We Leapt Into the Sky

Chapter 39

Cool light washed over the delicate flowers carved into the walls of the small stone room. Stems and leaves intertwined with hundreds of tiny blooms, reflecting the imagery of a distant, forgotten world. Along the far wall, the rectangular console glowed brighter at intervals, like a slow pulse. The curator of the ruins rested there, its mind housed within the ancient computer.

Kendra thought back to her previous visits here, fraught as they had been. She had learned that the caretakers built this room. That they had moved the curator here, hooking it into the circuitry they gathered from the capsule that brought the ruins to this planet. And either the caretakers or the curator itself had decided that its home should be engraved with the flowers of Asteracea. Now that she thought about it, the decision struck her as strangely sentimental.

Regardless, she had no doubt that the curator sensed her and Aster when they had slipped through the solid walls into its home within the plateau.

"You can hear us," Kendra said.

Its lights pulsating almost warily, the curator broke the silence, and its voice filled their minds. "You have become ..."

"Corrosion?"

"No. Different. Why?" There was something genuine in its tone. Curiosity, accompanied by a plea for explanation.

"Aster's ship helped me attain a new form, one I can use to leave this planet."

The curator surveyed her, analyzing her and drawing its own conclusions. "Then his technology succeeded where we failed. Our attempt at restoration of your physical body was inadequate. The solution to transfer your consciousness into this system was unacceptable."

"That's right. Your restoration was a temporary fix, but I owe you my thanks for that—you gave me time to work with Aster and restore his ship."

"Yet you chose to leave your physical form after all."

"I did. I want to see more than this desert for the rest of my existence. This form enables me to travel more freely than I ever could in my original body." She sensed a faint thread of emotion from the curator. Resignation perhaps, followed again by analysis.

"But there is something else. We observe a sense of congruence. This form ... suits you," the curator noted with surprise. Its attention shifted to Aster. "Whereas from you, we observed the opposite. Wrongness. Corrosion."

"Despair," Aster said. "I never wished for my emotions to affect the ruins as they did. It was a symptom of my sorry state, not an attack upon you and the caretakers. You have my deepest apologies."

The curator was quiet, contemplating Aster's words while inspecting him. "We were created to preserve the artifacts placed in our care. We have only the tools we were given, the data we were provided to guide our assessment of danger to our artifacts. You were an unknown. We determined you to be corrosion. Perhaps we were wrong."

"Your conclusion wasn't wholly illogical, given my ability to affect the ruins with my memories."

"You felt he was a threat," Kendra said. "But even as the caretakers reacted poorly to his presence, his memories influenced them. The designs of their buildings have been shifting, and their details reflect scenes I saw in Aster's memory as well."

The curator considered this. "The caretakers' purpose is restoration. I ... oversee the caretakers and guide their decisions when necessary. Yet, they are partially autonomous. They make decisions based on their own logic, and I do not always understand them. They deemed the crystals a threat to the ruins, and still, whatever information they gleaned from Aster's memories seemed to have sparked their ... creativity. Regardless, the artifacts are now secure. We may power down until we are needed again."