We Leapt Into the Sky

Chapter 21

She wanted answers.

Kendra kept running until she reached the room that held the system console. The console glowed softly, illuminating the stone walls with blue light. An electric jolt ran through her hand as she connected to the system.

"You have returned," it said.

"I need more information about the corrosion in the ruins," she said. "I've seen where it sleeps, and I want to know everything that you know about it."

The air of the empty white space surrounding her shimmered. "The corrosion interferes with the preservation of the ruins," the system said. It sounded almost irritated. "Its presence impedes system function."

"Why? How does it affect you?"

"Corrosion impacts our mental processes."

"So it affects your mind," she said. "You and the caretakers."

"Restoration of the ruins is the system's highest priority. Negative effects on mental processing impact our capacity to carry out restoration."

"Are you or the caretakers able to feel what's contained within the corrosion? In the crystals. Because I experience that information as memories and emotion. Do you feel that?"

"Yes," the system replied.

"So you aren't just machines, not the way we think about them. I can't plug circuitry into my hands and expect to talk to my computer. You communicate mind to mind. This isn't only about the corrosion affecting the ruins. It affects you."

"For these reasons, the corrosion must be removed."

"How long has it been here, as long as you?" Kendra asked.

"No." It paused. "Converted to your measurement system, the corrosion was first noted five years ago."

"Five years? That's nothing compared to how long the ruins must have been here. Since your ship crashed here. Tell me, when did you arrive?"

"We have previously stated that our earliest logs were lost. System timekeeping is inaccurate, but at we have been here at minimum seven thousand years. However, this is irrelevant to the corrosion."

"Is the corrosion intelligent? Is it a sentient being?"

"It is not meant to be here."

"You aren't meant to be here either," Kendra said. "You may be missing data, but I want to know anything you remember about crashing here." She visualized the metal hull and the room with its missing circuitry for emphasis.

The system responded with a data log, a rush of text and symbols. Kendra didn't need to understand it to grasp that something had gone wrong. A hologram of a ship flickered into view. It was massive, with sleek curves and steep slopes, its dozen cargo capsules tiny by comparison. Error signals clouded the hologram, clustering over the capsules.

The ship neared the planet's surface but did not crash; the hull had been breached, the capsules damaged. One capsule was punctured, spilling ruins into the desert, while another careened out of the sky and crashed into the cliffs. The system dispatched the caretakers to survey the damage, and they reported with another series of logs, which the system broadcast back to the ship.

"But your ship didn't make it, did it?" Kendra pointed to the trajectory of the ship after losing the cargo capsule. "After the capsule was lost, the rest of the ship must have been destroyed. A crash would have left behind a lot of wreckage had it landed on this planet. But it didn't. Maybe it cleared the atmosphere, made it off this planet first, but it was still destroyed. No one got your message, and no one came back."