Shine Around Me (Like A Million Suns) 1/3
Title: Shine Around Me (Like A Million Suns)
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Sakurai Sho/Matsumoto Jun; Aiba Masaki
Summary: The interstellar ferry Shirase is en route to the Epsilon Eridani star system ten light-years from Earth, a journey that will take 500 years. The ship is carrying 7500 cryo-frozen souls to a new planet. This is the story of those who gave all of themselves to see their people home.
Notes/Warnings: !!! Character death !!! AU - space, but no little green men. This story is mostly a means for me to try to beat back a nasty bit of writer's block. So please forgive any abrupt changes in tone or residual weirdness - this was mostly just something I needed to get out of my system so I could get back to all the shit I am supposed to be writing.
Sounds of laughter, shades of life
Are ringing through my opened ears
Inciting and inviting me.
Limitless undying love, which
Shines around me like a million suns,
It calls me on and on across the universe
-The Beatles, Across The Universe
--
His lungs forgot how to be lungs.
Cold. His brain was trying to tell him this when the beeping started. He was so cold.
"This will hurt, I'm sorry," he heard, and he couldn't get his eyes to open. They'd forgotten what they were, too. It suddenly didn't matter that he couldn't see or that he was cold. That was nothing. Because he couldn't breathe. Beep beep beep. His ears were working, though. Beep beep beep.
"Don't yank it like that. Slow down."
"If we don't hurry, he'll go into cardiac arrest. It needs to come out now!"
It hurt. It hurt, and he gagged, gagged with no relief in sight. He could feel his muscles starting to remember, his brain weakly directing his arms up so his hands could claw at his throat. He could feel the walls of the tank under him, all around him. He vaguely seemed to remember lying down in this thing. They'd said it wouldn't hurt. Completely painless procedure, they'd said. Liars.
He felt something warm on his forehead, moving his hair aside. Someone's hand. "Almost," this one said. It was a third voice. Older, calmer. "Almost there."
He felt something come up and out of his throat, slithering and scraping along his tongue, and he gagged even more as it was taken out. He must have been asleep already when they'd put that in.
"He's disconnected," said the gentle voice, nearly drowned out by the beeping. "Up, up and onto the table."
There were hands on him, and he could hear the liquid sloshing around his body as they lifted him out of the tank. Right. He was naked. He seemed to remember having to strip down, the lack of privacy screens in the facility. Things had been pretty chaotic then. But he had problems bigger than being completely naked in front of strangers now. It was colder still outside of the tank, and his throat burned. It burned, and still he kept gasping for air.
Someone pulled one of his eyes open, putting in drops, repeating the gesture with his other eye. Whatever the liquid was, it burned. How many kinds of burning did he have to deal with now? He tried to scream, ended up wheezing.
"Sho-kun, we need to warm you up," came that voice. The voice who was being nice to him. "Aiba-chan, close it up."
Sho heard a hissing noise. The beeping was replaced with a new beeping sound, and Sho opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. The eye drops had helped his eyes remember. Out of one box and into another, he realized in horror as white walls seemed to close him in. Screaming was still beyond him when it shut. He couldn't hear their voices, couldn't hear anything. But his breathing came back. It still hurt, but it came back just as his vision had, as the ability to move his limbs had. He was warming up.
He had to endure this. Because they were here at last, though in Sho's estimations it had felt like five hours since he'd fallen asleep and not five hundred years. He hadn't done too much research on the post-freezing procedures. Everything in the literature had mostly spoken about what was awaiting them here in their new star system, the existing colonies waiting here for him and the others onboard. Their new world.
So several minutes later when the white walls vanished and he felt a blanket wrap around him, Sho finally felt a bit better. The initial trauma of being unfrozen had shocked his system, but now the machine had regulated his body temperature. His throat ached, his body was sore from lack of use, but he was here. This was what everyone else was probably dealing with now that they'd touched down.
He'd been asleep for so long without knowing it, but even now his eyelids felt heavy. This was probably normal too, he assured himself. Centuries in suspended animation wasn't the best thing for the human body, even the literature had said as much. He felt sharp little pricks of pain. Someone was trying to find a vein, poking at his hand so they could hook up an IV. He'd gone centuries without eating or drinking.
"Sho-kun."
He turned his head slowly, away from whichever member of the medical staff was sticking the needle in him to find a white-haired old man with a kindly face watching him. He had to be in his 80's, wrinkled and looking rather frail as he stood beside the table Sho'd been placed on.
As Sho felt whatever drugs they were start to kick in, he saw the old man's face fill with sorrow, his eyes flooding with tears.
"Sho-kun, I'm so sorry."
--
When Sho woke again, he could hear the steady thrumming of medical machines all around his bed. He still had the IV in his hand, and he sat up slowly. His fingers found his still sore throat, massaging the skin there.
He was in some sort of medical lab, a small one maybe the size of his living room at home. Though it was silly to think of home. The apartment he'd lived in was more than ten light-years away. He was in a bed now, so he'd slept right through them moving him from the cryo chamber where his tank had been. The lights in the room were dimmed, and the humming from his machines was a nice reminder that he was alive.
He really was alive. It was something the naysayers had been frightened of back on Earth. They turn you all into popsicles, they'd always been writing on the Net. Freeze you and ship you off, but can they promise that you'll wake up? It was enough to scare off some of Sho's co-workers, his uncle's family.
There'd been room on the massive fleet of ships for the entire Japanese population, but he knew that his ship, the Shirase, had launched with only three-fourths of the tanks full. They'd even staggered the launches in case people changed their minds later on and still wanted to go. The Shirase had been in the seventh wave - even now the first ships had been here in the new star system for more than a decade, laying the groundwork for ships like the Shirase and the others who'd launched afterwards.
He wondered what awaited him on the other side of the door.
Sho fumbled around with the blankets, finding a small call button beside the bed and pressing it. He was awake now. Not the frightened, nightmarish awakening he'd had as he'd been revived. He would never forget that for as long as he lived, but it was a small price to pay for a brand new life away from the decaying, sad end of Earth.
The door to the lab slid open with a whoosh, and the lights flickered on. It wasn't the old man from before. Instead it was a man who looked about Sho's age, late 20's or early 30's, with a mop of brown hair dressed in a plain white tunic and white pants. Sho almost laughed. He'd gone to the freezing in jeans and a t-shirt - maybe dressing in all white was the new normal.
The guy grabbed a small chair with wheels, and it squeaked across the linoleum as he pulled it up to Sho's bedside. It was only when the lights were fully on, and he was looking right at the guy that he realized he wasn't human.
"Whoa," Sho said, squirming around and nearly dislodging the needle from his hand.
There'd been one for every ship, the androids. They looked human in every way except for the glowing red light on the side of their neck (and of course their mechanical innards). They served as the pilot, guiding the ships full of frozen Japanese, frozen Americans, frozen Kenyans, everyone across the stars to their new home. Why was he coming to Sho personally?
"I'm Aiba," the android introduced himself. He yanked a clipboard from a slot on the wall, pulling a pen from his pocket. "And if you still have a sore throat, that's my fault and I'm sorry. Just a few simple questions to check on your brain, okay? Your name?"
Sho tried to adjust to the reality of an android speaking to him, but if this Aiba had come into the room wearing a turtleneck shirt Sho would have had no idea he wasn't human. Everything about his movements was fluid, normal. He tried to speak, found that he still had a voice. It seemed that the unfreezing process had left everything working okay, though he hadn't tried to pee yet.
"I'm Sakurai Sho," he said.
"Good," Aiba praised him. "Excellent. Your mother's first name?"
"Hiroko."
"Your date of birth?"
"The 25th of January, 2182."
"Perfect. And the date the Shirase launched?"
"The 14th of July, 2212."
"Which makes you?"
"Thirty years old." Or five hundred and thirty, Sho thought with a grin.
Aiba smiled, and Sho decided that androids had pretty nice smiles. "Well done, Sho-san. Names, dates, do I dare ask you some math problems? I've got some scratch paper."
Sho found himself chuckling despite himself. "I didn't expect a pop quiz upon arrival. So tell me, am I still on the ship? Are we down on the ground yet?"
Aiba's smile faltered slightly, and he slipped the clipboard back after writing some things down. The lab door slid open again, revealing the old man. Sho was confused, watching the old man toddle over. Aiba got out of the chair and let the other man sit in it.
"Vitals are normal," Aiba informed him. "I think it's safe to say that he made it through without any permanent brain damage."
The old man nodded. "Thank you, Aiba-chan. I'll handle it from here."
Aiba nodded and took off, leaving Sho alone with the old man. "Hello Sakurai-san, I am the Caretaker."
Sho thought the man had called him Sho-kun earlier when he'd first been woken, but maybe he'd just been imagining it. The man sat calmly with his gnarled hands folded in his lap. "The Caretaker of what?"
"Of this ship," the man said. "The Shirase."
So he was still on the ship. "Have I done something wrong? Am I not able to go down to the planet yet?"
The Caretaker looked pained. Sho didn't remember anyone called a "Caretaker" when he'd arrived for freezing. The Shirase was meant to hold ten thousand tanks and the android pilot, just like all the other ships. An uneasy feeling began to settle in Sho's stomach.
The IV in his hand was starting to itch as Sho waited for this Caretaker to speak.
"Sakurai-san, what I am about to tell you will be hard to handle. And I am truly sorry."
Sho clutched at his blanket, suddenly missing the sights and smells of his apartment, the sounds of the Tokyo trains. Everything he'd left behind. "Has the ship gone off course? Is the star system unsuitable for sustaining life? Has the terraforming failed?"
The Caretaker reached a hand out, twining his wrinkled old fingers with Sho's. "Sakurai-san, you are still on board the Shirase that left the Earth in 2212. But it is not 2712 and we are not in the Epsilon Eridani system." Sho felt like his heart was going to stop beating. "It is 2556, and you've been woken early."
"Woken early?" Sho managed to whisper. "What do you mean? How?"
"Your cryo-chamber experienced a malfunction, and we could not repair it," the Caretaker said slowly in his calm, gentle voice. "You would have died if we didn't revive you now. I am very sorry."
Sho slipped his hand away from the old man's.
No, it couldn't be 2556. Because they had promised he would wake in 2712 in a new star system. His tank on the Shirase had been beside his father's, near his mother's, his sister's, his brother's. Several of his co-workers and close friends were on this ship, a few dozen others scattered across the other ships that had launched in the seventh wave.
They were all supposed to arrive together, wake together. Start a brand new life together. He'd had everything perfectly planned out. How the hell could he simply not be there yet?
"No," Sho told the old man. "You must be wrong. I...I can't be awake now. I can't. My family is..."
"They are all still frozen. Aiba-chan examined and checked their tanks himself. They are safe."
"But you don't understand!" he said, found his voice rising right along with his blood pressure. "Can't you put me back? Can't you just re-freeze me?"
"I am sorry."
Sho yanked the blankets off, tore the tape off his hand and winced as he slid the IV out of his skin, seeing bright red blood, his own blood, proof he was alive. But he wasn't supposed to be alive now. Not with over a century and a half to go.
"Sakurai-san," the Caretaker said, trying to get to his feet despite his age. But Sho was beyond caring, pacing the floor of the lab in his bare feet as the machines screamed in panic. "We cannot re-freeze someone who has already endured the process. Your body cannot physically handle it, and you would surely die."
"Put me back!" he screamed. "If it's 2556, put me back!" He'd endure whatever tubes they had to shove down his throat, whatever they'd put in his eyes. He'd deal with the cold. "I can't be here! I need to be with them!"
"That's impossible. Believe me, I understand how you feel..."
"Who the hell are you?" he shouted. If it was 2556 and his family and friends woke in 2712, Sho would be long dead. "How the hell could you possibly understand what this feels like?"
The door slid open, and the android was back, holding up his hands in peace. "Caretaker-san, are you okay?"
"Is he okay?" Sho screeched at the damn robot. The robot who'd smiled and calmly asked him for his mother's name. "Put me back in the fucking tank!"
The Caretaker waved Aiba off, walking over to block Sho's way. "If we could, we would. And Sakurai-san, we cannot. How do I know how you feel? Because this happened to me, too."
Sho's anger and grief were consuming him. He didn't care about what had happened to this stupid old man. He didn't care about anything but what he'd just realized he'd lost. He'd left the Earth behind him, confident in everything they'd told him. But now he was awake, and he could never go home again.
He had to make sure they weren't lying, that this wasn't a cruel joke after all. He was in medical scrubs, similar to the way they'd dressed the robot up, so at least he wouldn't be taking a naked walk.
"Move," he told the old man, told Aiba, and they obediently stepped aside.
Sho's hand ached, and his body was still adjusting to moving around again as he walked right out of the lab and into the chilly corridor. He remembered entering the Shirase on freezing day. It was a simple ship, a ferry for the frozen just like all the others. A small command deck at the top of the ship, the freezer level with all the tanks beneath, and below that an engine room and an enormous cargo hold.
He made his way down the corridor, finding a door marked "Bridge" at the end of it. The door slid open without a problem. There was a third person in here, a man with dark hair sitting in a seat in front of some control console. But it didn't maintain Sho's attention for long. He held on to the doorway, nearly falling down in his horror. It was true. The old man hadn't lied.
The bridge of the Shirase wasn't large. Just a few seats and panels and only three walls. The fourth was nothing but slanted glass, offering an unobstructed view of the outside. When the Shirase launched, the view out of it was probably the polluted, gray Tokyo skies. Sho had expected to wake on a new planet in a new star system with the promised glow of the star Epsilon Eridani welcoming him.
Instead there were stars. Thousands of tiny little lights against an endless blanket of black. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, neverending stars. And it was also the worst thing he'd ever seen. He stumbled forward, holding on to one of the other seats on the bridge. He could feel tears in his eyes. Something Aiba could check off on his clipboard. Sho could still cry.
"No," he muttered. "It can't be."
He was still in the middle of space, the emptiness of space. His parents, his family, his friends. They were all frozen in the levels beneath his feet, and when they woke, they'd be able to walk on terraformed soil in a new star system, a new planet. They would wake in 2712 without him.
"2556," the person in the room confirmed for him. It was a man, similar in age to him and Aiba. Human, dressed in the same white clothes. He wore a sharp expression, and his eyes didn't radiate kindness like the old man's, didn't express good cheer like Aiba the android. This man was furious. "About four and a half light-years to go. Welcome."
Sho felt utterly hollow with the confirmation, and when he saw Aiba approach with a needle, probably some knock-out drugs, he didn't even protest.
--
When he woke again, he wasn't in that medical lab but a real bed. The walls were blank, empty, though not as empty as Sho now felt. He remembered the stars outside the ship, the affirmation that this was his life now. He got out of the bed, stretched his limbs. He was done with sleeping for a while.
If this was his reality, maybe he had to face it straight on. He'd been a reporter before he'd been frozen in that tank. Being angry or depressed wasn't going to change anything. But what he wanted at the very least was all the facts about this place.
There was a simple chest of drawers opposite the bed, the only other furniture save for a bedside table. Inside Sho found several plastic-wrapped sets of white clothes. Nothing but the basics for a five-hundred year journey. He tore off the wrapper and changed from the itchy scrubs and into the new clothes. They were a little softer, if a bit stiff from more than two hundred years in plastic wrap waiting to be opened. There were white slippers in the drawers as well, and when he looked at himself in the mirror he felt almost like a patient in a mental ward. Black hair shaggy and mussed, dark bags under his eyes, oddly-fitted white clothes, and red scratch marks on his neck from his own fingernails when they'd woken him. They'd bruise and purple to match his eyes soon enough.
The door slid open for him, and he found himself in the same corridor as earlier. The command deck ran about a third of the length of the ship. For a ship designed to only have an android pilot, there were plenty of spaces like the room Sho had just been inside. Maybe it was a contingency plan in case more people got screwed over like Sho and had their tanks fail. Maybe it really had happened before, and people had been forced to spend their entire lifetime living this way. The way Sho would have to now.
He made his way back to the bridge, this time more sullen than angry. The third man from before wasn't there, only the Caretaker and Aiba, who was in the pilot's seat. The Caretaker looked up from where he was stargazing, offering Sho a weak smile.
"Let's take a walk," the Caretaker said.
The old man got to his feet, bringing Sho away from the bridge and together they slowly made their way back down the corridor. For Sho's sake, he was kind enough to launch straight into an explanation.
"What we didn't know when this ship launched was that the android wasn't the only person meant to watch over it," the man explained. "If the people had known beforehand, they'd have been more hesitant in agreeing to go. You see, even androids have their failings, and if the android has a bug, well, then goodbye to everyone on board."
"Why not make more androids?" Sho asked.
The old man grinned. "I guess we weren't willing to put our fates entirely into their hands. It's programmed into the computer, and a human has been selected since the very first year of the launch to serve as the ship's Caretaker. Someone with decent leadership skills is revived, and we serve at Aiba's side for the rest of our lives. We monitor the tanks, keep the ship in working order, ensure that the Shirase stays on course."
So the Caretaker had been woken early too. Whoever he was, he'd been in Sho's position, waking up thinking he was at his destination only to discover that wasn't the way of it.
"I was resentful at first," the Caretaker admitted to Sho as they reached a lift at the end of the corridor. "Maybe for the first few years. I didn't want to be a leader here. I wanted to be with my family, my friends. But it's important, getting everyone home. It's a special duty."
The door closed and the Caretaker pressed a button for the freezer level.
"And I'm not alone. I was the eighth person woken for this purpose since the Shirase launched," the man explained. "Those people had to watch over the ship, sacrificing the years of their lives to be of service. How could I be selfish and refuse? If I didn't take charge and help Aiba-chan, then someone else would have to be unfrozen. I guess you could say it helped me to grow up."
They arrived at the freezer level, and Sho followed the man out. Where the command level had been nothing but fluorescent lights and stark, white walls, the freezer level was darker. It stretched out before them in long metallic aisles. Even from here Sho could see glowing lights and row after row of tanks. Of people, sleeping and waiting to reach their new home. Putting their faith in Aiba to get them there, and unknowingly, putting their faith in the Caretaker to watch over them.
"When did you wake up?"
They paused at the end of an aisle, the Caretaker leaning against the wall of tanks. "I was just about your age when we launched. And I'm 84 now. So me and Aiba-chan, I guess you can say we've been friends for almost 55 years."
"But he hasn't aged a day," Sho muttered.
The old man smiled. Even though Aiba wasn't human, he was clearly fond of him. "I do envy him that," the old man admitted. "But that's what helps in the long run, having Aiba-chan around. If it had been me by myself or me and anyone else, I would have put myself out the airlock by now."
Sho shuddered at the thought of it, and the old man took his hand and squeezed.
"I am truly sorry for what has happened, Sho-san. And believe me when I say that I understand what you have just lost. If we could put you back, believe me, we absolutely would. It's cruel and unfair that we can't. But there is a life here. Not the one you'd planned for, but there is food and some entertainment and good people." He grinned sadly. "Well, Aiba's been around humans long enough that he's more of one than you'd think."
They were interrupted then by the sound of someone else walking down the aisles of tanks, their footfalls heavy and with purpose.
"Caretaker-san," the person said coldly, coming around the corner. It was the third person, the one who'd looked at Sho with cruelty in his eyes. That much hadn't changed. "You shouldn't be down here. I can take care of this myself."
The Caretaker nodded. "I was just talking with Sho-san."
The man raised one of his eyebrows at the both of them. He had bright brown eyes, and they were nearly impossible to look away from. They sucked Sho in even as he was desperate to look away. Nobody had ever looked at him that way before, with such contempt. "He shouldn't be down here either."
Sho swallowed uncomfortably, wondering what he could have possibly done to make this man hate him so much. He shifted from foot to foot, itching to go back to the upper level of the ship, anywhere but near this man. But the Caretaker was still holding his hand, and he didn't dare wrench himself away from the old man's grip. Perhaps the only reason Sho was still alive was because of the Caretaker's intervention.
"Sho-san, I would like you to meet Matsumoto Jun. He is my replacement."
The future Caretaker of the Shirase then, the man who would spend the rest of his life at Aiba's side. And, Sho realized, the only other human Sho would ever know. "Then Matsumoto-san was..."
"Also revived," the old man said sadly. "How long has it been now, Jun-kun?"
Jun still looked cold, unfeeling. Sho could sense the man's hostility in the flare of his nostrils, the cruel twist to his lips. "Eight months, seventeen days," he said, making Sho flinch. "But who's counting?"
The Caretaker didn't seem to react to Jun's callous manner. Perhaps because he had been there himself fifty-five years ago, woken from his slumber and told he would be responsible for keeping the ship going. "Jun-kun is still in training. But I'm confident that he'll do well after I pass on."
"You should both return to the command deck," Jun said, his expression not softening in the least. Sho didn't like him. Not one bit, which of course boded well for the remaining years of his life. The Caretaker was in his 80's and the only other person on board was a robot.
"Very well, Jun-kun, we'll leave you to your work."
The old man urged Sho along to the lift, and as soon as they were inside, Sho let out a shuddering breath and the Caretaker laughed.
Sho leaned back against the wall, unable to shake the intensity of Jun's hatred for him. "He doesn't like me," Sho exhaled.
"He will in time. He is stuck with you for the rest of his life, after all."
Sho still wasn't fond of that idea. "What did I ever do to him? It's not my fault my tank broke."
"No," the Caretaker admitted, "it's not. Jun is a good kid. I could not have found a better person to take charge of the Shirase. From the beginning, he's accepted responsibility despite what he has lost. He cares about this ship and the people he has to protect. I wouldn't be surprised if he has every single tank down there memorized already. But he is a stubborn person. I think he had just resigned himself to his new reality so firmly that your arrival has upset him. But he'll come around, I have no doubt about that."
Sho shrugged. "You'd think he'd be glad to have someone else around. It's not like I'm any happier to be stuck here."
They headed for what would now be Sho's room. The Caretaker tugged open the top drawer of the bedside table, pulling out a small touchscreen device. "This is yours. I had Aiba-chan program it for you."
Sho took it, feeling the lightness of it between his fingers. "What is it?"
"Your diary, if you wish. It records video or just your voice, whatever you prefer. All of the previous Caretakers have used them as a way to speak to their families and loved ones. To leave a bit of themselves behind so that when the Shirase reaches its destination we won't be forgotten. So our sacrifices are not in vain."
Sho could feel tears forming in his eyes at the reminder of all he'd lost, at the sorrow his parents would feel upon waking without him. "I am not a Caretaker though," he whispered. "I'm just an accident."
"That's not true," the old man told him, and Sho really wanted to believe the sincerity in his eyes. The eyes that had seen nothing but this ship for so many years. "You're here now with us, and you don't have to be a mere passenger. Aiba-chan can train you to help out, make use of your time here."
"But isn't Jun the future Caretaker?" Maybe that's why Jun loathed him so much without even knowing him - maybe he thought Sho was a replacement.
The old man smiled at him. "It can't hurt to have a partner."
--
A few weeks passed far more quickly than Sho could have imagined. He thought being stuck on the Shirase, spending the rest of his life trapped here was the worst possible fate. It wasn't.
He didn't stop hurting, though. It would be impossible to completely forget his family, his friends. The Caretaker told him that feeling would never go away, that it was normal to be upset. He found himself crying himself to sleep more nights than not. He found it easy to slip into melancholy when he was alone in his room or down the hall in the shower stall, getting clean with water that had been recycled again and again for over 200 years. But he was alive, and now that Aiba was training him, he found a new sense of responsibility. He wasn't entirely useless here.
Sho had spent the months before the Shirase's launch preparing for his new life. He'd gone to training sessions to learn construction skills, agricultural skills. The basics of the basics when it came to human civilization. After all, the human race had to start from scratch on their new world. Those skills, however, didn't come in so handy on board the ship.
He'd spent the first week learning the set-up of the bridge, discovering what all the different lights and gauges on the control panels meant. The Shirase was mostly on a set course, plotted out using the most basic of star charts they'd had when she launched. It was Aiba's job to mostly keep the ship on the same path, but with minor adjustments as needed to avoid asteroid fields or the pull of a gravitational field from anything else nearby. It was definitely a lot more difficult than driving a car on Earth had ever been. It required constant monitoring and some really sharp math skills to calculate any of the ship's moves, and Jun usually took a shift of a few hours each day with Aiba, who didn't need sleep, taking the rest.
The engines and computer systems also needed attention. It would be months before Sho had everything memorized, but The Caretaker told him that's what Aiba was for. His android brain was a computer, after all. With Aiba mostly on the bridge managing the ship itself, it was The Caretaker's job to monitor the passengers.
Sho was happy that his training had not progressed to that point yet, allowing him to mostly avoid Matsumoto Jun. Aiba's programming had given him enough common sense to realize that Jun wasn't all too fond of the newest recruit, and whenever it was Jun's shift on the bridge, Aiba seemed to conveniently find something for Sho to learn somewhere else on the ship.
Aiba was the one constant Sho had found in this new life. He was kind and gentle and did his best to cheer Sho up. Aiba had seen Caretakers come and go, and he seemed to understand how difficult things were for them. If Sho wanted to sulk his way through a meal, missing the taste of his mother's cooking, Aiba would sit there patiently and listen to him reminisce. If Sho wanted to spend hours sitting alone in the freezer level in front of his family's tanks, Aiba would sit with him and say nothing at all. If Sho was really stuck here for the rest of his days, he was happy that Aiba would be with him.
He and Aiba were in the cargo hold that day for mandatory exercise - mandatory for Sho mostly. Living on a spaceship could easily get tedious, so the cargo hold had been repurposed by one of the earlier Caretakers. There was now a running track that weaved among the thousands of sealed up trunks and bins containing supplies and the passengers' belongings. Sho had only just started to think of everyone on board as passengers - and himself as something different entirely.
He was sweating like crazy, jogging along the track with Aiba, who looked in pristine condition. Of course, he always did. Sometimes Sho wished Aiba's inventor had programmed him to suffer just a little bit in situations like these. "Alright," Sho said as they made it around to the port-side stretch, "today you said you'd tell me about Becky-san."
"Becky-san," Aiba parroted back with a smile, and if Sho didn't know any better, he'd swear that Aiba was doing some android form of blushing.
Aiba had been aboard and had looked exactly the same since 2212. Ageless, he'd watched all of the Caretakers grow old and eventually pass away. He'd been talking to Sho about Caretaker after Caretaker, relating all the stories he had from the very first (the scary Sakamoto-san) to one of the more recent (the gentle Joshima-san). There was the current Caretaker and the one between him and Joshima-san left to be discussed.
There'd been two female Caretakers, Aiba had explained, but he didn't seem to speak as animatedly about Julie-san as he did about Becky-san. "She was just...well, she hated me from the moment Joshima-san and I unfroze her."
Sho chuckled. "Think about it from her side," he said as their shoes slapped the floor (they'd opened Sho's trunk to get some real sneakers to run in). "A young woman in the prime of her life who wakes up and has to spend the rest of her days with an old man and a robot. That's kind of depressing."
Aiba smiled, and the red light on his neck seemed to be throbbing with his memories. "Oh it got even worse when poor Joshima-san passed away. I thought Becky was going to put me out the airlock. She threatened to almost every day! 'Aiba-kun!' she'd always say to me, 'don't tell such lame jokes.' Or 'Aiba-kun, I'm getting wrinkles! Don't you dare look!'"
"And that changed I hope? If you had to be together for so long?"
"It changed," Aiba said, his voice trailing off.
Sho had learned that Aiba's programming allowed for some feelings. Feelings that seemed to be as real as anything Sho could feel. It was why Aiba smiled all the time, why he seemed so happy to think back to all the previous Caretakers and share their lives with him. He even grew upset when mentioning the deaths of some of them, since they were his only companions for so many years. Aiba did everything but cry, which he apparently was not programmed to do.
"Well?" Sho asked, prodding Aiba with his elbow. "How did it change?"
Aiba started to run faster, leaving Sho behind.
"Oi!" Sho called after him. "Cheating robot, you can't do that!" He hurried, trying to catch Aiba, who could dart around the track without ever tiring. He'd been designed with a long, lean body that would have been great for sports. Sho had played soccer back on Earth. He wondered if he could teach the sport to Aiba...
"She told me not to tell anyone!" Aiba was shouting, his voice echoing off the cargo hold walls. "I promised!"
Sho struggled to catch up, wheezing. Had Aiba...and the lady Caretaker? Had they...could they have... "You can't just lead me on! Come on, she's not here, tell me!"
They turned the corner and came to a screeching halt when they found Jun, arms crossed and waiting for them. It seemed that Sho wouldn't get the full story out of Aiba today.
"The Caretaker needs you," Jun said to Aiba. "I didn't think robots could lose track of time."
Sho was out of breath from running, trying to avoid Jun's glare. "My fault, I made...I made him keep going."
"Good," Jun snapped back. "Because we really need the ship's pilot taking orders from you."
Aiba smiled, patting Jun on the arm to try and mollify him. "Now now, Jun-chan, it's okay. No harm done. Sorry to make you come all the way down here. I apologize for neglecting my duties."
And since there was really no excuse Aiba could make to bring Sho along, he headed off for the lift, leaving Sho alone with the person who hated him most in the universe right now. After this many weeks dealing with Jun's attitude, the feeling was fairly mutual.
He was still exhausted from stopping his run so abruptly, moving over to sit down on one of the supply bins. This one probably held the makings of a future rice field. Sho hadn't been alone with Jun before. Jun always seemed to come up with some excuse to leave the room, and Sho was sick of it. There'd come a time when the Caretaker passed away and it would just be the two of them with Aiba. Sho couldn't spend the rest of his life avoiding the guy.
"I have things to do on the freezer level," Jun said, turning on his heel to go.
"Matsumoto-san, wait."
Jun paused. "There's no need for you to help. I have it covered."
"Can you just..." Sho lifted his shirt, trying to mop the sweat from his face. When he looked back, Jun was looking elsewhere, annoyed. "Do you have to be such a dick to me? All the time? What did I ever do to you? Seriously. It's not like I wanted to wake up."
Jun narrowed his eyes at him. "I have things to do on the freezer level," he repeated. "I am the future Caretaker of this ship. I'm just trying to do my job."
"Well," Sho mumbled, trying to come up with something to say. "Well, you're doing a pretty shitty job. Until a month ago, I was frozen too. But I'm technically still a passenger on this ship. I'm just a little more animated now. So if it's your job to watch out for the people on this ship, maybe you should watch out for me, too."
Jun walked up to where Sho was sitting, looking down at him with anger burning in his eyes. "Why did it have to be you?" Jun accused him. "That's what gets me. Sakurai-san, I don't know a thing about you. And I don't care to. But if you want to know why I'm a dick to you, it's because you're here. I get to spend the rest of my life looking at your face. When it was just me and the Caretaker and Aiba, I could live with it. I understood my place and my responsibility. I didn't like it, but I understood it. But now you're here and I can't. Why did it have to be you?"
Sho pushed himself up off the bin, furious. Why did it have to be you, Jun had said, as if Sho was nothing. Nobody. As if Sho would have been better off dead.
"What, you think I'm trying to take your job? You think the Caretaker is training me because you're not good enough? That he can't trust you to do it by yourself when he's gone? That maybe the computer picked you by accident?"
Jun laughed, bitterly and hard. "No. No, that's not what I think at all."
Sho thought Jun was going to punch him or drag him to an airlock and rid himself of his troubles once and for all. But instead he just laughed, and Sho thought he saw tears in the man's eyes as he walked off to the lift.
part two
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Sakurai Sho/Matsumoto Jun; Aiba Masaki
Summary: The interstellar ferry Shirase is en route to the Epsilon Eridani star system ten light-years from Earth, a journey that will take 500 years. The ship is carrying 7500 cryo-frozen souls to a new planet. This is the story of those who gave all of themselves to see their people home.
Notes/Warnings: !!! Character death !!! AU - space, but no little green men. This story is mostly a means for me to try to beat back a nasty bit of writer's block. So please forgive any abrupt changes in tone or residual weirdness - this was mostly just something I needed to get out of my system so I could get back to all the shit I am supposed to be writing.
Sounds of laughter, shades of life
Are ringing through my opened ears
Inciting and inviting me.
Limitless undying love, which
Shines around me like a million suns,
It calls me on and on across the universe
-The Beatles, Across The Universe
--
His lungs forgot how to be lungs.
Cold. His brain was trying to tell him this when the beeping started. He was so cold.
"This will hurt, I'm sorry," he heard, and he couldn't get his eyes to open. They'd forgotten what they were, too. It suddenly didn't matter that he couldn't see or that he was cold. That was nothing. Because he couldn't breathe. Beep beep beep. His ears were working, though. Beep beep beep.
"Don't yank it like that. Slow down."
"If we don't hurry, he'll go into cardiac arrest. It needs to come out now!"
It hurt. It hurt, and he gagged, gagged with no relief in sight. He could feel his muscles starting to remember, his brain weakly directing his arms up so his hands could claw at his throat. He could feel the walls of the tank under him, all around him. He vaguely seemed to remember lying down in this thing. They'd said it wouldn't hurt. Completely painless procedure, they'd said. Liars.
He felt something warm on his forehead, moving his hair aside. Someone's hand. "Almost," this one said. It was a third voice. Older, calmer. "Almost there."
He felt something come up and out of his throat, slithering and scraping along his tongue, and he gagged even more as it was taken out. He must have been asleep already when they'd put that in.
"He's disconnected," said the gentle voice, nearly drowned out by the beeping. "Up, up and onto the table."
There were hands on him, and he could hear the liquid sloshing around his body as they lifted him out of the tank. Right. He was naked. He seemed to remember having to strip down, the lack of privacy screens in the facility. Things had been pretty chaotic then. But he had problems bigger than being completely naked in front of strangers now. It was colder still outside of the tank, and his throat burned. It burned, and still he kept gasping for air.
Someone pulled one of his eyes open, putting in drops, repeating the gesture with his other eye. Whatever the liquid was, it burned. How many kinds of burning did he have to deal with now? He tried to scream, ended up wheezing.
"Sho-kun, we need to warm you up," came that voice. The voice who was being nice to him. "Aiba-chan, close it up."
Sho heard a hissing noise. The beeping was replaced with a new beeping sound, and Sho opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. The eye drops had helped his eyes remember. Out of one box and into another, he realized in horror as white walls seemed to close him in. Screaming was still beyond him when it shut. He couldn't hear their voices, couldn't hear anything. But his breathing came back. It still hurt, but it came back just as his vision had, as the ability to move his limbs had. He was warming up.
He had to endure this. Because they were here at last, though in Sho's estimations it had felt like five hours since he'd fallen asleep and not five hundred years. He hadn't done too much research on the post-freezing procedures. Everything in the literature had mostly spoken about what was awaiting them here in their new star system, the existing colonies waiting here for him and the others onboard. Their new world.
So several minutes later when the white walls vanished and he felt a blanket wrap around him, Sho finally felt a bit better. The initial trauma of being unfrozen had shocked his system, but now the machine had regulated his body temperature. His throat ached, his body was sore from lack of use, but he was here. This was what everyone else was probably dealing with now that they'd touched down.
He'd been asleep for so long without knowing it, but even now his eyelids felt heavy. This was probably normal too, he assured himself. Centuries in suspended animation wasn't the best thing for the human body, even the literature had said as much. He felt sharp little pricks of pain. Someone was trying to find a vein, poking at his hand so they could hook up an IV. He'd gone centuries without eating or drinking.
"Sho-kun."
He turned his head slowly, away from whichever member of the medical staff was sticking the needle in him to find a white-haired old man with a kindly face watching him. He had to be in his 80's, wrinkled and looking rather frail as he stood beside the table Sho'd been placed on.
As Sho felt whatever drugs they were start to kick in, he saw the old man's face fill with sorrow, his eyes flooding with tears.
"Sho-kun, I'm so sorry."
--
When Sho woke again, he could hear the steady thrumming of medical machines all around his bed. He still had the IV in his hand, and he sat up slowly. His fingers found his still sore throat, massaging the skin there.
He was in some sort of medical lab, a small one maybe the size of his living room at home. Though it was silly to think of home. The apartment he'd lived in was more than ten light-years away. He was in a bed now, so he'd slept right through them moving him from the cryo chamber where his tank had been. The lights in the room were dimmed, and the humming from his machines was a nice reminder that he was alive.
He really was alive. It was something the naysayers had been frightened of back on Earth. They turn you all into popsicles, they'd always been writing on the Net. Freeze you and ship you off, but can they promise that you'll wake up? It was enough to scare off some of Sho's co-workers, his uncle's family.
There'd been room on the massive fleet of ships for the entire Japanese population, but he knew that his ship, the Shirase, had launched with only three-fourths of the tanks full. They'd even staggered the launches in case people changed their minds later on and still wanted to go. The Shirase had been in the seventh wave - even now the first ships had been here in the new star system for more than a decade, laying the groundwork for ships like the Shirase and the others who'd launched afterwards.
He wondered what awaited him on the other side of the door.
Sho fumbled around with the blankets, finding a small call button beside the bed and pressing it. He was awake now. Not the frightened, nightmarish awakening he'd had as he'd been revived. He would never forget that for as long as he lived, but it was a small price to pay for a brand new life away from the decaying, sad end of Earth.
The door to the lab slid open with a whoosh, and the lights flickered on. It wasn't the old man from before. Instead it was a man who looked about Sho's age, late 20's or early 30's, with a mop of brown hair dressed in a plain white tunic and white pants. Sho almost laughed. He'd gone to the freezing in jeans and a t-shirt - maybe dressing in all white was the new normal.
The guy grabbed a small chair with wheels, and it squeaked across the linoleum as he pulled it up to Sho's bedside. It was only when the lights were fully on, and he was looking right at the guy that he realized he wasn't human.
"Whoa," Sho said, squirming around and nearly dislodging the needle from his hand.
There'd been one for every ship, the androids. They looked human in every way except for the glowing red light on the side of their neck (and of course their mechanical innards). They served as the pilot, guiding the ships full of frozen Japanese, frozen Americans, frozen Kenyans, everyone across the stars to their new home. Why was he coming to Sho personally?
"I'm Aiba," the android introduced himself. He yanked a clipboard from a slot on the wall, pulling a pen from his pocket. "And if you still have a sore throat, that's my fault and I'm sorry. Just a few simple questions to check on your brain, okay? Your name?"
Sho tried to adjust to the reality of an android speaking to him, but if this Aiba had come into the room wearing a turtleneck shirt Sho would have had no idea he wasn't human. Everything about his movements was fluid, normal. He tried to speak, found that he still had a voice. It seemed that the unfreezing process had left everything working okay, though he hadn't tried to pee yet.
"I'm Sakurai Sho," he said.
"Good," Aiba praised him. "Excellent. Your mother's first name?"
"Hiroko."
"Your date of birth?"
"The 25th of January, 2182."
"Perfect. And the date the Shirase launched?"
"The 14th of July, 2212."
"Which makes you?"
"Thirty years old." Or five hundred and thirty, Sho thought with a grin.
Aiba smiled, and Sho decided that androids had pretty nice smiles. "Well done, Sho-san. Names, dates, do I dare ask you some math problems? I've got some scratch paper."
Sho found himself chuckling despite himself. "I didn't expect a pop quiz upon arrival. So tell me, am I still on the ship? Are we down on the ground yet?"
Aiba's smile faltered slightly, and he slipped the clipboard back after writing some things down. The lab door slid open again, revealing the old man. Sho was confused, watching the old man toddle over. Aiba got out of the chair and let the other man sit in it.
"Vitals are normal," Aiba informed him. "I think it's safe to say that he made it through without any permanent brain damage."
The old man nodded. "Thank you, Aiba-chan. I'll handle it from here."
Aiba nodded and took off, leaving Sho alone with the old man. "Hello Sakurai-san, I am the Caretaker."
Sho thought the man had called him Sho-kun earlier when he'd first been woken, but maybe he'd just been imagining it. The man sat calmly with his gnarled hands folded in his lap. "The Caretaker of what?"
"Of this ship," the man said. "The Shirase."
So he was still on the ship. "Have I done something wrong? Am I not able to go down to the planet yet?"
The Caretaker looked pained. Sho didn't remember anyone called a "Caretaker" when he'd arrived for freezing. The Shirase was meant to hold ten thousand tanks and the android pilot, just like all the other ships. An uneasy feeling began to settle in Sho's stomach.
The IV in his hand was starting to itch as Sho waited for this Caretaker to speak.
"Sakurai-san, what I am about to tell you will be hard to handle. And I am truly sorry."
Sho clutched at his blanket, suddenly missing the sights and smells of his apartment, the sounds of the Tokyo trains. Everything he'd left behind. "Has the ship gone off course? Is the star system unsuitable for sustaining life? Has the terraforming failed?"
The Caretaker reached a hand out, twining his wrinkled old fingers with Sho's. "Sakurai-san, you are still on board the Shirase that left the Earth in 2212. But it is not 2712 and we are not in the Epsilon Eridani system." Sho felt like his heart was going to stop beating. "It is 2556, and you've been woken early."
"Woken early?" Sho managed to whisper. "What do you mean? How?"
"Your cryo-chamber experienced a malfunction, and we could not repair it," the Caretaker said slowly in his calm, gentle voice. "You would have died if we didn't revive you now. I am very sorry."
Sho slipped his hand away from the old man's.
No, it couldn't be 2556. Because they had promised he would wake in 2712 in a new star system. His tank on the Shirase had been beside his father's, near his mother's, his sister's, his brother's. Several of his co-workers and close friends were on this ship, a few dozen others scattered across the other ships that had launched in the seventh wave.
They were all supposed to arrive together, wake together. Start a brand new life together. He'd had everything perfectly planned out. How the hell could he simply not be there yet?
"No," Sho told the old man. "You must be wrong. I...I can't be awake now. I can't. My family is..."
"They are all still frozen. Aiba-chan examined and checked their tanks himself. They are safe."
"But you don't understand!" he said, found his voice rising right along with his blood pressure. "Can't you put me back? Can't you just re-freeze me?"
"I am sorry."
Sho yanked the blankets off, tore the tape off his hand and winced as he slid the IV out of his skin, seeing bright red blood, his own blood, proof he was alive. But he wasn't supposed to be alive now. Not with over a century and a half to go.
"Sakurai-san," the Caretaker said, trying to get to his feet despite his age. But Sho was beyond caring, pacing the floor of the lab in his bare feet as the machines screamed in panic. "We cannot re-freeze someone who has already endured the process. Your body cannot physically handle it, and you would surely die."
"Put me back!" he screamed. "If it's 2556, put me back!" He'd endure whatever tubes they had to shove down his throat, whatever they'd put in his eyes. He'd deal with the cold. "I can't be here! I need to be with them!"
"That's impossible. Believe me, I understand how you feel..."
"Who the hell are you?" he shouted. If it was 2556 and his family and friends woke in 2712, Sho would be long dead. "How the hell could you possibly understand what this feels like?"
The door slid open, and the android was back, holding up his hands in peace. "Caretaker-san, are you okay?"
"Is he okay?" Sho screeched at the damn robot. The robot who'd smiled and calmly asked him for his mother's name. "Put me back in the fucking tank!"
The Caretaker waved Aiba off, walking over to block Sho's way. "If we could, we would. And Sakurai-san, we cannot. How do I know how you feel? Because this happened to me, too."
Sho's anger and grief were consuming him. He didn't care about what had happened to this stupid old man. He didn't care about anything but what he'd just realized he'd lost. He'd left the Earth behind him, confident in everything they'd told him. But now he was awake, and he could never go home again.
He had to make sure they weren't lying, that this wasn't a cruel joke after all. He was in medical scrubs, similar to the way they'd dressed the robot up, so at least he wouldn't be taking a naked walk.
"Move," he told the old man, told Aiba, and they obediently stepped aside.
Sho's hand ached, and his body was still adjusting to moving around again as he walked right out of the lab and into the chilly corridor. He remembered entering the Shirase on freezing day. It was a simple ship, a ferry for the frozen just like all the others. A small command deck at the top of the ship, the freezer level with all the tanks beneath, and below that an engine room and an enormous cargo hold.
He made his way down the corridor, finding a door marked "Bridge" at the end of it. The door slid open without a problem. There was a third person in here, a man with dark hair sitting in a seat in front of some control console. But it didn't maintain Sho's attention for long. He held on to the doorway, nearly falling down in his horror. It was true. The old man hadn't lied.
The bridge of the Shirase wasn't large. Just a few seats and panels and only three walls. The fourth was nothing but slanted glass, offering an unobstructed view of the outside. When the Shirase launched, the view out of it was probably the polluted, gray Tokyo skies. Sho had expected to wake on a new planet in a new star system with the promised glow of the star Epsilon Eridani welcoming him.
Instead there were stars. Thousands of tiny little lights against an endless blanket of black. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, neverending stars. And it was also the worst thing he'd ever seen. He stumbled forward, holding on to one of the other seats on the bridge. He could feel tears in his eyes. Something Aiba could check off on his clipboard. Sho could still cry.
"No," he muttered. "It can't be."
He was still in the middle of space, the emptiness of space. His parents, his family, his friends. They were all frozen in the levels beneath his feet, and when they woke, they'd be able to walk on terraformed soil in a new star system, a new planet. They would wake in 2712 without him.
"2556," the person in the room confirmed for him. It was a man, similar in age to him and Aiba. Human, dressed in the same white clothes. He wore a sharp expression, and his eyes didn't radiate kindness like the old man's, didn't express good cheer like Aiba the android. This man was furious. "About four and a half light-years to go. Welcome."
Sho felt utterly hollow with the confirmation, and when he saw Aiba approach with a needle, probably some knock-out drugs, he didn't even protest.
--
When he woke again, he wasn't in that medical lab but a real bed. The walls were blank, empty, though not as empty as Sho now felt. He remembered the stars outside the ship, the affirmation that this was his life now. He got out of the bed, stretched his limbs. He was done with sleeping for a while.
If this was his reality, maybe he had to face it straight on. He'd been a reporter before he'd been frozen in that tank. Being angry or depressed wasn't going to change anything. But what he wanted at the very least was all the facts about this place.
There was a simple chest of drawers opposite the bed, the only other furniture save for a bedside table. Inside Sho found several plastic-wrapped sets of white clothes. Nothing but the basics for a five-hundred year journey. He tore off the wrapper and changed from the itchy scrubs and into the new clothes. They were a little softer, if a bit stiff from more than two hundred years in plastic wrap waiting to be opened. There were white slippers in the drawers as well, and when he looked at himself in the mirror he felt almost like a patient in a mental ward. Black hair shaggy and mussed, dark bags under his eyes, oddly-fitted white clothes, and red scratch marks on his neck from his own fingernails when they'd woken him. They'd bruise and purple to match his eyes soon enough.
The door slid open for him, and he found himself in the same corridor as earlier. The command deck ran about a third of the length of the ship. For a ship designed to only have an android pilot, there were plenty of spaces like the room Sho had just been inside. Maybe it was a contingency plan in case more people got screwed over like Sho and had their tanks fail. Maybe it really had happened before, and people had been forced to spend their entire lifetime living this way. The way Sho would have to now.
He made his way back to the bridge, this time more sullen than angry. The third man from before wasn't there, only the Caretaker and Aiba, who was in the pilot's seat. The Caretaker looked up from where he was stargazing, offering Sho a weak smile.
"Let's take a walk," the Caretaker said.
The old man got to his feet, bringing Sho away from the bridge and together they slowly made their way back down the corridor. For Sho's sake, he was kind enough to launch straight into an explanation.
"What we didn't know when this ship launched was that the android wasn't the only person meant to watch over it," the man explained. "If the people had known beforehand, they'd have been more hesitant in agreeing to go. You see, even androids have their failings, and if the android has a bug, well, then goodbye to everyone on board."
"Why not make more androids?" Sho asked.
The old man grinned. "I guess we weren't willing to put our fates entirely into their hands. It's programmed into the computer, and a human has been selected since the very first year of the launch to serve as the ship's Caretaker. Someone with decent leadership skills is revived, and we serve at Aiba's side for the rest of our lives. We monitor the tanks, keep the ship in working order, ensure that the Shirase stays on course."
So the Caretaker had been woken early too. Whoever he was, he'd been in Sho's position, waking up thinking he was at his destination only to discover that wasn't the way of it.
"I was resentful at first," the Caretaker admitted to Sho as they reached a lift at the end of the corridor. "Maybe for the first few years. I didn't want to be a leader here. I wanted to be with my family, my friends. But it's important, getting everyone home. It's a special duty."
The door closed and the Caretaker pressed a button for the freezer level.
"And I'm not alone. I was the eighth person woken for this purpose since the Shirase launched," the man explained. "Those people had to watch over the ship, sacrificing the years of their lives to be of service. How could I be selfish and refuse? If I didn't take charge and help Aiba-chan, then someone else would have to be unfrozen. I guess you could say it helped me to grow up."
They arrived at the freezer level, and Sho followed the man out. Where the command level had been nothing but fluorescent lights and stark, white walls, the freezer level was darker. It stretched out before them in long metallic aisles. Even from here Sho could see glowing lights and row after row of tanks. Of people, sleeping and waiting to reach their new home. Putting their faith in Aiba to get them there, and unknowingly, putting their faith in the Caretaker to watch over them.
"When did you wake up?"
They paused at the end of an aisle, the Caretaker leaning against the wall of tanks. "I was just about your age when we launched. And I'm 84 now. So me and Aiba-chan, I guess you can say we've been friends for almost 55 years."
"But he hasn't aged a day," Sho muttered.
The old man smiled. Even though Aiba wasn't human, he was clearly fond of him. "I do envy him that," the old man admitted. "But that's what helps in the long run, having Aiba-chan around. If it had been me by myself or me and anyone else, I would have put myself out the airlock by now."
Sho shuddered at the thought of it, and the old man took his hand and squeezed.
"I am truly sorry for what has happened, Sho-san. And believe me when I say that I understand what you have just lost. If we could put you back, believe me, we absolutely would. It's cruel and unfair that we can't. But there is a life here. Not the one you'd planned for, but there is food and some entertainment and good people." He grinned sadly. "Well, Aiba's been around humans long enough that he's more of one than you'd think."
They were interrupted then by the sound of someone else walking down the aisles of tanks, their footfalls heavy and with purpose.
"Caretaker-san," the person said coldly, coming around the corner. It was the third person, the one who'd looked at Sho with cruelty in his eyes. That much hadn't changed. "You shouldn't be down here. I can take care of this myself."
The Caretaker nodded. "I was just talking with Sho-san."
The man raised one of his eyebrows at the both of them. He had bright brown eyes, and they were nearly impossible to look away from. They sucked Sho in even as he was desperate to look away. Nobody had ever looked at him that way before, with such contempt. "He shouldn't be down here either."
Sho swallowed uncomfortably, wondering what he could have possibly done to make this man hate him so much. He shifted from foot to foot, itching to go back to the upper level of the ship, anywhere but near this man. But the Caretaker was still holding his hand, and he didn't dare wrench himself away from the old man's grip. Perhaps the only reason Sho was still alive was because of the Caretaker's intervention.
"Sho-san, I would like you to meet Matsumoto Jun. He is my replacement."
The future Caretaker of the Shirase then, the man who would spend the rest of his life at Aiba's side. And, Sho realized, the only other human Sho would ever know. "Then Matsumoto-san was..."
"Also revived," the old man said sadly. "How long has it been now, Jun-kun?"
Jun still looked cold, unfeeling. Sho could sense the man's hostility in the flare of his nostrils, the cruel twist to his lips. "Eight months, seventeen days," he said, making Sho flinch. "But who's counting?"
The Caretaker didn't seem to react to Jun's callous manner. Perhaps because he had been there himself fifty-five years ago, woken from his slumber and told he would be responsible for keeping the ship going. "Jun-kun is still in training. But I'm confident that he'll do well after I pass on."
"You should both return to the command deck," Jun said, his expression not softening in the least. Sho didn't like him. Not one bit, which of course boded well for the remaining years of his life. The Caretaker was in his 80's and the only other person on board was a robot.
"Very well, Jun-kun, we'll leave you to your work."
The old man urged Sho along to the lift, and as soon as they were inside, Sho let out a shuddering breath and the Caretaker laughed.
Sho leaned back against the wall, unable to shake the intensity of Jun's hatred for him. "He doesn't like me," Sho exhaled.
"He will in time. He is stuck with you for the rest of his life, after all."
Sho still wasn't fond of that idea. "What did I ever do to him? It's not my fault my tank broke."
"No," the Caretaker admitted, "it's not. Jun is a good kid. I could not have found a better person to take charge of the Shirase. From the beginning, he's accepted responsibility despite what he has lost. He cares about this ship and the people he has to protect. I wouldn't be surprised if he has every single tank down there memorized already. But he is a stubborn person. I think he had just resigned himself to his new reality so firmly that your arrival has upset him. But he'll come around, I have no doubt about that."
Sho shrugged. "You'd think he'd be glad to have someone else around. It's not like I'm any happier to be stuck here."
They headed for what would now be Sho's room. The Caretaker tugged open the top drawer of the bedside table, pulling out a small touchscreen device. "This is yours. I had Aiba-chan program it for you."
Sho took it, feeling the lightness of it between his fingers. "What is it?"
"Your diary, if you wish. It records video or just your voice, whatever you prefer. All of the previous Caretakers have used them as a way to speak to their families and loved ones. To leave a bit of themselves behind so that when the Shirase reaches its destination we won't be forgotten. So our sacrifices are not in vain."
Sho could feel tears forming in his eyes at the reminder of all he'd lost, at the sorrow his parents would feel upon waking without him. "I am not a Caretaker though," he whispered. "I'm just an accident."
"That's not true," the old man told him, and Sho really wanted to believe the sincerity in his eyes. The eyes that had seen nothing but this ship for so many years. "You're here now with us, and you don't have to be a mere passenger. Aiba-chan can train you to help out, make use of your time here."
"But isn't Jun the future Caretaker?" Maybe that's why Jun loathed him so much without even knowing him - maybe he thought Sho was a replacement.
The old man smiled at him. "It can't hurt to have a partner."
--
A few weeks passed far more quickly than Sho could have imagined. He thought being stuck on the Shirase, spending the rest of his life trapped here was the worst possible fate. It wasn't.
He didn't stop hurting, though. It would be impossible to completely forget his family, his friends. The Caretaker told him that feeling would never go away, that it was normal to be upset. He found himself crying himself to sleep more nights than not. He found it easy to slip into melancholy when he was alone in his room or down the hall in the shower stall, getting clean with water that had been recycled again and again for over 200 years. But he was alive, and now that Aiba was training him, he found a new sense of responsibility. He wasn't entirely useless here.
Sho had spent the months before the Shirase's launch preparing for his new life. He'd gone to training sessions to learn construction skills, agricultural skills. The basics of the basics when it came to human civilization. After all, the human race had to start from scratch on their new world. Those skills, however, didn't come in so handy on board the ship.
He'd spent the first week learning the set-up of the bridge, discovering what all the different lights and gauges on the control panels meant. The Shirase was mostly on a set course, plotted out using the most basic of star charts they'd had when she launched. It was Aiba's job to mostly keep the ship on the same path, but with minor adjustments as needed to avoid asteroid fields or the pull of a gravitational field from anything else nearby. It was definitely a lot more difficult than driving a car on Earth had ever been. It required constant monitoring and some really sharp math skills to calculate any of the ship's moves, and Jun usually took a shift of a few hours each day with Aiba, who didn't need sleep, taking the rest.
The engines and computer systems also needed attention. It would be months before Sho had everything memorized, but The Caretaker told him that's what Aiba was for. His android brain was a computer, after all. With Aiba mostly on the bridge managing the ship itself, it was The Caretaker's job to monitor the passengers.
Sho was happy that his training had not progressed to that point yet, allowing him to mostly avoid Matsumoto Jun. Aiba's programming had given him enough common sense to realize that Jun wasn't all too fond of the newest recruit, and whenever it was Jun's shift on the bridge, Aiba seemed to conveniently find something for Sho to learn somewhere else on the ship.
Aiba was the one constant Sho had found in this new life. He was kind and gentle and did his best to cheer Sho up. Aiba had seen Caretakers come and go, and he seemed to understand how difficult things were for them. If Sho wanted to sulk his way through a meal, missing the taste of his mother's cooking, Aiba would sit there patiently and listen to him reminisce. If Sho wanted to spend hours sitting alone in the freezer level in front of his family's tanks, Aiba would sit with him and say nothing at all. If Sho was really stuck here for the rest of his days, he was happy that Aiba would be with him.
He and Aiba were in the cargo hold that day for mandatory exercise - mandatory for Sho mostly. Living on a spaceship could easily get tedious, so the cargo hold had been repurposed by one of the earlier Caretakers. There was now a running track that weaved among the thousands of sealed up trunks and bins containing supplies and the passengers' belongings. Sho had only just started to think of everyone on board as passengers - and himself as something different entirely.
He was sweating like crazy, jogging along the track with Aiba, who looked in pristine condition. Of course, he always did. Sometimes Sho wished Aiba's inventor had programmed him to suffer just a little bit in situations like these. "Alright," Sho said as they made it around to the port-side stretch, "today you said you'd tell me about Becky-san."
"Becky-san," Aiba parroted back with a smile, and if Sho didn't know any better, he'd swear that Aiba was doing some android form of blushing.
Aiba had been aboard and had looked exactly the same since 2212. Ageless, he'd watched all of the Caretakers grow old and eventually pass away. He'd been talking to Sho about Caretaker after Caretaker, relating all the stories he had from the very first (the scary Sakamoto-san) to one of the more recent (the gentle Joshima-san). There was the current Caretaker and the one between him and Joshima-san left to be discussed.
There'd been two female Caretakers, Aiba had explained, but he didn't seem to speak as animatedly about Julie-san as he did about Becky-san. "She was just...well, she hated me from the moment Joshima-san and I unfroze her."
Sho chuckled. "Think about it from her side," he said as their shoes slapped the floor (they'd opened Sho's trunk to get some real sneakers to run in). "A young woman in the prime of her life who wakes up and has to spend the rest of her days with an old man and a robot. That's kind of depressing."
Aiba smiled, and the red light on his neck seemed to be throbbing with his memories. "Oh it got even worse when poor Joshima-san passed away. I thought Becky was going to put me out the airlock. She threatened to almost every day! 'Aiba-kun!' she'd always say to me, 'don't tell such lame jokes.' Or 'Aiba-kun, I'm getting wrinkles! Don't you dare look!'"
"And that changed I hope? If you had to be together for so long?"
"It changed," Aiba said, his voice trailing off.
Sho had learned that Aiba's programming allowed for some feelings. Feelings that seemed to be as real as anything Sho could feel. It was why Aiba smiled all the time, why he seemed so happy to think back to all the previous Caretakers and share their lives with him. He even grew upset when mentioning the deaths of some of them, since they were his only companions for so many years. Aiba did everything but cry, which he apparently was not programmed to do.
"Well?" Sho asked, prodding Aiba with his elbow. "How did it change?"
Aiba started to run faster, leaving Sho behind.
"Oi!" Sho called after him. "Cheating robot, you can't do that!" He hurried, trying to catch Aiba, who could dart around the track without ever tiring. He'd been designed with a long, lean body that would have been great for sports. Sho had played soccer back on Earth. He wondered if he could teach the sport to Aiba...
"She told me not to tell anyone!" Aiba was shouting, his voice echoing off the cargo hold walls. "I promised!"
Sho struggled to catch up, wheezing. Had Aiba...and the lady Caretaker? Had they...could they have... "You can't just lead me on! Come on, she's not here, tell me!"
They turned the corner and came to a screeching halt when they found Jun, arms crossed and waiting for them. It seemed that Sho wouldn't get the full story out of Aiba today.
"The Caretaker needs you," Jun said to Aiba. "I didn't think robots could lose track of time."
Sho was out of breath from running, trying to avoid Jun's glare. "My fault, I made...I made him keep going."
"Good," Jun snapped back. "Because we really need the ship's pilot taking orders from you."
Aiba smiled, patting Jun on the arm to try and mollify him. "Now now, Jun-chan, it's okay. No harm done. Sorry to make you come all the way down here. I apologize for neglecting my duties."
And since there was really no excuse Aiba could make to bring Sho along, he headed off for the lift, leaving Sho alone with the person who hated him most in the universe right now. After this many weeks dealing with Jun's attitude, the feeling was fairly mutual.
He was still exhausted from stopping his run so abruptly, moving over to sit down on one of the supply bins. This one probably held the makings of a future rice field. Sho hadn't been alone with Jun before. Jun always seemed to come up with some excuse to leave the room, and Sho was sick of it. There'd come a time when the Caretaker passed away and it would just be the two of them with Aiba. Sho couldn't spend the rest of his life avoiding the guy.
"I have things to do on the freezer level," Jun said, turning on his heel to go.
"Matsumoto-san, wait."
Jun paused. "There's no need for you to help. I have it covered."
"Can you just..." Sho lifted his shirt, trying to mop the sweat from his face. When he looked back, Jun was looking elsewhere, annoyed. "Do you have to be such a dick to me? All the time? What did I ever do to you? Seriously. It's not like I wanted to wake up."
Jun narrowed his eyes at him. "I have things to do on the freezer level," he repeated. "I am the future Caretaker of this ship. I'm just trying to do my job."
"Well," Sho mumbled, trying to come up with something to say. "Well, you're doing a pretty shitty job. Until a month ago, I was frozen too. But I'm technically still a passenger on this ship. I'm just a little more animated now. So if it's your job to watch out for the people on this ship, maybe you should watch out for me, too."
Jun walked up to where Sho was sitting, looking down at him with anger burning in his eyes. "Why did it have to be you?" Jun accused him. "That's what gets me. Sakurai-san, I don't know a thing about you. And I don't care to. But if you want to know why I'm a dick to you, it's because you're here. I get to spend the rest of my life looking at your face. When it was just me and the Caretaker and Aiba, I could live with it. I understood my place and my responsibility. I didn't like it, but I understood it. But now you're here and I can't. Why did it have to be you?"
Sho pushed himself up off the bin, furious. Why did it have to be you, Jun had said, as if Sho was nothing. Nobody. As if Sho would have been better off dead.
"What, you think I'm trying to take your job? You think the Caretaker is training me because you're not good enough? That he can't trust you to do it by yourself when he's gone? That maybe the computer picked you by accident?"
Jun laughed, bitterly and hard. "No. No, that's not what I think at all."
Sho thought Jun was going to punch him or drag him to an airlock and rid himself of his troubles once and for all. But instead he just laughed, and Sho thought he saw tears in the man's eyes as he walked off to the lift.
part two