't kept their drinks cabinet from being well stocked the entire duration -- at Ortiz's expense.

"You want?" Ortiz held up a glass with a finger of scotch whiskey.

"Sure, thanks," Ramis said. One thing he could say about Ortiz: The guy wasn't stingy. He'd been less and less the man Ramos had gotten to know, but even when friction ran high between them he maintained an attitude of sharing alike.

Ortiz handed Ramis his drink and then threw himself into the other chair. That was another new thing -- the way his movements had become heavier, less graceful and more reliant on sheer power. Ortiz had once seemed almost like a dancer. Now he hurtled rather than danced.

"Okay," Ortiz said. "I know. I haven't been myself lately. But it's not because of you, Ramis. You know that old joke about the two lesbians who are breaking up? The one where she turns to her girlfriend and says, 'It ain't you, honey, it's me.' Well, it's kind of like that."

"You want to break up, then? When we get to Chelas, you want to go your way and I'll go mine?"

They'd never talked about their post-arrival life, whether it would be lived together or not, and as the day grew closer Ramis wondered if Ortiz was avoiding the subject.

Ortiz sighed, and for the first time in a long while there was a look of vulnerability about him. Ramis wondered if maybe he'd be able to have the honest conversation he longed for.

"You know, honestly... I'm surprised at myself to figure this out, but no. I don't want to break up with you. I know you've wanted to talk about this, but it's complicated. I'm not really who you think I am. And... to be completely honest... there is another man in the picture. But it's not like the kid from Deck 12. It's much more complicated than that."

"Oh, I know that," Ramis said.

"You do, do you?" Ortiz smiled, and that tinge of aggression that had been part and parcel of his humor for the past few weeks was missing. He almost looked sad -- or worried. "You probably think I'm up to my dick in some sticky sexual thing. Maybe with one of my new gym buddies. Right?"

"No," Ramis answered.

"But it's not like that... What do you mean, no?" Ortiz looked at Ramis with intense focus, as though seeing through his assumptions for the first time and only now registering Ramis himself.

"No, I know you're not having an affair. The occasional hookup, sure. But I've ever felt threatened by any of your playmates. I do feel threatened by this 'other man in the picture,' as you put it. Am I right in thinking that this other man is Irois Ambulake?"

Ortiz half laughed, a bark of disbelief. "Ambulake! The crime lord? The guy they executed a year and a half before we left the orbital port?"

"He's a pretty big fish," Ramis said calmly. "Big enough to find ways around things like the death penalty."

Ortiz smiled with genuine pleasure.

Ramis pressed on. "What was it, neuro-nits? Repurposed medical tech, the kind they use on Alzheimer's patients? The kind that gradually replace the brain's existing structures with new connections and even new synapses? Or even re-create the exact pattern of existing neural networks, over-writing a person's brain with the hard wiring of somebody else? It's a pretty expensive procedure, both in terms of time and money, but if you're emigrating to a new colony, why the hell not? What have you got but time while you transit? What use is money to a dead man, anyway?

Ortiz laughed with unfeigned delight. Or rather, Irois Ambulake laughed. Irois Ambulake version 2.0, a neural clone in a new body. "You figured it out? Or you knew all along?"

"Let's say I had a hunch from the start," Ramis said. "A strong enough hunch that I went ahead and booked myself a ticket to Chelas. More than a hunch, really... nothing I could prove, but to the trained eye, the financial trail between Ambulake and Ortiz was suggestive. And Ortiz fit the psyche profile for a blank."

"A blank? Is that what you call a mark who's willing to have his wetware overwritten with someone else's memories and personality?"

"That's the clinical word for it, yes. Curious, intelligent, but at the same time not given to possessiveness in any material sense. Ortiz didn't care about the money, did he? -- Except that it would help take care of his family. He did it for the experience of turning into someone else, starting a new life. Literally -- a new life as someone completely different. But becoming that someone else gradually... not an erasure, but a transformation."

"More like a discovery," Ambulake replied, his voice warm now, and excited. "Ortiz was successful, but he was a cipher. He lived to get from place to place, but he never enjoyed the journey. He was all curiosity, but he never enjoyed any lasting satisfaction. What he really wanted was to escape the life he built, and built so well that he'd lost all possibility for surprise. Well, here I am! And the really surprising thing is how much I like it."

"Like...?"

"Like the new me!" Ambulake cried, grinning. "When I think back to being Ortiz... what a thin existence. He was successful, but so, so cerebral, so calculating. All his smarts never gave him the slightest inkling of what it's like to be an animal with a belly, and with hunger. Even better than hunger is answering that hunger. All of life is delicious in a way he had no taste for. Sex, business, competition... survival! I'm going to enjoy this colony experience."

"But you know Ambulake was a killer and a psychopath," Ramis pointed out.

"Yes. But I... but Ortiz was willing to gamble that even if his higher brain functions were overwritten, the neuro-nits would stay within their operational parameters and not affect his lower brain structures. I have something the original Ambulake didn't have -- I have a conscience. I have inhibitions against causal violence and killing for convenience. I'm Ambulake as a decent human being... and I am Ortiz as a person capable of enjoyment... and fulfillment."

Ramis handled his glass of scotch thoughtfully, taking this in.

"So," Ambulake said. "Were you thinking of turning me in? Because last time I looked, a neural clone wasn't accountable for the crimes and misdemeanors of his template."

"No," Ramis said. "But extrajudicial neural overwrite is a felony offense. And even if the man who provided the brain pattern is dead, the man who accepted the black market medical tech and underwent the procedure is still culpable."

"That might worry me more if Chela had any extradition treaties," Ambulake said. "But what does worry me is what this means for us."

Ramis looked at him.

"I mean it," Ambulake said. "I know my manners are different..."

"You are different in every way," Ramis said.

"No," Ambulake said. "Not as much as you might think. There's still a lot of me there... a lot of me as I was... A lot of Ortiz. But I have other possibilities now I didn't have before. The world looks so different... feels so different... Even smells so different."

"Like you," Ramis said drily.

Ambulake laughed expansively. "Yes, I recall you saying that. Yes, I think you're right, there have been some interesting physiological changes. But the mental changes are less total than I expected. I feel that in many ways I have a choice right now, right at this moment. I'm standing at many crossroads, all at the same time, and have to figure them all out. Which will I turn left, and which will I turn right?" Ambulake paused, and that look of openness and vulnerability settled over him once again. "I know I never told you this outright, but during our time together..." He reached over for Ramis' hand.

Ramis nestled the glass securely in his lap. His hands free, he accepted Ambulake's grasp. "Me too," he said.

"So...?"

Ramis smiled in his turn. "Let me say this first. It strikes me as incredibly egotistical that Ambulake, long dead now back on Earth, would have wanted to project an identical copy of himself across so much time and so many light years. On the other hand, Ramis Omoula had a very unassuming way about him, and little ego. He was unhappy with his mild ways and bored even of himself. He had no real sense of purpose, no direction, no passion. He was only too glad to be overwritten."

Ambulake blinked at him, uncertain what he was saying.

"Whereas police inspector Jarvis Gustanec was driven to the point of obsession."

"Gustanec?" Ambulake's wide eyes took him in anew. "Is it you?"

"A version of me, yes. Or I should say, a version of him."

"You wanted to catch me again?"

"I wanted to be sure that you wouldn't escape justice," Gustanec said. "I wanted to be sure that the justice I delivered you to would be served. I worried you would find a way around your penalty, so I refused to leave the case alone. I violated department and governmental rules and launched dozens of trace programs into the Worldsys."

"You spied on me electronically?"

"I set up traps and alerts. And when your off world accounts registered sudden significant activity, I traced it to Mr. Ortiz. And I knew what you were going to do. And I beat you to it. My transformation was completed before I even boarded the colony ship. You would never have seen the telltale shift in habits and personal affect that I saw happen to you."

"So... Jarvis... do you take your justice now?"

The two men gazed at each other for long moments, their hands clasped, their smiles growing more luminous.

Gustanec broke the silence. "Given that Jarvis Gustanec and Ramis Omoula committed the exact same crimes that Shaul Ortiz and Irois Ambulake committed, there is no way I can bring you in for charges without subjecting myself to arrest and imprisonment also. Assuming Chelas ever signs an extradition treaty, that is. And like you, I find that my zeal for... let's call it supra-legal direct action... has rather waned. So maybe what we both need is a good long parole."

"With close supervision," Ambulake said.

"Yes," Gustanec agreed. "Yes, I think that's what's called for."

The two men started talking then with such shiny-eyed spirit that they almost didn't notice when the ship glided into port.