A Berth for One

The carrier left Pelin on schedule. Before it did, I had eighteen hours to find out what leaving meant.

I went back to the clinic first. The intake corridor smelled of warm insulation and the oily food from the kiosk downstairs. I had slept badly on a bench there, or not slept at all. The passage receipt had softened in my pocket from being handled. I kept checking it, as if the carrier might have changed its mind while I was looking elsewhere.

Nemi met me at the clinic door. She glanced at the data wafer in my hand.

“You’ve got the archive,” she said.

“I do.” I looked through the glass at the empty cradle. “What happens to the rest?”

“The chassis is held until the next disposition cycle. After that, the clinic may reclaim usable components.”

“May?”

“It depends on the inventory. You could file a claim for the chassis, but it would need a storage contract. Pelin won’t store it for free.”

I knew what the answer would cost before she said it. I had enough for my berth and the ordinary expenses of getting to the intake lattice. I didn’t have another contract in me, and even if I did, I had nowhere to keep a humanoid chassis. It wasn’t Iven. I knew that. Knowing did not make the thought clean.

“Can I see it?”

Nemi opened the inner door. “Yes.”

The clinic had covered him with a gray transfer sheet. His left hand rested outside it, palm down on the cradle rail. The sensor seam at his thumb still carried the thin line of sealant I’d left there. I had fixed that joint before I knew how much of a person could fit into a machine’s small, particular habits.

I put my fingertips against the back of his hand. The metal was cool and still. There was no warmth from the core, no pump keeping time in the service line. Nothing would answer if I asked him whether I should go.

I had already asked. He had answered. I didn’t get to make his choice smaller just because I had to live with it.

“I can’t take you,” I said. The words came out flat, the way I spoke when I wanted them to sound like a measurement. “I’m sorry.”

Nemi stayed near the doorway. She didn’t offer a correction or reassurance. I was grateful for that.

I pulled the sheet back over his hand. It caught briefly on the rail, and I freed it with two careful fingers. Then I left the room.

There wasn’t much to pack. My tool roll, two changes of clothes, a coil of insulated wire, and the things I’d kept because they might become useful later. The archive wafer fit inside the pocket of my jacket. I put it there, took it out, then put it in the inner pocket where it was less likely to bend.