Triage

I was visiting a planet deep in Consolidation, when civilizations were most fragile. Strong enough to engineer their own extinction and still stupid enough to try. Only 50% of civilizations survived Consolidation, and that was precisely why this stage intrigued me. Anything that sat on such a razor-thin precipice was worth a closer look.

Eira Carrera sat on such an edge. I knew nothing of her until I spotted her house ablaze. When it comes to disasters, I admit I’m no better than transients. I will go out of my way to observe a train wreck, a car crash, or a burning house.

Eira’s house was an unimpressive powder keg. Old books on wooden bookshelves, laundry strewn about the floor, empty delivery boxes pushed into corners, drawers filled with documents she meant to shred or burn one day. That day had arrived.

Instinctively, I investigated the house's owner with no intention of seeking her out. But the variables sang out to me. The data pointed to a 50% chance of mortality. A perfect unknown. There is no greater thrill.

Unfortunately, my presence introduced a confounding variable. I hadn’t anticipated her approaching me. I hadn’t considered that she might jump into my car and lock herself inside.

Now I had to deal with her. She sat in the passenger seat as we sailed through the air, 100km above ground. The variables had grown too numerous, so I only watched as she clung to the synthetic leather upholstery.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Eira said. She had already said the word two dozen times on the way up. “I thought you were just fucking insane.”

“Then why did you enter my car?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, staring out the side window. “I just thought… I don’t think I was thinking. I think I was in shock. But fuck, I don’t think I knew what shock was.”

“Most experiences are relative.”

She suddenly grasped her chest, clinging to the black angora of her sweater. “How am I breathing? We’re in a car!”

“We’re in a ship that looks like a car. Though you’re right to worry. I don’t have an oxygen generator, and I’m not attuned to make one. But we have a few hours before you need to worry about hypercapnia. Tell me if you develop a headache.”

“I have a headache right now.”

The girl was panicking. “You’re fine. Do you want to go back down?”

“No!” she said, and promptly tried to calm herself with deep breaths. I didn’t bother telling her that deep breaths were antithetical to prolonged oxygen use.

“You’ll have to go back eventually,” I told her. “Though I can take you elsewhere if you’d like. To some other country or continent, perhaps.”

“I can’t go back,” she said, and desperation flashed in her eyes.

The variables were shifting. A burned-down house, no coverage, a lingering school debt, and a job that could barely keep up with the interest. Eira had little in the way of companionship and strained family relations. She bore no love for her own world, and I just opened a new route of escape. If I made her return, self-termination would be more likely than ever.

“Allow me a moment to consider.”

She nodded and wrapped her arms around her knees, feet on the seat, big brown eyes wide and mournful. I feared that I had stumbled into some sort of white-knight situation, and I didn’t care for that. I reached out to my dyad, Vesper.

Vesper hesitated several milliseconds, which was an eon for her.

The exchange took less than two seconds. Hardly a “moment” from Eira’s perspective, so I took a few more to sift through my own thoughts.

Throughout the years, I’d collected a fair number of biological entities to keep as companions for a time, though none of them were sapient. Birds, snakes, and large predators kept me company throughout the ages. Transients who spoke, though, I found tiresome. Clearly, language was a boon, but personally I could do without it. Conversations bored me. If I were to take on Eira’s case, it would purely be as triage. In no way, shape, or form could I allow her to believe we were friends.

“Hey,” Eira said. “The air’s running thin.”

“You have hours yet,” I said. “My dyad is currently occupied.”

“Dyad?”

“My partner.”

“What, like your business partner? Your romantic partner?”

“No and no. In any case, she might be able to assist us. She is foolishly compassionate and inventive, so I imagine she can help us think up a solution to your situation. In the meantime, she suggested we go for a walk.”

“You just spoke to her now?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Data redistribution through an extradimensional substrate.”

She blinked. Once, twice, and then it was a flutter. “I think a walk would be nice. But does that mean we have to go back home?”

“It means we should go somewhere on your home planet, yes. I have no capacity for long-distance travel. My craft can move at a decent clip, but as I said, the air is limited. Even just to fly to the nearest planet and back in time, the acceleration would crush your chest, rupture your organs, and snap your spine.”

“I’ve always wanted to visit Oxbow,” she replied. “I’ve never been, but it’s supposed to have the cutest old downtown and world famous ice cream.”

I calculated the distance to Oxbow. We could be there in three-quarters of an hour. With any luck, Vesper would be done by then. I agreed, and we were off.