1 Chapter 1

Like every Ship’s Assistant android, Simone had basic medical programming, but with the med bay destroyed by the fuel battery explosion, there was little she could do. Once the fire was extinguished, she had cleaned and bandaged Dr. Zhong’s injuries, but infection had quickly worsened into septicemia. Simone could not even slow it down.

There was no one to call for help. Earth was only now recovering enough from radiation to be resettled, and the crew of the Curie, sent ahead as prep team for the first colony ship, were the only human beings within many lightyears. Simone had sole responsibility for protecting her crew.

On the fourth day after the explosion, Simone found the makeshift med bay empty, and Dr. Zhong—Lucy, she had asked Simone to call her Lucy—collapsed in the corridor, weak and trembling, her face ashen but for the blush of fever.

“I’m not getting better, am I, Simone?” Lucy said as Simone knelt beside her, checking pulse and temperature, scanning for signs of organ failure.

“Your condition has deteriorated much more rapidly than I anticipated,” Simone said. Kidneys were nonfunctional. Liver likewise. Lungs and heart under severe strain.

“How long do I have?”

“If your condition continues to decline at the current rate…” Briefly, inexplicably, Simone was unable to voice the words. “Ten minutes, perhaps twenty.”

Lucy absorbed this information with a nod, a swallow, something like a laugh. “Will you…” She swallowed again. “Will you stay with me?”

“Yes.” Where else, after all, would she go? She seated herself beside Lucy on the floor. Her programming included subroutines for dealing with human distress. Lucy might find it comforting to be touched.

She wanted Lucy to be comforted.

Lucy seemed surprised by the hand closing over her own, but returned the grasp willingly. “I’m sorry, Simone.”

Now it was Simone’s turn to be surprised. “Why are you sorry?”

“For leaving you here alone.”

Simone seldom cared whether there were people around her or not. But she did not like the thought of Lucy not being present for the four years before the arrival of the colony ship. She had thought they would be together, gathering data and making preparations for the colonists—an immense job now, with the rest of the crew dead. She’d expected to have Lucy teasing her, making jokes she didn’t understand, asking endless fascinated questions about her perceptions and her programming and her gender presentation, standing close enough for Simone’s temperature sensors to gauge her body heat. So many of the other crewmembers had not wanted to be near Simone, but Lucy had always been kind. Simone had thought she and Lucy would be together. Instead she would be alone.

Lucy was biting her lip, Simone realized, and her body was shaking.

“You would be more comfortable in your quarters,” Simone said.

“It hardly matters at this point,” Lucy said, but when Simone picked her up, Lucy clung to her with what strength she had left. The subroutine was correct, then, and touch was a comfort.

Lucy’s quarters had been torn open when the explosion torqued the grounded ship, leaving trees and sky visible where the outer bulkhead had been. The bed was unmoored, shoved into a tangle of branches, but Lucy smiled when Simone settled her carefully onto it, lifting a hand into the sunlight.

“Would you like me to get you something for the pain?” Simone asked. “There are still a few mild analgesics in the galley.”

“No,” Lucy said, her other hand trailing through Simone’s hair to her shoulder as if reluctant to let her go. “No, I’d rather…I’d rather you just stay, if I’ve only got…ten minutes…” She gave another little laugh, more disbelief, Simone thought, than amusement. Each inhalation a trembling effort, now, doubtless further impeded by the tears she was trying to suppress. She kept biting at her lips, a small pain to distract her from the greater.

Her lips had always looked so soft and warm; somehow Simone didn’t like to see her damaging them. And touch was comforting, the subroutine reminded her. So she touched, brushing a fingertip across Lucy’s lips as if she could soothe the distressed skin. They were, indeed, very soft and warm.

Lucy went still, breath stopping, and Simone withdrew in alarm.

“I’m sorry. What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing. You only surprised me. Nothing wrong, please—please do it again?”

She did, and Lucy closed her eyes, turned her head to kiss Simone’s palm.

Oh.

Simone had wondered before, and thought herself mistaken—but this gesture of affection made it obvious that Lucy had romantic feelings toward her. Her programming contained guidelines for that situation. She should distance herself from Lucy, interact with her only with cool professionalism.

Instead, she moved branches and lay down beside her on the bed.