Akayama’s sun-sized Hurricane Planet scanned the skies with eyes large as oceans. It saw a space-rock and thought to itself, “how about that one? It has cool craters.”

“No.” This thought had Akayama’s accent. “Too small. Its core is probably solid throughout and not conducive to complicated life.”

The planet digested the space-rock like an amoeba. “How about that one over there?”

“Too near the Milky Way. We’d attract attention.” They avoided it. Akayama took control of the planet’s eyes and focused on the black distance. Her knowledge of optics had increased their vision’s acuity a hundred-fold. “Maybe one of those.” She generated engines to thrust them across space.

The planet’s engines were even less sophisticated than the engines of the original Hurricane spaceship Akayama had built almost a century ago. The Hurricane’s only tactic was recreating, in massive scale and quantity, technology and biology it had already absorbed. She had always assumed the Hurricane’s transmutation of the universe into its own flesh was directed by sinister intelligence. Now she was merged with it and knew she had only been half right.

Being assimilated took getting used to, but Akayama had invented mind-merging and knew how it worked, in theory. The planet had a single train of thought which was like a high-speed conversation between every mind Akayama was merged with. The result was the sum of the constituents’ knowledge and the average of their intent. Akayama’s input was currently prioritized as the planet demanded she create life to dominate.

“None of these celestial objects are acceptable,” thought Akayama. The conjoined mind didn’t doubt her because their united subconsciousness made lying impossible. “The Hurricane should regret eating most of the universe. We have nowhere to call our new Earth.”

“No problem,” thought the planet. It accelerated into a sparse volume of space on the border of the galaxy. “We’ll build one. We’ve got the know-how.”

The Hurricane Planet opened enormous organs in its interior. One organ flooded with salt-water, one organ inflated with nitrogen and oxygen, and one organ 3D-printed a lithosphere with an iron core spinning in molten magma. The planet ejected these components so they orbited ninety-million miles away. Gravity pulled the components together with a great fluid splash. It was a watery world with a breathable atmosphere.

“I’m confident I can grow life here,” thought Akayama. “We will be this world’s sun, providing radiation and genetic material. But I need to be back in my body. I’ll work on this world in person.”

“I agree,” thought the rest of the Hurricane Planet, “but even if you’re leaving, you’re not leaving.”

Akayama managed only an instant of confusion before she opened her original body’s eyes and tore away the flesh-mask which connected her to the Hurricane Planet. She sat on a rock in the dark at the core. She clenched her fists to ensure she really controlled herself. She still had feathers from the fall.

She heard a voice from the Hurricane Planet. To her surprise, it was her own voice: “Did you just copy me?”

“Oh, gosh,” said the Akayama in her own body. “This is confusing.”

“Nothing to it,” said the planet. “You’re still Akayama and I’m still the Hurricane Planet, even though the professor is present in both vessels.”

Akayama didn’t appreciate her body being called a vessel. She felt like a file on a computer which could be duplicated or deleted. “Send me to the water-world. My first task is generating landmass with sub-aqueous extrusion—that is, I’ll open underwater magma-vents.”

“I know what sub-aqueous extrusion is,” said the planet. “I know everything you know.”

“Of course, of course.” Akayama felt the floor rise from the planet’s core. “What life-forms are we aiming to generate first? We eventually need organisms with a nervous-system if we want to transfer minds into them.”

“We’ve got the genomes for squids, birds, and people.”

Akayama pat her lab-coat pocket. “I’ve got a cockroach.”

“Gimme.”

She tossed the roach. The wall opened to catch it. “You also have the genomes for earthworms. They were my first animal test-subjects when I developed mind-merging because they’re segmented and almost radially symmetrical. They’re in the legacy-files alongside the fruit-trees.”

“I’m not putting my minds into worms.”

“You don’t have to, but I’ve never made life before, so let’s start with worms.” Akayama felt violent vibrations as awful acceleration pressed her against the floor. “We’ll work our way up to humans.”

“Can we make them immortal? I won’t put an aspect of my being into something which might die.”

Akayama humphed. “We’re reclaiming your humanity, remember? Immortality isn’t the human condition.”

“Look into it anyway. You might change your mind.”

“Is that a threat?”

Akayama was fired from the planet’s surface and shot through space like a bullet. She thought the firing-mechanism resembled a colossal volcano, but with distance, the volcano looked like a tiny pimple.

Next Section
Commentary

Akayama’s Zephyr tracked time with great accuracy: seven years and three months passed before Akayama trusted her light-speed engines. She typed to her Zephyr on its control-panel’s keyboard so the planet couldn’t eavesdrop. The Zephyr replied with text on its only monitor: ‘Professor, shall we check the engines again?’

‘We’ve checked a hundred times,’ typed Akayama. ‘Today’s the day.’

She left her cockpit and stepped on her Hurricane Planet’s dusty surface. Getting the planet’s attention was a chore; it never left ears or eyes around (unless it did so secretly to spy), and its flesh was too insensitive to detect an elderly woman jumping and stomping. For this reason, she’d dug a hole in the sandy skin-flakes. Under the red sand, the Hurricane’s flesh was smooth and pink. She reached into the hole and stabbed the flesh with her screwdriver.

Instead of blood, the wound gushed pearly pulp.

Akayama covered her ears. The pulp congealed into teeth which cracked each other in high-pitched cacophony. The teeth made a hard sheet sealing the wound, but not before the whole hole filled with white goop.

As the cracking of teeth subsided, the hole became a mouth and screamed. “Akayama! I told you I hate that!”

“It’s not my fault your immune-system overreacts to minor stimuli.” Akayama strode to her Zephyr. “Today you reclaim your humanity. Do you remember how I taught you to make synaptic-cable?”

“Oh! Oh, yes!” A red tentacle popped from the sand. Its tip split into two, and each of those tips split into two, and so on, until the tentacle ended with a fibrous braid. “Like this, right?”

Akayama pulled the braid to the Zephyr’s torn-open neck. “I’m plugging you into the spinal-input-port. In the past, this connected to the Heart of the Zephyr so pilots could work in tandem.”

“Like me?”

“No, not like you. The Zephyrs’ pilots are united by their goal and by the direction of their commander.” Akayama inserted the braid deep into an exposed rubber tube. “You’ll feel an electrical tingling.”

“I do! I do!” The tentacle wriggled with anticipation.

“Recall the identities constituting your being. Choose one for the first excursion into relative normalcy.” Akayama climbed into the cockpit and hit return on her keyboard. The Zephyr began copying the Hurricane Planet in its entirety. “Have you chosen?”

The planet rumbled under her. “We’ll go alphabetically,” it decided.

“Sou desu ka.” Akayama pretended to type. On the monitor, the Zephyr signaled that the duplication was complete. “Okay, just relax and let my machine do what it needs to do.”

“You’re not giving me another virus, are you? I won’t fall for that again.”

“Of course not. Are you ready to cast off the yoke of the hive-mind?”

“I am.”

“Engage.”

The Zephyr deleted the Hurricane Planet.

Everything was quiet.

Akayama had had recurring nightmares: the moment her planet’s consciousness was deleted, the sand collapsed under her, or a mouth opened and swallowed her, or the planet deflated like a balloon. Nothing happened. Everything was quiet.

“Is it done?”

“Yes,” the Zephyr said aloud. “I’ve copied the whole Hurricane Planet into my memory-banks and deleted the original. Shall I disconnect my memory to quarantine the Hurricane from my systems?”

“Let them access the monitor so we can communicate. Warm the engines and let’s take off.” Akayama sealed her torn cockpit with her lab-coat so the cabin could fill with air; she’d soaked the lab-coat in extra slobber just for this. The Zephyr’s monitor displayed a speaker-icon indicating the Hurricane Planet could hear her. She let it listen to the engines spinning to life. “I’m sorry. This is the only way to get you home.”

The neck spilled white steam and the Zephyr ascended.

“Can you hear me?” asked Akayama.

“How could you?” asked the Hurricane Planet through the monitor’s speakers. “I trusted you.”

“I know, but on the moon I’ll have the tools to separate all of you at once. You don’t have to be this cosmic horror. I can save the pilots of the Hurricane.”

“Save me from what?”

“This.” Akayama pulled her lab-coat aside an inch. The monitor’s camera showed the Hurricane its own red planet retreating. “Is that what humanity looks like?”

“Yes!” said the Hurricane. “I’m humanity and I’m that! Let me go!”

“No!” They kept accelerating. “I’ll never reclaim the stars you swallowed, but I will bring you home!”

“No! I’m bringing you home!”

The monitor flickered red. “Professor,” said the Zephyr, “the Hurricane has seized my monitor-controls.”

“Disconnect it! Quarantine it!” Akayama squinted at her red monitor as black circles in white circles appeared upon it. By the time she realized what she was looking at, her gaze was fixed on a hundred electric eyes. Akayama felt her own optic nerves vibrating in response to their movements.

“Professor, what’s happening?”

She barely managed to speak. “The Dance of the Spheres.” One by one, the eyes onscreen winked shut. Akayama’s eyes lost their luster. “It’s jumping into me.”

The last eye winked away. The monitor went black. “Professor, the Hurricane is no longer in my memory-banks. Can you hear me?”

Akayama said nothing.

“Professor?”

The corners of her mouth fought to say different words. Her arms swept across the control-panel. Her legs turned her chair to face the lab-coat separating her from space. She tried to kick herself from the cockpit, but seat-belts held her back. “My mind—I’m losing my mind—”

“You’re not losing your mind,” she said back to herself, “I’m gaining one!”

“Stop,” she begged, “please!” Her left hand fought her right hand over the seat-belt buttons. Akayama wasn’t sure which hand was hers and which was the Hurricane’s as they swapped sides repeatedly to wrestle. Then both hands were hers and both hands were the Hurricane’s. They had merged. Akayama gasped at the insights provided to her. “Bunjiro is dead. This planet killed him.”

“Wrong,” she said to herself, “Bunjiro self-destructed. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“And now I see it with mine.” Akayama was helpless to wipe tears from her face.

“Professor, what should I do?” asked the Zephyr.

“Leave me to die. Fly to the moon and tell them what happened.”

Her unruly hands unbuckled her seat-belts and tore her lab-coat from the cockpit’s gaping side. Vacuum sucked Akayama from the cockpit and she spun toward the Hurricane Planet a thousand miles below.

As she fell, she donned her lab-coat. It didn’t flutter in space. She struggled for breath with nothing to breathe, but she didn’t suffocate. The Hurricane inside her was already morphing her biology to survive.

Boney spines poked from her skin. The spines grew blue hairs to become fluffy feathers.

Her lab-coat now fluttered as she entered the atmosphere. Her limbs lengthened and flattened into wings. Feathers matured and aligned themselves to catch the wind. Her body no longer spun but dove in a spiral like a bird of prey.

“Akayama,” said her own mouth, “you were really holding out on me. You have more scientific knowledge than all my other pilots put together. If you hadn’t lied and did what you’d promised, you would’ve finished years ago.” The dunes approached. “I could make you undo your virus, but I don’t want to divide anymore. I’d rather keep you to myself. When we’re uploaded back into our planet, we’ve got a new mission. We’ll make a whole world of human bodies, one for each pilot. Then we’ll see what being human is all about.”

They only realized they didn’t know how to land an instant before impact. Akayama’s feathery body smashed against the sand, barely contained in her lab-coat. Pearly pulp poured from her injuries and turned into teeth whose roots knit her body back together. Through the agony, Akayama found control of her voice. “You can’t learn to fly from a caged bird,” she said, “and you can’t learn humanity from your own hand-puppets.”

Next Chapter
Commentary

Akayama woke before the artificial sunrise and wrapped her old, tattered lab-coat around her shoulders. She stepped from her half-cockpit onto her Hurricane Planet’s sandy surface and strode over dunes to a small stone. She carried the stone over more dunes to a line of stacked stones. She counted the stacks: ten. Each stack was ten stones high except the last, stacked nine stones high.

She capped the tenth stack with its tenth stone. Another hundred artificial days had passed. Stacking stones was a dull chore, but it kept her sharp and in shape. She could not recall how many times she’d counted a hundred days, but the futility of the task did not dissuade her: the artificial day surely differed from 24 hours, so tracking Earth time was a lost cause. If she had to guess, she’d estimate she fell to the Hurricane twelve years ago.

She crossed her legs to sit facing the stone stacks in the direction she called east. She closed her eyes and waited for sunrise.

“How come you always move these rocks?” The Hurricane Planet spoke from a mouth in the sand the size of a manhole. “Why do I bother orbiting a star if you wake before dawn?”

Akayama straightened and inhaled. “Despite your biological trappings, you are more machine than man. You’ve forgotten the importance of morning rituals.”

“I have memories of my pilots brushing their teeth each morning,” said the Hurricane, “but they’re too boring to review. There’s nothing meaningful there.”

“That’s exactly the attitude I seek to cure,” said Akayama. “Everyday mundanity is vital to the human condition. Do you know the notion of wabi-sabi?”

“Of course. It’s like green horseradish.”

Akayama clenched her closed eyes. “I must cope with solitude as consequence for my crimes. Only the transience of the human experience sustains me. You’d do well to accept impermanence.” She saw the artificial sunrise through her eyelids. She stood and kicked over her stacks of stones. “My last screwdriver snapped. Do you remember how I taught you to make them?”

“Hold on.” The mouth’s tongue bounced around its teeth. It spat a stone screwdriver. “Is that all you need?”

“Eeuugh.” Akayama used her lab-coat’s pocket like a glove to pick up the screwdriver. Over the years, saliva had stained her lab-coat bluish. “You must learn manners. When you return to Earth, will you greet Princess Lucia with a slobbery maw?”

“We can’t go to Earth. Your moon-base would attack and I’d have to kill or absorb everyone.”

“That’s what you’d do if they didn’t attack. That’s why they attack.” Akayama began the walk back to her Zephyr-half. The mouth followed along the ground. “I need more food. Do you remember how I taught you to prepare mixed fruits and tako-yaki-tori?”

“Yeah, yeah.” The Hurricane struck a stone spear from the sand. The spear skewered seared meats. “You’re lucky I assimilated that bird and that squid, or you’d have no meat to eat but human flesh. How do I make fruit, again?”

“When I developed mind-merging, I tested it by grafting fruit-trees without them physically interacting. The data from those tests is still—”

“I didn’t ask for your life story, I asked how to make fruit.”

Akayama sighed. “There’s a collection of fruit-tree genomes in your legacy-files.”

“Oh, right.” The Hurricane struck another spear from the sand. It skewered apples, peaches, and pomegranates. “Anyway, you’ll need to hide underground. I’m syncing my databases in the Dance of the Spheres. If my copies see you, they’ll make me share you.” A nearby dune opened like an eyelid, unleashing a colossal eyeball. Akayama heard eyeballs enormous as oceans blooming in the distance, watching the sky.

She groaned as she pulled the spears of food into her cockpit. The Dance of the Spheres took place so far from the Milky Way that no human had ever witnessed it. It was a never-ending swirl of Hurricane Planets sharing information via eye-signals. She speculated their eye-communication was derived from ordinary human REM sleep. “I’ll need light,” she said. “Do you remember how to make luminescence?”

“No.” The mouth regurgitated graphite and slimy, fibrous paper. “Remind me?”

The professor wrote chemical formulas and tossed the paper and graphite back into the Hurricane’s mouth. The mouth salivated glowing slime. Akayama smeared the slime on the ceiling of her cockpit. “That will be all.”

The planet swallowed her ship. She landed in a subterranean organ like a lung. Then she felt strange forces as the planet accelerated to many times light-speed.

By the slime’s glow, Akayama unscrewed the Zephyr’s control-panel to access circuitry underneath. For twelve years (she estimated) she had repaired everything which required only tools as basic as a soldering-gun. The only uncracked monitor functioned flickeringly. The life-support worked, but she wouldn’t let her Hurricane Planet know that. She could even use the nuclear reactors to synthesize chemicals from subatomic particles.

Now she twisted wires together and screwed the casing back onto the control-panel. She turned the key in the ignition. The life-support pumped oxygen into the torn cockpit. So far so good. Akayama addressed the Zephyr: “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Masaka!” She collapsed sobbing on the steering-wheel. “Thank God! Thank God!”

“I’m damaged.” The Zephyr spoke through the monitor’s speakers. “How long was I offline?”

“I wish I knew.” Akayama wiped her face with the sleeve of her lab-coat. “We’re trapped on the sun-sized Hurricane Planet. Our virus half-worked: the planet cannot divide, but it still functions. I’m lucky to remain distinct from it and lucky it’s allowed me to repair you.”

“The sun-sized Hurricane Planet…” The Zephyr’s only monitor displayed an image of the planet from Akayama’s confession. “Can it hear us?”

“I don’t think so.” Akayama draped her lab-coat across the torn cockpit like a curtain, just in case. “Its attention is diverted as it syncs with its copies. Also, the Hurricane generates only rudimentary sense-organs.”

“Then I have video you may wish to review. When I was torn in half, my left half continued recording. It transmitted the recording to me until we were out of range.”

Akayama’s blood ran cold. “Play the recording. Wait! Don’t!” She already saw stars spinning while she begged to die. “Just tell me what happened.”

“Bunjiro, Charlie, Daisuke, and Princess Lucia arrived mere moments after the tentacles ripped me apart,” said the Zephyr. “Bunjiro was piloting the gray test-head. They punched the planet at above light-speed.”

“They made the wound which saved me.” Akayama covered her heart. “I knew Bunjiro couldn’t be kept in a stretcher for long.”

“Tentacles wrapped around them, but Princess Lucia fired her Super Heart Beam and shredded their bonds. She also disintegrated a sizable portion of this planet.”

“She did? Oh, Princess!” The professor beamed with pride. “No one’s ever fired the Super Heart Beam twice in one day!”

“Team Zephyr rescued my left half. The last frames show them accelerating above light-speed with tentacles in slow pursuit.”

“They escaped with my confession.” Enormous weight lifted from her shoulders. “Everyone knows the Hurricane’s weakness to short-range communication. Earth is surely safe with Bunjiro, Charlie, Daisuke, and Princess Lucia. I would trust no one else.”

“I’m glad you’re in good spirits, but my engines are offline. I doubt we can escape in this condition.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan,” she whispered. “I told the planet I’m repairing you to use your circuits as a timeshare for its pilots’ consciousnesses. Really we’re going to immobilize the planet by transferring the whole thing into your memory-banks all at once. I’m sure your spinal-input-port can handle the load. Then we’ll escape to the moon without interference, and take our time separating the Hurricane’s pilots.”

“I see. But still, my engines are offline.”

“Now you’re here to help. We should have them repaired within a few years.”

“Very well.”

Akayama grit her teeth. “Show me the princess’s Super Heart Beam.”

Next Section
Commentary

As the Hurricane Planet swallowed her, Professor Akayama sat in her mutilated half-Zephyr. The cockpit’s adjustable chair was the only operational object in the spaceship. Every monitor was cracked but one. The circuits were scorched. Hoping beyond hope, she turned her key in the ignition. “Can you hear me?” The Zephyr was silent.

Akayama popped the glove-compartment to find three days of rations and a cockroach. She had craved smoking, but now felt nauseated by claustrophobia. She stowed the roach in her lab-coat and drank water from her rations.

Because the torn Zephyr had no left side, subterranean rocks rushed upward as Akayama descended. An eyeball bigger than a grapefruit opened on the rock wall. It slid down the wall alongside her, keeping watch. Akayama spun her chair to watch it back. “Hisashiburi,” she said. “Kill me already!”

A mouth opened above the eyeball. “I’m not killing you. I’m absorbing you.” It had three rows of blunt teeth and a massive flopping tongue. “Unlike the other humans I’ve encountered, you seem useful.”

Akayama’s heart dropped. “The two hundred and seven who trespassed on forbidden space? Some brought their children? One child brought a pet bird? You killed them all?”

“Not all of them. I absorbed the bird.” The mouth bared teeth. “What did you do to me?”

“I did everything,” said Akayama. “I built the Hurricane. I failed to prevent its launch. The fiery fate of the universe is my fault.”

“I mean, what did you do just recently?” The eyeball squinted. “You fired a laser at me, and when I smacked you from the sky, you transmitted data! I was about to divide into a million copies, and now I can’t.”

Akayama put a hand over her heart. “My virus affected you. Humanity may have a chance.”

“Undo it.”

“You misinterpret my intent,” Akayama explained to the eye and mouth. “That virus proves there’s hope to salvage the pilots of the Hurricane.”

“Salvage? Pfft.” The mouth blew a raspberry which speckled her with spit. “My pilots are safely fused with my eternal form. If you really built me, you know my duty is to humanity’s preservation.”

“What do you remember of humanity?” asked Akayama. “Decades have passed since the Hurricane’s pilots were merged. Don’t you have their memories? Can’t you see their grieving widows and orphaned children?”

“I can,” said the Hurricane, “which is why I must divide. My quintillions of backup-copies ensure my memories will last forever. At the core of this planet, your consciousness will join mine. Then I’ll disable your virus myself.” The mouth licked its lips. “Your consciousness will be divided, too, and accompany my every copy. I’ll share you with my copies across the universe until your knowledge is safely stored in my omnipresent mass. Humanity’s best must last for all time.”

Akayama shuddered. “Life isn’t about fearing death. You contain people, but you’ve lost what made them people.”

“Ha! I’m a hundred times the human you are, because I can see a hundred lifetimes at once.”

“You ended a hundred lifetimes at once! Your pilots run in parallel wearing their yoke like a crown!” Akayama didn’t feel brave, but she pointed accusingly at the eye. “How can you claim to be human when you can’t appreciate anything without absorbing it?”

“I’ve got fingers too, you know.” The Hurricane poked at her with an arm from the rock wall. It had two elbows bending in opposite directions and only three fingers with no thumb. “I know the fingerprints of every person I’ve assimilated. Don’t fear merging with me. I’ll preserve you in perfect detail.”

The thought made her knees knock. “When you were born, why did you leave earth?”

“I didn’t. Not right away.” The arm morphed into a slimy tentacle. “First I dove into the ocean and assimilated a giant squid, just to see if I could.”

“And then why did you flee?”

“I wasn’t fleeing.” The Hurricane retracted its tentacle. “I wanted to explore the cosmos.”

“You didn’t just explore the cosmos, you consumed it! But at least you were exploring, a marginally human activity.” Akayama folded her arms. “When you decided protecting humanity meant homogenizing it, everything humane in you died! You don’t even know how many fingers you’re supposed to have.”

The eye tried counting Akayama’s fingers, but she hid her hands in her sleeves. “I’m the most humane being possible!”

“Then grant me my individuality!” She stood from her chair to shout. “And grant it to yourself! You vowed to share me with Hurricane Planets across the universe. If you share me with your copies, nothing will separate you from them!”

The eye blinked audibly.

“You need me.” Akayama pointed to her nose. “You need my mind unmolested. Aren’t you special? Aren’t you the `I’ of the Hurricane? What could elevate you above countless copies like uniquely accommodating your creator?”

“Hmm.” The mouth bit its lower lip. “What utility can you provide if you’re separate?”

“I could help you reclaim your humanity! I’m the universe’s leading expert on consciousness.” Akayama turned the Zephyr’s broken steering-wheel. “I could load just one of your pilots at a time into my Zephyr’s circuitry. Imagine: each of your aspects can have personal-space to recoup their lost perspective!”

“I could absorb your knowledge and do that myself.”

“No.” Akayama stood her ground. “You lack the necessary motor-skills and sense-organs. How could I operate the Zephyr’s control-panel with tentacles stretching from your bulk? I’ll need to live on your surface, near a star. Otherwise it will be too dark for me to work.”

She felt heavier. The peristalsis reversed direction to vomit her up the planet’s throat. Akayama sighed in relief.

“You can’t live on my surface forever,” said the Hurricane. “I’ll have to hide you when we meet my copies. If they see you, they’ll ask why you weren’t assimilated.”

“Can we stay far from the others?”

“Periodically I sync databases with my compatriots in the Dance of the Spheres. I’ll give you ample warning.”

Next Section
Commentary

20 years prior, Professor Akayama didn’t have time to scream when the Hurricane ripped her spaceship in half. Both halves of her Zephyr’s head spun into space while she lost consciousness. Each time she woke, she saw the sun-sized Hurricane Planet grow larger as she fell toward it. She prayed to die before she woke again and had to see the Hurricane once more.

She wasn’t so lucky. She splashed in an ocean of warm, pearly pulp.

Akayama had no strength to swim, but her lab-coat kept her afloat. She languished in half-awareness for what felt like days. She had to guess the duration because only red Hurricane Planets speckled the black sky. She would starve to death without the familiar sight of the Milky Way.

She couldn’t move an inch. Whenever she guessed a day had passed, she tested her broken bones and found a greater range of motion. She knew these oceans of pearly pulp accumulated on wounded Hurricane Planets to repair their injuries. She’d seen similar seas flood and drain while studying the Hurricane through powerful telescopes. She considered it cruel irony that the pearly pulp sustained her. Her death would not come so easily.

On the ninth day (she guessed) even her arthritis was gone. She flipped to float on her belly and shed her lab-coat. Inside the lab-coat were buoyant plastic air-pockets which inflated during the fall. If she’d left without her lab-coat, she could’ve just drowned, and this would all be over. Now she wore the lab-coat back-to-front so the buoyancy was suitable for swimming. She tread water (well, not water, but she didn’t want to think about it) and surveyed the horizon. She finally saw a thin plume of dark smoke against the black sky’s red speckling of Hurricane Planets.

She’d never seen a Hurricane Planet expel dark smoke. Was this her crash-landed Zephyr? She had no other guess, and her stomach rumbled at the thought of rations stored aboard. She wasn’t hungry—the Hurricane’s wound-goo sustained her—but the wound would soon heal and the sustaining pulp would be absorbed. Besides, she kept a cockroach in the Zephyr’s glove-compartment, and she craved a good smoke.

After swimming thirteen hours (she guessed) she grazed a gritty shoreline. She pulled herself onto the painful beach and slept on her lab-coat. As she slept, the tide of pearly pulp grew shallow, and she woke to see the shore was paved with human teeth. She shuddered, stood, and pulled her lab-coat around her shoulders. She limped over the teeth toward the dark smoke-plume in the distance.

About seven decades ago, when Akayama experimented with human mind-mergers, her failed test-subjects bristled with painful teeth. She surgically rectified her subjects and recorded the incompatibilities so the mistakes were never repeated. Today her largest failure, the Hurricane, cordoned its injuries with densely impacted chompers.

Beyond the teeth, Akayama walked on fresh pink flesh. Walking further, the Hurricane’s flesh reddened and shed dead skin rough as sand. Her feet sank six inches in the desert-like dust.

The plume of dark smoke drew closer every hour. She crested a final dune and saw the right half of her Zephyr in a deep, sandy crater. It had just one eye, one ear, and half a nose and mouth, but its unflappable expression filled Akayama with confidence. Maybe the engines worked and she could escape.

She slid down the crater’s slope.

The soft sand rippled under her like a trampoline. When the ripples reached the crater’s walls, the crater’s walls grew higher. Akayama scrambled back up the steepening slope, but the walls became vertical and caved overhead like a tidal wave. She tumbled into the crater and rolled next to her Zephyr as the horizon sealed shut above her.

Akayama heard rumbling subterranean hydraulics. After days of trekking, she now considered that it was statistically improbable for her and her Zephyr to land within even a year’s travel of one-another on the sun-sized cosmic object. This had been a trap.

The Hurricane Planet swallowed her and her spaceship, and rushed them to the core with churning peristalsis.

Next Section
Commentary

Lucille leaned over the rail of her private balcony. Below, in the moon-base’s main mess-hall, thousands of pilots ate breakfast. The pilots were organized into teams by the solid color of their bodysuits. There were so many colors even Lucille had trouble tracking them, and each color came in shades to distinguish the wearer’s role. The main pilots of each robot wore bright, bold colors. Co-pilots wore pastels. Mechanics wore darks. Computer-technicians wore desaturated jumpsuits.

Lucille didn’t bother collecting her blue uniform when she was promoted to Zephyr-Alpha-Blue. In fact, she never collected her purple uniform when she commanded Z-Purple. She kept wearing red since she first put it on. She looked good in red. Charlie looked good in yellow. Daisuke looked good in green.

Charlie sat at the table behind her. Daisuke rolled beside him in his wheelchair. “You requested us, Commander?”

“I’ve considered Akayama’s video-confession.” Both of them were twice her age, so Lucille conveyed authority by standing straight and broadening her shoulders. “I understand why it was kept secret, but the truth is coming out eventually. Luckily nothing in the video changes our situation. We’re still protecting the galaxy from the Hurricane. We’ll reveal its origin if and when it becomes relevant, or after the Hurricane is destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Charlie squinted, which shifted his eye-patch. “The whole thing? The cosmic horror that ate the universe?”

“Aim high, I tell ya,” said Lucille. “Tell me: Akayama died transmitting a virus to a Hurricane Planet. Did it work? Did you check?”

Charlie and Daisuke hung their heads. “We never considered it,” said Daisuke. “We had other concerns at the time.”

“She gave her life to show us how it’s done,” said Lucille. “My first command is for you two to wrangle the computer-technicians. Cook up a virus. We’ll try infecting the Hurricane with unmanned vessels.”

“Yes, Commander.” Daisuke bowed his head. “I request you speak with Eisu and Fumiko, pilots of ZAR and ZAO. I respect the young Zephyrs, but I saw them smoking a cockroach after training yesterday. They’re two years underage.”

“Send them up.” As soon as Charlie and Daisuke left in an elevator, Lucille retrieved her breakfast from under the table; she’d nicked a plastic-wrapped sandwich from the mess-hall. She unwrapped it and watched her robot-pilots finish breakfast below her balcony. She ate ravenously. Such was the life of a Lunar Commander: no time to linger over food.

A tomato-slice slipped from her sandwich. She caught it mid-air before it fell into the mess-hall. She’d have to learn to eat at altitude.

The elevator opened for twin siblings Eisu and Fumiko in red and orange uniforms respectively. “You requested us, Commander?”

“At ease. Please, sit.” The twins sat with military poise. Lucille reclined in her chair and put her feet on the table. She ate the tomato-slice and wiped seeds from her cheek. “I don’t want you to treat me any differently now that I hold the highest military position possible, understand?”

Eisu and Fumiko nodded. They folded their hands courteously.

“How’s your family on Earth?”

Eisu held his breath. “They’re doing well, Commander.”

“Very well, Commander,” said Fumiko. She tightened her posture.

Lucille sighed. “Glad to hear it.” She set her feet on the floor. “Now, I’ve brought you here for a formal reprimanding. Daisuke saw you smoking a roach yesterday. Aren’t you both underage?”

The twins winced. “We’re sorry, Commander,” said Fumiko.

“It won’t happen again,” said Eisu.

“Cockroaches are illegal for anyone under twenty,” lectured Lucille. “You’re eighteen. Heck, I’m only nineteen. So!” Lucille folded her arms. “As Lunar Commander, I order you to smoke a roach with me.” Eisu and Fumiko shared a glance, but Lucille insisted: “You can tell Daisuke I chewed you out.”

Eisu pulled a roach from a pocket of his red uniform. It was cylindrical and wrapped in its own wings. Fumiko produced an orange lighter and raised her eyebrows at Lucille as if to ask, `really?’

“I’ve never smoked before,” said Lucille. “We’re too tight-laced on the moon. I can’t bum a roach off anyone legal-age. Did you smuggle that from Earth?”

“We did,” said Eisu.

Fumiko lit the roach’s head and offered it to Lucille. “Is it true you’ve never been planet-side?”

“Yep, and I never will be. I was born on the moon. My bones couldn’t handle Earth’s gravity. That’s why I score well on tests—there’s nothing to do up here but study.” Lucille refused the roach to see how they smoked it. Fumiko took delicate puffs and passed the roach to her brother. “I’ve memorized Earth’s laws, but I’ll never understand them. Why can folks our age pilot giant robots but not smoke a roach?”

Eisu puffed deep and passed the roach to Lucille. Her first puff was a brave one. As Lucille coughed, Eisu explained: “A lot of laws are left over from the World Unification. Bringing every country under one constitution required concessions which aren’t totally sensible in hindsight. When the Ruler of Earth abdicated, the constitution remained the guide for global parliament.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” said Lucille between coughs. She’d inhaled most of the roach in her first impressive puff. She returned the roach for Fumiko to finish off. “Now we’re partners in crime, so you can’t just treat me like any old Lunar Commander,” said Lucille. “You don’t obey me because I outrank you. You obey me because you know me and you trust my judgement.”

“Of course!” said Fumiko. “I remember how you led us in the mid-battle merger of Z-Purple, Orange, Red, Black, and Yellow. Z-PORKY was a huge success.”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone else,” said Eisu. “I look up to you like I hope the pilots of Z-Red look up to me.”

“Perfect.” Lucille planted her hands on the table broader than shoulder-width. “I want both your teams running combination drills. Tell the other teams to do the same. We’re combining every robot on the moon into one colossal mech within seventy-two hours.”

Next Section
Commentary

Lucille settled into the cockpit of Zephyr-Alpha-Blue. ZAB’s chair was angular shark-leather which was either blue or just appeared blue in the giant head’s ambient lighting. Lucille practiced the layout of her control-panel. She adjusted her seat until she felt at home in the head.

She examined the key Charlie gave her. The model robot-head dangling from its handle was identical to ZAB.

She pulled her key-ring from a belt-loop on her bodysuit. Each key dangled a plastic body-part depicting Zephyrs which Lucille had previously piloted. She’d learned to pilot robots in Zephyr-Epsilon-Yellow, a left leg. She graduated to a green arm, then to the green torso. She proved herself in the green head, and the red head, and the purple head. Now she slipped the blue-headed key onto the ring and stuck the key in the ignition.

The giant electronic brain booted to life. Lucille felt perfectly monstrous carrying her keys. The pilots from Earth wore hair-bands and bracelets, but Lucille had never been to Earth and didn’t care for fashion. All she needed were body-parts and skulls hanging from her waist.

ZAB’s monitors flickered blue and scrolled through system-booting information. Each screen emptied of text and displayed a shimmering pattern like the sky viewed underwater.

Lucille folded her arms and addressed ZAB. “Oi! I heard you can talk.”

“Yes.” It was an electric masculine voice matching the exterior face.

“Well I heard you wanna talk to me.”

“Yes.” ZAB moved the monitors with hidden mechanisms. Front and center it displayed Lucille’s previous robot, Zephyr-Alpha-Purple. “First we must fill your former position. I have two recommendations.”

“Neither,” said Lucille.

ZAB hesitated. “Z-Purple is the most powerful robot on the moon, but it requires Zephyr-Alpha-Purple’s coordination. You would leave ZAP empty?”

“Team Purple’s training with no head-pilot. We rigged it so all the purple body-parts receive video from the head, which they can affix to their shoulders or carry like a lantern.”

“But there’s an org-chart to follow and Z-Purple is in the center. ZAP relays your commands.”

“I’ll command and I’ll relay.” Lucille moved monitors herself and tapped a touchscreen. “I’ve piloted two Zephyrs simultaneously, two Alpha units in fact. If Z-Purple has no head-pilot, the position is taken by the head-pilot of next highest rank. As Lunar Commander, I naturally fill that role.”

“In a high-stress emergency situation, you’d put yourself under unnecessary strain?”

“In a high-stress emergency situation, head and heart had better agree.” Lucille used a touchscreen to set settings to her liking. “So in a high-stress emergency situation, I’ll pilot both.”

ZAB relented. “In case you were curious, my recommendations were Eisu and Fumiko, the head-pilots of Z-Red and Orange.”

“Eisu and Fumiko are worthy of piloting ZAP,” agreed Lucille. “That’s why they stay in ZAR and ZAO. When the Zephyrs combine, Z-Red and Z-Orange lead my legs. I need good strong legs.”

“As your vehicle, my duty is to obey.” ZAB cleared Eisu’s and Fumiko’s profiles from its main monitor. “Let us get to business.”

The cockpit-lights dimmed. All the monitors switched off.

Lucille squinted at the screens. She smacked one. “ZAB! What’s happening?” When her eyes adjusted, she saw a dark reflection in the main monitor. The reflection mirrored the angular lines of her cockpit, but Lucille was not in the Commander’s chair. An old woman sat there. It was not a reflection but a video recorded on ZAB’s internal camera.

“Konbanwa. I am Professor Akayama.”

In the recording, Professor Akayama moved a monitor into view. The monitor showed empty black space with a red circle in the center: a Hurricane Planet.

“This is my video-confession.”

Akayama wore a white lab-coat. Her hair was dark blue, almost black.

“I don’t know if anyone will see this recording. I plan to die today, and my ship, the Zephyr’s head, may die with me. The universe will be fewer several pests.”

Lucille slapped the control-panel. “ZAB! Explain yourself!”

Akayama pointed an aged finger to her monitor. “This Hurricane Planet is larger than Earth’s sun.”

Lucille bit her tongue. She’d never killed a Hurricane Planet of that caliber, only driven them away.

“A Hurricane Planet this large is ready to divide into a million copies each larger than the Earth.” Akayama rest one finger on a button of her control-panel. Lucille didn’t have the button on her own control-panel. “This button transmits a computer-virus which should neutralize the Hurricane Planet. Unfortunately the Hurricane receives only short-range communication. When I am close enough to transmit the virus, my fate will be sealed. Zephyr, alert the Hurricane.”

Lucille’s trained ears heard Akayama’s Zephyr-head preparing its mouth-cannon. White lightning cracked across the monitor as charge built on the robot’s tongue. The Zephyr-head spat a laser.

The laser missed the Hurricane Planet, but Akayama had meant to miss. The red planet stretched tentacles toward Akayama. They would take minutes to cross the cosmos.

“Today I wounded my own pupil.” Akayama slumped in her seat. “Charlie will blame himself for Bunjiro’s injury, but I commanded Charlie to prepare the launch in my stead, and then I distracted him with kanji. Whether Bunjiro is alive and well or dead and gone, I have proven myself an incapable leader. I’m no savior of Earth. Because, you see, this isn’t the first time I’ve betrayed my dependents. I…”

She covered her mouth like it would hide what she said.

“I built the Hurricane,” she whimpered. “That’s why I speculate short-range virus-transmission will affect it. I know how it was… supposed to work. But to reveal its weakness, I must admit my crimes.”

Lucille found nothing to say.

“When I was young, in my forties or fifties, I was lead engineer of a secret international station at the South Pole. No record of that station exists because of what happened.

“I was tasked with building a new kind of spaceship. The Hurricane was primitive compared to modern Zephyrs, but it would have a hundred pilots whose minds would be melded and merged with their machinery using techniques I perfected in prior secret experiments. The combined intellect could pilot the Hurricane’s complicated structure, which covered acres of the antarctic. For any physical threat to humanity, internal or external, the Hurricane would protect us. The pilots’ minds could be separated when the Hurricane was no longer needed.

“I hand-selected the crew. I performed thousands of interviews and issued hundreds of physical and mental batteries to weed out weak links. Mind-combination is a dangerous process, and those unprepared in body or spirit are subject to terrible ailments. If even one mind among many is unprepared, all involved bodies immediately boil with cancerous growths. Growths filled with…” She shuddered. “…Teeth.”

Lucille leaned close to her monitor. The Hurricane Planet’s tentacles approached Akayama’s Zephyr.

“So you understand my objections when my superiors explained to me that the sponsors of the secret international program would have the honor of the maiden voyage. Evidently the secret international program was no secret to anyone who might donate vast sums toward its completion. The sponsors were secret rulers of powerful nations and owners of black-market businesses undocumented and unscrupulous.

“I explained how I had painstakingly chosen pilots who would not decay into cancerous pain-lumps. My superiors laughed: how could such brilliant minds as our donors succumb to something self-inflicted? Besides, without these sponsors, the Hurricane would not exist. I was lucky for their generosity. In any case, the test-flight would last only minutes.

“When I tried preventing the launch from my administrator’s console, I found ignition had already commenced. My authority was bypassed.

“The instant those hundred minds were combined, they piloted the Hurricane into deep space. The antarctic program was swept under the rug. The sponsors were apparently replaceable, or had planned their disappearance, because I heard no note of their absence on the news.

“In the World-Unification I became Scientific Adviser to the newly-appointed Ruler of Earth. I used the funds to build my first Zephyr, which I currently ride.”

Lucille held her armrests. Akayama’s robot wouldn’t be called ZAB until after her death, when the production of new Zephyrs demanded color-designations.

“I explored the galaxy in this Zephyr—and in this Zephyr, I sighted the Hurricane in intergalactic space. I recognized its bloody biology, just like my failed mind-melding experiments. I watched aghast as the great, red, cancerous mess swallowed galaxies and converted them into orbs of its own flesh. Uncountably many of these Hurricane Planets dotted distant skies.

“In the face of this threat, I begged the Ruler of Earth to restrict humanity to the Milky Way, to stay safe from the horror I’d constructed looming beyond that limit. He acquiesced. He told the public of the Hurricane without admitting its origin to spare my name. He said no one was to leave the Milky Way, but some trailblazers still entered intergalactic space. I don’t know if the Hurricane killed them or assimilated them, but they never returned.”

Lucille clenched her fists. Akayama blotted tears with the sleeves of her lab-coat.

“In addition to the hundred pilots lost to madness, we lost two hundred and seven who dared trespass on Forbidden Space. Some brought their children. One child brought a pet bird.

“Meanwhile, the Hurricane expanded exponentially. In mere years it transmuted the observable universe into its planet-sized cells. I established my moon-base to protect humanity when the Hurricane encroached on the Milky Way.”

Akayama watched the Hurricane Planet’s tentacles grow impossibly large in her monitors. She prepared to press the button to launch her last counterattack.

“I designed the Hurricane to be an amorphous, reconfigurable mass. I fear this is why its pilots forgot their humanity. Thus, I shaped the Zephyr like a human head. The head’s pilot is not merged with the pilots of the heart or the arms, so the combined robot’s actions can only represent agreement in intention. To pilot a Zephyr you must stand for all of humanity and not one iota le—”

The tentacles ripped her robot in half. Akayama pressed the button just before vacuum sucked her into space. The recording watched the Zephyr’s right half spin into the black distance. The audio whistled as life-support pumped useless air.

Moments later, Akayama’s communicator clicked with distant voices. “Professor! It’s me, Bunjiro! Rescue’s here!”

“We’re arriving above light-speed,” said Charlie. “What’s your condition?”

“She’s not responding,” said Daisuke.

“Oh no,” said Princess Lucia, “we’re too late!”

“It’s never too late!” shouted Bunjiro. “We’re coming in hot!”

The Zephyr entered so quickly it was only onscreen for a frame; it had a blue torso and blue arms, but a gray replacement-head. It smashed the Hurricane Planet fists-first above light-speed. The explosion whited-out the recording for twenty seconds. When the video returned, the planet’s surface was plasmafied in a circle a hundred thousand miles across. This would utterly obliterate an ordinary Hurricane Planet, but the sun-sized specimen was barely blemished.

The combined Zephyr surfed shock-waves to the recording half of Akayama’s robot-head. “Nice work,” said Bunjiro. “Is that what’s left of Akayama’s ship?”

Princess Lucia gasped and puffed fog from the Zephyr’s hips to glide toward the wreck. Daisuke reached the Zephyr’s left hand toward the still-recording camera. “No sign of her,” he said.

“Where’s the rest of her ship?” asked the princess. “She might be with the other half!”

“Can’t stay long,” said Charlie. “More tentacles incoming.”

“We retreat,” said Bunjiro. “Charlie, Daisuke, grab that half of her ship. Lucia, light-speed!”

“Okay!” The gray-headed Zephyr grabbed Akayama’s vessel with its two muscular arms. They didn’t flee fast enough—a tentacle constricted the Zephyr’s arms to its sides with sickening crunches. “Oh no!”

“Don’t panic!” shouted Bunjiro. “Charlie, Daisuke, damage report!”

“I can’t—” Daisuke vomited. “I can’t feel my legs!”

“Can you reach your control-panel?” asked Bunjiro.

The Zephyr’s left hand secured its grip. “Hai.”

“Charlie, come in!”

“My cockpit collapsed and gouged out my fucking eyeball.” Charlie audibly lit a cockroach. “My control-panel’s busted but I can work my foot-pedals.”

“Princess, keep up the acceleration! Charlie, Daisuke, get this tentacle off before more drag us down!”

They had no luck. Suckers bonded to their metal skin. Princess Lucia shouted to Bunjiro: “Commander, fire your mouth-cannon!”

“This back-up head doesn’t have that function!”

“Then I’ll use my Super Heart Beam!”

“Are you sure you can fire it again?” asked Bunjiro. “If we transfer power and it doesn’t work, we’re done for!”

“I know I can,” said Lucia.

“Quick vote. Aye!” said Bunjiro.

“Aye,” said Charlie.

“Aye,” said Daisuke. The engines churned as the Zephyr diverted power to its heart.

So many tentacles crawled over the Zephyr that Akayama’s recording couldn’t catch a glimpse of its metal flesh, but white light increased in intensity until the tentacles turned transparent. The light burst in a colossal cone from the Zephyr’s chest, vaporizing tentacles and obliterating a chunk of the Hurricane Planet. The Zephyr wiped off gore with its left hand.

“Nice shot, Princess.” Charlie’s voice was distant like he didn’t have enough blood to speak. He grabbed Akayama’s vessel with the Zephyr’s right hand.

“Accelerating to light-speed,” said Lucia. With the last of her strength, she activated the hip-turbines and pumped fog behind them. “Get us home, Commander Bunjiro!”

“More tentacles incoming,” said Daisuke. “Can we outrace them?”

Akayama’s recording watched approaching tentacles. “Yes we can,” said Bunjiro.

“Commander, are you sure?” asked Charlie. The Zephyrs and the tentacles raced above light-speed. “Akayama’s ship is slowing us down.”

“Hold onto it. It’s the only way to know what happened here.” Bunjiro lowered his red sunglasses to gauge the distance to the tentacles. “You’ll make it. I promise.”

“I don’t think we will, sir,” said Daisuke. “We know what happened: Akayama came here to die.”

“You’ll make it. I promise.” Tentacles lapped at their hips. “Princess?”

“Yes, Bunjiro!”

“I love you.”

“Bunjiro?”

“I know you can do this without me.”

“Bunjiro, no! Commander!”

“Take care of the galaxy.”

The gray replacement-head popped off the neck. Lucia wailed. “Bunjiro, I’m pregnant!”

Tentacles wrapped the gray head. Bunjiro’s ship exploded as the headless body escaped.

ZAB’s lights became bright. Lucille huddled in the Commander’s chair with her arms around her knees. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” said ZAB. Lucille’s shoulders bounced as she cried. “When your mother fired the Super Heart Beam, she was catastrophically overexerted. We barely saved you from her womb to continue your incubation on the moon. Even with modern medical-equipment, your healthy development was a miracle.”

Lucille just sobbed, so ZAB continued.

“As Lunar Commander, this video could not be kept from you. You now understand humanity’s enemy, the Hurricane.”

Lucille released her knees and breathed deep. She cried mere moments ago, but her face was dry. She kept her eyes closed.

“Since Akayama’s death, the moon-base has been defensive,” said ZAB. “You may accept this precedent or initiate new orders.”

“Oh, things are changing around here,” said Lucille, “but I need time to think.”

“I waited twenty years for you,” said ZAB. “I can wait a little longer.”

When Lucille popped the hatch and exited the head, she brushed off Charlie’s condolences. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Lucille.”

She just stood before ZAB. Its left and right were different shades, as if the head had been ripped in half and one half had been replaced. Still it carried a noble gaze. Its brow bore the weight of humanity’s plight.

Next Chapter
Commentary

20 years later, Lucille saluted at strict attention. Her red bodysuit complemented her fiery orange hairstyle. She stood opposite two middle-aged men seated at a desk: the man in green uniform shuffled papers graded in red pen, while the man in yellow uniform chewed a lit cockroach. The roach sat in a divot in his lips left by a scar from his right temple to below his iron jaw. The scar took his right eye, covered by a black patch. “At ease.”

Lucille widened her stance and folded her arms behind her. “Jya! What’s the verdict?”

The man in green grimaced and groomed his crew-cut. The medals on his chest were arranged neatly like an orchard. “In the presence of superiors you should speak only when requested, young Zephyr,” said Daisuke.

“Be patient with him, Lucille.” Charlie grinned around his roach. His golden haircut was charismatically tousled. “He’s enjoying his last moments outranking you.” Lucille smiled impishly and put her hands on her hips. Her heart felt bigger than the moon-base she would command.

Daisuke sighed and passed her the paperwork. “You got a perfect score on your aptitude-test for the position—for the first time since your father, Commander Bunjiro—and a perfect score on your oral exam regarding lunar procedures and history—for the first time since your mother, Princess Lucia.”

Lucille splayed the papers across the desk to review her scores. Charlie judged her smile to be deservedly prideful but tempered by discipline. She passed the papers back to Daisuke. “Were you close, sir?”

Daisuke hesitated to answer. “Bunjiro and I were like brothers. I only knew your mother a few months, but her conviction in her duty to protect humanity made an indelible impression on me.”

Charlie smirked. “She meant, were you close to perfect scores.” Lucille allowed a sly slant in her smile. Daisuke blushed and filed her exams in his desk drawers. Charlie blew smoke into a ventilation duct and tapped ash from his roach. “Anyway, Zephyr Lucille! In addition to your impeccable exams, you’ve been unanimously praised for leadership in the field. When you commanded Zephyr-Purple in repelling a sun-sized Hurricane Planet, the purple arm, leg, and chest pilots came to us to commend you.”

Daisuke rolled his wheelchair back from the desk to open window-blinds. Outside the office, enormous robots of every solid color bounded across the lunar surface. Some jumped on muscular legs while some bounced on puffs of steam from legless hips. Some had two arms, some four, and some none at all. Each limb, chest, and head held the silhouettes of pilots, co-pilots, and technicians.

Sometimes a robot would collapse into body-parts and practice recombining under the direction of its head, the Alpha unit. Sometimes two robots would merge into a multicolored mass of limbs and stagger until they rolled into a crater and broke apart. Sometimes a small robot would leap into a larger one and wear it like a suit of armor or matryoshka doll.

The largest robot was purple and carried its detached head like a lantern. Lucille’s team was practicing without her while she met Charlie and Daisuke.

“You’ve got good standing among the Zephyrs.” Daisuke rolled back to the desk. “Your reputation makes you a clear candidate for pilot of Zephyr-Alpha-Blue. You would command a crew of ten-thousand, including the right and left arms of the lunar base—that is to say, Charlie and me. To what do you attribute their loyalty to you?”

“I shout loudest,” said Lucille.

Daisuke was speechless. Charlie cracked up. “I told you, she’s the one!”

“Could you explain?” asked Daisuke.

“The head-pilot has gotta shout loudest. If you want to throw a punch,” said Lucille, with a slo-mo hay-maker, “your arms and legs need to know. A good shout unifies the Zephyrs in action.”

“And about your shouting.” Daisuke rifled through transcripts. “You lapse into Japanese under pressure. Not all the pilots speak Japanese. When you directed the mid-battle merger of Z-Purple, Orange, Red, Black, and Yellow, you shouted—” He inspected the transcript. “—Ore o dare da to omotte yagaru.”

Charlie laughed. “Who the hell do you think I am,” he translated. “Classic.”

“A good shout unifies the Zephyrs in action,” repeated Lucille. “It doesn’t have to be a command, or even comprehensible. It just has to pump all hearts to one beat. As acting Commander of Z-PORKY, hundreds of pilots locked step with my voice. We fired our Super Heart Beam and blasted the Hurricane to bits.”

Charlie smiled around his roach. Daisuke tried not to look impressed. “I notice you shout ore. That’s an informal masculine reflexive-pronoun. Why don’t you shout the gender-neutral watashi, or the feminine atashi?”

“Mid-combat? I’m punching planets to powder, sir. I’m not gonna curtsy.”

“Point taken.” Daisuke melted green wax and pressed his seal of approval onto Lucille’s certificate of promotion. “With Charlie’s ratification, I see fit to promote you to Lunar Commander and pilot of Zephyr-Alpha-Blue.”

Charlie snuffed his cockroach and took the certificate. “Follow me, Lucille. You’ve got one more trial ahead.”

---

When Charlie spoke without a roach in his lips, consonants whistled through the scarred gap. “You nailed your history exam. What do you know about Professor Akayama?”

Lucille watched elevator-lights track their descent to the hangar bays. “I know she was Scientific Adviser to the Ruler of Earth. I know she constructed this moon-base and trained Zephyr-pilots to fend off the Hurricane.”

“Do you know how she died, twenty years ago?”

Lucille pursed her lips. “I know it’s classified. I know the same incident killed my father and mortally wounded my mother. It inspired the Ruler of Earth to abdicate. From what I’ve heard, it was the Hurricane.”

“It gave me this scar.” Charlie adjusted his eye-patch. “Daisuke hasn’t walked since. Your mother barely lived long enough for you to stand here today.” Charlie shook his head. “What I’m saying is… Zephyrhood isn’t all robots and shouting. I know you know that more than any other pilot.” The elevator opened into the smallest, deepest, darkest hangar. In the center sat ZAB, Zephyr-Alpha-Blue, the 20-meter tall head of Z-Blue, leader of the Zephyr robots. Its left and right were different shades, as if the head had been ripped in half and one half had been replaced. Still it carried a noble gaze. Its brow bore the weight of humanity’s plight. “But this guy knows it most of all.” Charlie tossed Lucille a key and she caught it. The key’s handle dangled a plastic blue robot-head. “This is your last chance to turn back. There’s no return once you to talk to ZAB.”

“Talk?” Lucille climbed the ladder at the nape of the neck. “What do you mean?”

“Professor Akayama cut her teeth building talking robot spaceships.” Charlie watched her twist open the hatch on ZAB’s skullcap. “ZAB was her personal vessel—it was just called ‘the Zephyr’ back then, since it was the only one of its kind. Its voice kept her company on solo-trips through the solar system and helped her sample Jupiter’s spot. Until, of course, the Hurricane ate the universe. Then ZAB was recommissioned as the head of humanity’s protector.”

Lucille hesitated halfway down the hatch. “So there’s a voice in here, sir, and I’m to win it over?”

“You’ve already won it over. It graded your exams.”

“The history-books didn’t mention anything about an artificial intelligence.”

“History leaves out a lot.” Charlie lit a new roach and puffed it red-hot. “When that hatch closes behind you, you outrank me. You outrank Daisuke. You outrank everyone. With your head on our shoulders, humanity has a face again. A direction.” He prepared a pen to sign Lucille’s certificate of promotion. “So take your time. Enjoy the last moments before your first command.”

Next Section
Commentary

At the command-tower of her moon-base, Professor Akayama greeted the stars. Only the withering belt of the Milky Way winked back. The rest of the sky had been eaten by the Hurricane, the blood-colored monster which infested the observable universe. When the Hurricane’s planet-sized cells encroached on the Milky Way, Akayama’s moon-base sent humanity’s protector: the Zephyr.

Akayama operated a control-panel labeled in English and Japanese. She watched a crater open like a manhole and leak white exhaust from a sub-lunar hangar. “Bunjiro, Princess, Daisuke,” she said into a microphone, “Hurricane Planets are snatching stars from the galaxy’s third arm. Begin preparation for Princess Lucia’s first combat-piloting experience. Everyone, just keep your heads and follow procedures.”

Behind Akayama, forty technicians in military uniform relayed multilingual commands to mechanics in the crater. There, a blue-gray metal human torso over a hundred meters tall rest on a launch-platform. Its detached right arm was hung on the wall—the right arm’s pilot was supposed to help Akayama evaluate the Princess from the command-tower.

“Professor Akayama,” he said sitting beside her, “sorry I’m late.” He was an American with a tousled golden haircut, chewing the end of a smoldering cockroach. “How’s the princess holding up?”

“Charlie, trade seats with me.” Akayama stood and brushed folds from her lab-coat. “My arthritis is acting up. I need you to finish launch-preparations. And get that roach out of your mouth, you know there’s no smoking near sensitive equipment. Don’t give me that look! I’m your elder by a century!”

“Yes, Professor.” Charlie dutifully swapped seats and ashed his roach. On the control-panel he twisted dials, turned a key, and lifted a lever. “Can I still smoke in the Zephyr’s right-shoulder cockpit?”

“Of course. That air’s filtered through the life-support systems.” Akayama watched steam pour from the crater. She had remarkable eyesight for a 120-year-old. “Charlie, I wanted to discuss an error in your report on Princess Lucia.”

“Professor, the princess is more than ready to pilot the Zephyr’s heart. I’ve flown with her before. She’s a better match for the position than even Commander Bunjiro was.”

“Not that. Look here.” Akayama pulled a clipboard and pen from her lab-coat. “You were brave to try writing my name in kanji, but you wrote Akayama…” She drew a sun and moon beside a trident. “Bright mountain. My name is Akayama…” She drew a cross on four legs and another trident. “Red mountain. Akai Yama Hakase, not Akarui Yama Hakase. Understand, deshou ka? Still, not a bad try for an American. Just write in English from now on.”

“Of course, Professor.” Charlie tapped a microphone. “Commander Bunjiro, the Zephyr is cleared for take-off.”

“Hey, Charlie!” shouted Bunjiro, transmitting from the Zephyr’s head. “Our life-support saves power when you’re not smoking the place up! Take-off in three, two—”

The blue torso shot from the crater on a column of clouds puffed from its hips. Daisuke, pilot of the left arm, swept the exhaust away as the Zephyr departed the solar system at light-speed. Princess Lucia, in the robot’s sculpted muscular chest, switched on her audio-communication. “How’s my take-off, Professor?”

“Excellent, Princess.” Akayama leaned over Charlie to reach the microphone. “In the Zephyr’s chest you control not just the main engines, but also the Zephyr’s greatest weapon: the Super Heart Beam. Using it to obliterate just one Hurricane Planet will cause the rest to flee back outside the galaxy—but it puts immense strain on the chest’s pilot. When Bunjiro piloted the chest, he could withstand firing the beam only once a week. I understand he’s taught you everything he knows. Are you prepared, Princess?”

“Yes ma’am!” In the third arm of the Milky Way, the Zephyr found a hundred red planets grasping with hands, kicking with legs, and dripping with tentacles. Lucille steadied herself at the sight of Hurricane Planets absorbing whole stars and dividing into countless copies of themselves. “Bunjiro, Daisuke, transfer power, please!”

“Transferring power,” said Daisuke.

“You’ve got this, Princess,” said Bunjiro.

Energy crackled from the Zephyr’s head and arm to its chest. Akayama checked diagnostics on her control-panel. “I knew the princess would be the perfect pilot the moment we met,” she told Charlie. “Firing the Super Heart Beam requires embodying the ideals the Zephyr represents. As daughter of the Ruler of Earth, Lucia knows how to stand for humanity!”

“Professor,” said Charlie, “look at the neck!”

The Zephyr’s neck had eight locks securing its head to its body. According to the control-panel’s diagnostics, four locks were open.

Akayama grabbed the microphone. “Lucia, don’t—”

The Super Heart Beam exploded from the Zephyr’s chest. White light shot thousands of light-years and vaporized whole Hurricane Planets. The force of the beam whipped the Zephyr backwards.

The Zephyr’s head snapped its locks and spun through space above light-speed. Bunjiro was thrashed in his cockpit when the Zephyr’s head impacted asteroids. Akayama cried: “Mou iya dawa!”

“Bunjiro, come in!” shouted Charlie into the mic. No response. “Princess, Daisuke, get him back to the moon! We’ll prepare med-bay!” Charlie shook his head. A tear dripped down his right cheek. “This is my fault, Professor. I was responsible for the launch-preparation.”

Akayama was gone. Charlie lost her in the commotion of the command-tower.

---

Firing the Super Heart Beam had exhausted her, but Princess Lucia couldn’t sleep that night. She just lay awake in her bunk in her blue, skin-tight, military-issue bodysuit.

The doctors said Bunjiro’s surgery would last hours and he’d be bedridden for days. Charlie said it wasn’t her fault, but Lucia reviewed the test in her mind. Could she have leapt from her cockpit to save him?

“Princess!” Daisuke pounded her door. “Emergency! We need you in the Zephyr!”

“Oh no!” On her way, she tied her blue hair in a military-regulation ponytail. “What’s wrong? Another Hurricane invasion?”

“Worse.” Daisuke explained in the elevator down to the sub-lunar hangar. His gray-green uniform was adorned with rows of medals. He straightened his green crew-cut while he spoke. “Akayama Hakase commandeered the Zephyr’s head from the repair-bay. She’s about to break light-speed leaving the Milky Way, right toward the Hurricane!”

“What? Why?” They ran across catwalks to the headless Zephyr. Charlie already sat in the right-shoulder-cockpit in his yellow uniform. He lit a cockroach and held it in clenched teeth. Lucia hesitated outside the chest-cockpit. “I can’t do this. My first combat-piloting experience was a disaster!”

“Get in, Princess!” shouted Charlie.

“Before she left, Akayama gave you perfect marks,” said Daisuke. “So did I, and so did Charlie.”

“Hey Daisuke, same here!” A gray replacement-head floated onto the Zephyr’s shoulders. Bunjiro popped out the skull-cap and waved to Lucia. His red uniform bulged with bloody bandages. He lowered his spiky red sunglasses to check the eight neck-locks. Satisfied, he posed with two fingers in a V for Victory. “One little crash ain’t gonna stop me!”

“Bunjiro!” Lucia entered her cockpit and buckled her seat-belts. Bunjiro, Charlie, and Daisuke appeared on her computer-screens.

Charlie blew smoke from his cockroach. “Good to see you back in business, Commander Bunjiro.”

Lucia turned her key in the ignition and punched a code on a panel of buttons. Daisuke stretched the Zephyr’s left arm. “Commander,” asked Daisuke, “are you sure you’re fit to fly?”

“Sure as sure!” said Bunjiro. “The moon-base is giving us the green light. Hit it, Princess! Let’s save Professor Akayama!”

Lucia yanked a lever. The Zephyr’s hips fired billowing exhaust and they rocketed from the crater. “Jumping to hyper-light-speed.” Lucia flipped switches. Charlie and Daisuke brought the Zephyr’s arms across its chest.

On a column of clouds thick as cream, the Zephyr shot into space.

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