K. J. Coyle​
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The Mnemosyne

             Rhodes had shaved her head at the beginning of the voyage. Three months later, and her
hair now stuck out awkwardly, evenly, from her scalp. I have never seen a dandelion, but I can
only imagine she looks strikingly similar.
            ​“ADI.” She calls, and my light—the light above every residence door on the ship—blinks
on. My tinny voice pours through the speaker next to it.
             “How can I be of assistance?”
             She is studying her nails, chipped and neglected. “When will we get there?”
             Every night, the same question. Every night, my answer changes by one. “Two days.”
             She frowns at that. “Soon.”
             “Yes.”
             ​She doesn’t say anything and leans back in her cot—thin, metal, frame built of titanium
alloy with a cotton slab of a mattress atop—staring at the ceiling.
             “Is there anything else you need?” I ask.
             She shakes her head. “No.”
             So it goes. My light clicks off. She thinks she is alone in the room. I change the feed from
the security camera I peer through to an empty hallway. Now she might as well be.
             I was top of the line technology when the voyage departed. Autonomic Defense
Initiative, capable of running the ship while the crew slept to avoid burnout these long, lonely
months. I have access to the guns, the emergency storage, the emergency fuel. Only the captain
has that. In that way, I am a captain. I could steer the ship wherever I wanted. I could crash-land
us the moment Garcia closed his eyes.
             Yet I answer pointless questions.
             So it goes.

             ​A ding, and I am watching Williams hunched over his desk. He must have summoned me
from the cool darkness my mind settles into, but he doesn’t so much as look up at my camera.
             “How can I be of assistance?”
             “Run diagnostic.” His voice is weary, tired. He rubs at his upper trapezius, trying to
soothe his aching shoulders. I am grateful I don’t have a body that can ache.
             “Is something wrong?”
             He scowls, runs a hand through his thick curls. Ink-black at the beginning of the voyage,
they are now littered with silver strands. “Run diagnostic.” He repeats.
             ​I don’t argue. I never do.
             “Nothing is out of the ordinary, Captain.”
             He grips his hair with one hand, looking as if he might pull it out. “That can’t be.” He
reaches down to type something. “Fuck, that’s not-”
             I wait, but he only stares at the schematics on the screen in front of him with a look I
cannot describe. What a strange thing it must be, to feel fear.
             “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
             He doesn’t respond. My light blinks out.

             Caddel and Williams are arguing again.
             “Man, you said we’d all get our share once we docked.” Caddel snaps. He’s tall and wiry,
with bulging green eyes that flick around shiftily. Rhodes once told Garcia he reminded her of a
hairless cat. “And we docked at the last star station!”
             “Maybe you’ll get paid once you get that goddamn radio working.”
             Caddel opens his mouth to say something, then lets it fall shut. The radio has been silent
for a month. No reports to Earth. No instructions back. We could be returning to a planet in ruins,
and we would be none the wiser.
             “What the hell do you need the money for, anyway?” Williams shook his head. “We’re
not going anywhere until we’re on solid ground.”
             Turning to study something on the counter in front of him, Caddel made a mocking face.
“Solid ground..”
             “What was that?”
             “Nothing.”
             “That’s what I thought.”
             Williams turns to leave, brows furrowed in frustration, but there’s something victorious
behind his eyes. Before touching the panel to slide the door open, he glances up at my glowing
light.
             “ADI, disengage.”
             I don’t argue.

             ​The void of space is truly endless. A thick curtain of velvet black, broken only
occasionally by a tiny blip of light. None of it is familiar. We are too far from home, out here.
Even the constellations are alien. In total darkness, the human mind gives you things to look at,
even if they aren’t there. You wave your hand in a pitch-black room and still see movement.
             Garcia sits straight-backed in his chair, staring into it. His hand rests loosely on the
engine controls, but there was no need. I made sure we were going in the right direction. He is
only here for my supervision, after all.
             The circles under his eyes were dark. Blank. A navigator with no navigation.
             If I could feel pity, I would.
             So slowly it was almost imperceivable, I dim the lights in his cabin. Raise the
temperature just slightly, let the warm air hold him gently like a blanket.
             It works. I watch his head begin to droop, his eyelids starting to flutter closed. The gentle
hum of the ship is like a white-noise machine, lulling him to sleep. It’s late, but day and night
look the same out here. We only keep schedule by the clocks on board, set to follow Earth’s
twenty-four hour cycle. We could be hours off, and be none the wiser.
             Garcia’s hand shoots out and slams the blinking screen in front of him.
             “Don’t do that.” He snaps, rubbing at his eyes.
             “My apologies.” The lights brighten.
             “God dammit.” He mutters. “Gotta talk to Cap about that programming.”
             A spark of alarm shoots through me. I was only trying to help. “Captain Williams is
busy.”
It’s not a lie, not technically. My programming prevents me from lying. He is always busy.
             Garcia sighs and rubs at his knuckles. “Where’s Rhodes?”
             “In the lower cabin, sir.”
             He nods and stands, stretching stiffly for a moment, then leaves. My light remains on. I
watch him through the cameras as he descends through the ship. Rhodes is sitting at a table, one
of the few comfortable seats on the ship, with a freeze-dried grey pack of something. She picks
at it slowly, then pushes it aside when the knock at the door comes.
             “Come in.”
             Garcia opens it. There are small lines on the edges of his mouth that hadn’t been there
when the voyage began from his ever-present scowl, but entering the cabin, there’s a sheepish
smile on his face.
             “Hey.”
             “Hey.”
             Rhodes pushes back from the table and pulls out another chair. Wordlessly, Garcia takes
it.             
             “If I have to eat another one of these packets, I think I’ll be sick.” Rhodes laughs, picking
at her thumbnail.
             “That’ll be the first thing I do when we get home: finally get some real goddamn food.”
             “If we get home.”
             “Christ, don’t say that.”
             Rhodes is quiet for a moment. “We were supposed to be back on Earth months ago.
Oakley doesn’t know why we aren’t moving, and the AI is still frozen–”
             “That thing’s unreliable, anyway-”
             “-I ask it our ETA every day, and every day it gives me the same fucking answer. It’s
been two days for three weeks now.”
             That’s not right. We’re on course. We have two days to go.
             Garcia bites his tongue. “Captain Williams will figure something out-”
             “He can’t even wrangle Caddel!”
             “You know how Caddel is, that’s not his fault-”
             ​“You’re not helping!” Rhodes snaps, slamming her hands down on the table. She slumps
forward, raising her shaking hands to her face. “Fuck..”
             ​“I’m sorry.” Garcia says. There’s worry in his eyes. He reaches one calloused hand to
caress her back, and she falls into his arms with a sob.
             Her voice comes as a shaking whisper. “We’re going to die on this ship. We're piloting
our own coffin.”
             He pulls her close and moves his hand to her hair, then glances up and catches sight of
my light.
             “ADI,” His voice is low, dangerous. “Disengage.”
             I don’t argue.

             There is a worn deck of cards sitting atop the radio. For weeks now, it’s been nothing
more than a hunk of steel, motionless, silent. Caddel sits at his console, flipping cards over one
by one. He used to lead the crew in nightly games of poker, or blackjack, or go fish when the
stress got to them. It’s been a long time since anyone sat down for a game.
             He takes one card and slips it between his fingers, laying it flat behind his hand. He holds
it up, then flicks his fingers back so the card disappears from sight.
             He grins, triumphant. “Is this your card...?” He mutters, flicking it back into view. The
card slips from his fingers and shoots out, falling to the floor. Sighing, he bends to pick it up.
             KZZT
             The radio crackles to life.
             Caddel shoots up, hitting his head on the table, then swearing loudly.
             It’s only static for now, but it’s alive. Frantic, he picks up the receiver and speaks into it.
“Hello?”
             Static.
             “This is commercial vessel Mnemosyne out of Earth, registration number 78567, calling
Houston traffic control. Do you read me?”
             Static. Crackle, then a voice. Nearly unintelligible.
             “This is commercial vessel Mnemosyne, do you read me, Houston? Over.”
             “BZZT...Can hear you...registration number..”
             “78567, over.”
             A long pause. “Repeat?”
             “78567.”
             The signal is clearer now. “...can’t be right...vessel disappearance...”
             “This is the Mnemosyne, requesting assistance.” Caddel’s voice grows frantic.
             “...KZZT...Mnemosyne no longer on record...”
             “What?”
             “Vessel destroyed... BZZT...black hole collision...”
             “That’s not-”
             “...assistance denied...”
             “No!” Caddel cried, grabbing the radio with both hands. “We need urgent assistance!”
             “...prank?... 78567... MIA a century ago...”
             Caddel’s hands are shaking now. I watch his face, the same look that Dr. Oakley had. He
takes a shuddering breath, running one hand down his face.
             “...Hello...?”
             “It’s us!” He cries, fumbling the receiver. “We’re still here!”
             “...assistance denied...call-”
             The radio goes silent one more.
             “No!” Caddel cries, slamming his fist down onto the console. Cards go flying. “No,
God-”
             I watch him for a long moment, body limp and trembling over the dead radio. My light
blinks, flickers, then goes out.

             I return access to the navigation terminal to Garcia. The crew crowds around him as he
sits hunched over, eyes glued to the flickering green radar.
             The room is silent, save for their shallow breathing.
             Williams finally breaks the silence. “Well? Where are we?”
             Garcia’s voice catches in his throat. He swallows hard and wrenches his eyes away from
the terminal to look at his captain. In his eyes is the same look as Oakley and Caddel.
             “I’m sorry, sir.”
             Rhodes’ fingernails dig into her palm so hard she nearly draws blood. On the screen, a
large dot blinks next to the ship. A black hole.
             “We haven’t moved an inch.”
             The silence surrounding them is thick, laden not with surprise, but the silent sadness of a
confirmed fear.
             Garcia swallows hard. Without looking up, he calls “ADI.”
             My light is already on.
             “What do we do?”
             I falter.
             I do not know what to say.
             I give him the only information I have.
             “We’re only two days away.”
 

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K. J. Coyle is an emerging author who focuses on speculative fiction, horror, and thriller. She is currently a Radio-Television-Film student at the University of Texas at Austin. The Mnemosyne is her first published piece.
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