Extinction Sweep

Cultural sweep was meant to be light work. That was why Carta had had to divide her Rotation Quarter equally between the sweep and sanitation designation. She was usually happy to do it, to get to study other peoples, worlds... but this time was different. Here the last dominant species had a legacy that made them difficult to analyse objectively; and her primary designation was archaeology, and had been for six whole cycles. She was meant to be prepared for this.

She wished she'd been the one who found it. The wrong-doored building. She'd found the first; been the first to scan the wide walkways stretching like distorted veins through the body of this vast complex... leading people round the little wrong-doored rooms. Some were tiny, barely the width from her hand to her arm's first joint, and some were open spaces ringed with wrong-doors. Standing in the centre, it almost looked like you were out in the open. Almost. She and Pirra had translated the words on the plaques next to the rooms with their scaneyes. They were the names of other sentients. Pirra had sworn under her breath, hands shaking as she gripped the handles of her scaneye as if she was afraid she'd drop it right on the screen. She'd hated that their sweep was the first to discover the concept of a 'zoo.'

Nine days later Pirra had found it. The last wrong-doored building. The standing-ape word for it had been 'prison.' Carta had been sweeping an apartment complex for black slabs when Pirra's voice crackled into her headset, begging her to come to her location immediately. When Carta arrived she found Pirra on the roof. The red octagon on her suit that indicated her role as supervisor blinked gently as she curled into a crumpled heap on the floor. As Carta approached she smelled regurgitant. Pirra was talking to herself and choking back tears.

In the soothing suit-less rich air of the biome, Carta waited for Pirra to clean herself, leafing through her scaneye. Pirra's designation for the day had been to scan the whole building. A floor and a half was missing.

"I couldn't do it," said Pirra behind her, dabbing herself dry with some heavy-petals. "Couldn't complete the job." she held her head in her palms. "Carta, I can't go back there."

Carta tried to say something but Pirra didn't hear her.

"... They weren't hivers, why would they force hiving onto their own... did they like being cruel? Just inflicting themselves on the flora, other sentients, each other..." she turned to look at Carta with eyes that shone with a strange, inwards fear. "I hate them, Carta. I really hate them. I... I'm glad they're dead."

Carta squared her jaw. "If that's true, we need to call The Base. Morally compromised sweepers can't sweep, our data will be inadmissible." She slid her hand up to Pirra's face, gently stroking her cheek and jawline. "Besides, look at the impact the new site had. We can't risk your health for this."

Pirra pulled away. When she turned back she looked resolute.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I can do it, I can, will, find their good." said Pirra through gritted teeth, "I promise. To the All-Mothers and all they stand for."

*

"What changed?" Carta asked as they readied themselves for bed.

"Nothing." Pirra circled her tunnel by the fluid pod. "I just thought about the wrong-doors again. People were being locked in there. Maybe they weren't... y'know."

In the silence, Carta watched small night-creatures scale the biome. She was startled back to the interior as she felt a weight on the threads. Whipping round, she only saw Pirra climbing up.

"Sorry," the taller woman said, hovering at the edge of her bed. "I should've warned you. I—after today, I'd rather sleep near someone than down on the ground."

Carta beckoned her to her side, and went back to watching biome's glass ceiling. A small eight-legged creature made its way across it, wary of its smooth surface, pinioning its web bit-by-bit as it went.

Carta nudged Pirra, pointing at the beast. "Look: a co-evolution."

Pirra shuddered against her. "It's still weird to see something that looks like us but is — " she held her hand at a right-angle, "instead of—" she held her hand vertically. "I keep waiting for them to stand up."

Carta chuckled. They watched it gradually climb over them.

"I really thought I could hack this, you know." said Pirra after some time. "First designation with supervisory responsibilities... of course I can do that off-world! Last Rotation Quarter I assisted in the Worm Feast and I thrived there, but here... I've failed."

"You haven't." Carta reassured. "You can do this. You're supervising, you can delegate."

Pirra twisted on the web and groaned. "I miss working in the Worm Tunnels... I thought talking about home'd make me feel better."

"We'll get back soon. Only nineteen days to go."

"Yeah... but what'll these standing-apes have in store for us before then?"

*

In truth the next couple of weeks were uneventful. They worked a new system where Carta swept the city and Pirra stayed in the biome, trying to revive any black slabs Carta found. They were plentiful enough, but finding one that worked or restarting one that'd broken was nigh-on impossible.

Sixteen days into the new routine Carta found her.

She'd been sweeping another apartment complex, going corridor-to-corridor with the scaneye on alert for any black slabs, Pirra talking at her idly over the comms.

"Standing-apes is such a ridiculous name for these things." she scoffed as she cracked the case of one of their black slabs with her palm-hairs. "It just feels so rudimentary, y'know?"

Carta laughed as she made her way along the third floor of the apartment, waving her scaneye in front of her. "You know it was the least incendiary one the planet's other sentients gave them."

"Why not use their name for themselves?"

"Because it's meaningless. 'Humans.' Probably meant something in one of their languages but that's been lost to time, and," she dodged some crumbling rubble from the floor above, which caused a small fissure in the wall to her side, "extinction events. Or event." she dusted off her suit, hating the feeling of weight on it almost as much as she hated the sensation of wearing a suit at all.

A beeping noise cut through her comms. The scaneye was alerting her to organic matter in the room to her left; the apartment the corridor fissure had opened up. Gingerly, she climbed up and in, squeezing through the crevice into a room had been untouched since the extinction. It was a living room, covered in a thick, rancid layer of dust. She turned and gasped. The room was so pristine that it'd preserved a body. It lay in front of an armchair. Its clothes were faded but its top had once been magenta. The head was turned away from Carta, its withered scalp hair looking to her like the most fragile egg sac. She approached with reverence. The dessication process had taken its eyes and the colour of its skin, left it bearing its teeth in pain or anger or despair. But Carta stooped closer, for something was glinting around its neck.

Whispering an apology, she swept its hair away from its face to see. It was a silver chain, and on the chain was a small pendant, shaped like a bulbous triangle with two semicircles atop it. They'd seen this symbol in so many recovered black slab communications, but couldn't discern what it meant; standing-apes used it constantly.

Carta saw a latch on the pendant's side. Opening it, she saw something that made her scan it, latch it and return it.

That wasn't the only treasure this room offered up. Next to the human's chair was an outlet, with a charging cable, and a black slab. Turned off, totally intact.

Carta cut her sweep short to get these insight-valuable finds to Pirra immediately. Pirra suspended the plug in a bio-electric solution and got it to charge. Tentatively, she pressed the button on the slab's side. It lit up. She dutifully turned it over to the archaeologist.

Carta clicked through in silence until Pirra couldn't take it anymore. "Well? What's in it?"

"Digital pictures. Of a young woman and the people in her life. And, in a subfolder, two slide-shows; one of three people in a sterile room and one of a lot more people outside." Carta frowned in confusion.

Pirra's eyes lit up. "The pitchbirds call them 'bad-eyed takers,' right? That's video."

Carta offered the slab to her. "Can you upload these? Run them through translators? This could be the first uncorrupted video record of the standing-apes."

"Repairs was my primary designation for five cycles, of course I can."

*

It took Pirra three hours. When she finished she came out to get Carta, shaking once more.

Carta rushed to her. "What happened? What did you find?"

Pirra's jaw trembled. "I... I got the videos working."

Carta followed her to a viewing orb. Pirra played the first one. The footage started abruptly, briefly showing the shoulder of the person filming, before centring a woman in a sterile bed in the frame.

"— on't understand how you can be so forgetful, Rach." the woman was said with a chuckle. "It's your phone!"

"You know what, you're right, maybe if I give yours—" she handed the phone to another woman in blue scrubs with a knowing look, "to her, I can have a proper look in my bag—" she did, and returned with a small blue box, turned to the woman in the bed, and stooped down on one knee. "Gita, I'm so nervous about screwing this up, so I'll just say... I love you so much, you're my best friend, the funniest person I know, and I can't think of anyone else I'd rather spend the rest of my life with." she opened the box, "I know you don't like rings so I got you this instead, we can get it engraved, with like... um..." she blushed, "I'm babbling, but will you marry me?"

"Yes, Rachel, yes!" Gita gasped, and the two embraced as the other person in the room cheered.

Pirra was rubbed her jaw with her pedipalps. "Carta, what's 'marry'?"

"A type of ceremonial mate-bonding, usually between pairs. Humans celebrated it with a special day." Carta breathed.

"A day when a clothes-wearing species would dress up like this, perhaps?" Pirra played the second video.

Bathed in sunlight, Gita and Rachel had flowers in their hair. Rachel was clad in all white, whilst Gita was resplendent in reds and golds. Other humans circled them, jostling to get in the frame.

"Alright, is everyone ready?" called Gita as Rachel stole a kiss.

"Yes!"

"Okay, say 'cheese!'"

"Cheese!" the group all froze for a second.

Gita's face flickered with confusion before she clapped a hand to her mouth. "Ohmygod, I was taking a video!" and the group collapsed into laughter as the footage abruptly stopped.

"That was in a subfolder called 'favourites.'" Pirra's eye cluster was shining with more than iridescence. "They seem so... loving..."

She turned to Carta, who was cycling through her scaneye. "The wedding necklace... in that shape... I saw Gita's wedding necklace, she," her voice cracked. "She's still wearing it, long into her Worm Feast. Here." she brought up the scan.

Inside the locket was a delicate bas relief of the two women's faces, their hair wreathed in flowers as it was in the second video, in a kiss.

"They got it engraved after all." Carta whispered. "I... I think I know what that symbol we keep seeing in comms means. The locket's shape. It means love."

Pirra covered her eyes with her palms. "It was easier when they were monsters."