THE WATER BOILED. Esther poured it from the flask over the tea bag waiting in the cup. Four and a half minutes. That was the time stored in her memory.
Esther clasped her hands in her lap and waited. She gave the bag the expected swirl and threw it away. The trash can incinerated the tea bag with a blue flash. A hole opened up in the trash can to send the ashes to recycling, and the energy from the burn was stored in the spaceship’s battery. Nothing wasted.
Esther measured the honey, stirred it in, and then sipped.
“Too sweet.”
“It’s how you like it,” Dr. Tiberius said.
The black doctor squinted at Esther’s health diagnostics. Then he backed up and squinted again. Time for another laser eye correction for the old man.
“The tea’s how she liked it,” Esther said.
“You have the same DNA and the same tongue.”
“She liked it sweeter because her grandmother made it that way, not because of the taste.”
Her only good memories were with her grandmother.
“Her grandmother is your grandmother,” Tiberius said. “You are she.”
Esther was grown from her host’s DNA and implanted with her memories. She should feel the same about the same things and have the same take on the same issues. At least that was the expectation on her. The hair on the back of Esther’s neck bristled at those expectations. That was exactly how her host would have reacted.
But this tea didn’t play by those rules. No matter how precisely she measured, the honey was too much. But Esther had a part to play, whether she hated it or not.
She sipped the tea and didn’t break character. Her lips pinched the way her host’s would have, her face stayed expressionless. That, at least, felt natural. The faux porcelain cup clinked on its dish when the secret door to the hospital opened. Her stomach soured against the sickly sweetness inside it.
Esther didn’t turn to face the uniformed man, but instead cut her eyes at his reflection in her vanity mirror.
“Has she died . . . or do I?”
Perhaps it was cowardly. If she was to be executed, a part of her wanted to glare down the face of her executioner. But Esther wouldn’t meet Webb’s eyes.
“We’re docking with the Taara Makaan spaceport now, Admiral.”
The host was dead. Esther Levin rose, no longer clone but admiral.
“Wait for me outside.”
Webb sucked in his breath. Was he surprised by the sharpness in her voice? It’s how the original Esther Levin would have spoken to him to hide their affair.
He bowed, left her plasma pistol on the desk, and exited back through the hidden door.
Webb had plotted this clone deception in case the original Esther died from the virus. He’d called Tiberius and snuck him and his equipment onto the ship.
But Webb could also expose her secret. Esther would keep him close.
Before that, though, she had more urgent matters.
“Destroy the nanobots, Doctor,” Esther said and stepped onto the scanner plate next to his desk.
“I knew we wouldn’t need them.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t carrying assassin bots inside his bloodstream. Tiberius pressed a button on his desk.
A flash of light.
All the nanobots inside Esther deactivated. Her body would naturally break them down and remove them now. She stood tall to give off the illusion of calm, but the tightness around her chest had loosened. For the first time in her life, she could breathe freely.
Those nanobots had been installed on the off chance the original Esther survived the shakes virus. There can’t be two Admiral Esther Levins. If her host had lived, Tiberius would have hit a button, and Esther would have died. After only a month—though her memories stretched for forty-seven years—she would have ceased.
But her host had died, and her planet needed a living Admiral Levin. Esther was that living admiral now.
She donned her military cap, strapped on her pistol, and exited the room. Webb waited in the hallway. His hand faltered in his salute. His face couldn’t make that dashing smile her host had loved.
“You best eliminate that hesitation, Lieutenant Commander. Others will detect it and suspect.”
Her eyes darted to his face before she turned down the hall. His eyes were flared red, and he’d rubbed his nose raw.
Esther’s boot steps echoed down the empty metal corridor as Webb marched in time behind her. She had never walked this hallway; yet she knew it perfectly. But the smell—tea tree oil and bleach—burned her nose. Why didn’t she have that memory?
A drone zipped by to deliver a package. No one walked the sterile halls or made personal contact. A spaceship was a trapped petri dish, a playground for the shakes virus to spread.
Esther entered the debriefing room, a closet with cameras lining the walls. She stepped to its center. The cameras uploaded her 3-D image and transmitted it to every room across her ship, Olive Branch.
“The report of my death was greatly exaggerated,” she said and allowed a tight smile. “Those were the words of our Earth ancestor Mark Twain, and they’re my words today.”
She paused. Her host would have paused here, commanded the speech. It felt like breathing. Perhaps Dr. Tiberius was right. They were one and the same.
“There were also rumors that I had the shakes virus. I assure you, I did not.” Another pause. “Unfortunately, the shakes isn’t the only disease that infects humans. The stomach flu still exists, and I won’t go into any further details.”
Some would snicker here. That would relieve the tension.
“Now, we have docked with Taara Makaan spaceport, and their doctors have the antivirus we need. Gird your loins everyone, this is our hour.”
