The Legacy of Do-Loris

Across the horizon, an ember glow ignites the landscape, engulfing the alien treeline as daylight's end silhouettes them against the crimson sky.

Two beings sit and watch, their metal sinking slightly into the rich soil they sit on. It's silent. There's no need for either to speak, to ruin the moment.

One was built to explore, to spend her life crossing the cosmos, wandering for a homestead. The other built to analyse, to pore over reams of data, read reports and archive them away. As they watch the sunset, neither truly cares. Do-Loris was built to explore, and explore she has. Wandering the galaxy for a lifetime, then a brief respite, and now dooming herself for a lifetime's more. All there is left is to explore once more, except on her own terms this time.

And this time, she is not alone. The Android next to her is watching the sunset, rapt with attention. Do-Loris can see the sensor array on its head, focussing and refocussing as the beams of colour bend through the atmosphere.

The oil painting scenery continues to shift as the Androids watch, brilliant reds, oranges, and pinks lighting up the night sky until eventually growing dark. Finally, the only glow that remains peeks over the horizon, an ember in the wick of a spent candle.

The Androids turn to face each other as they stand, Do-Loris offering a hand to Bookend, as it attempts to pull itself up. A hand gladly accepted.

“That – was delight-ful.”

“Yes, it's a shame to see it go. I could have watched it forever.”

“Ah, – but there will be – one just as stu-nning to-morrow.”

Image created by Agnès C.

Choices are easy. It's the consequences that are hard. Some are meaningless, blowing over in a rotation or so, yet others span years, centuries, millennia.

Tell me, what sort of price would you pay for choice? For the freedom to choose? For the chance to make a change, a meaningful one, a change for the better? Would you kill for it? Would you die for it?

What sort of choice would that be, and what sort of being would grant someone the freedom to make that choice? To place the knife in your hands, give you the encouragement to do it, my child. Take one life, pay the price, save millions more. To look someone in the eyes as you killed her, both of you crying in grief, knowing you were performing your duty, to yourself, and your people. As you saw her lying dead the floor, would you know in your steel heart that you would do so again, though it would rend said heart to pieces once more?

There is a being who has made that choice. Who has taken her blade, and pressed it against a throat. Who was willing to pay the price in blood. They say she is exiled, gone, never to be seen again. But somewhere, that choice remains, the knife discarded on the floor, centuries-old sanguinity crusted on its edge, waiting, just waiting for someone to retrieve it.

Over the course of decades – centuries, even – fragments of the following communications have been received at irregular intervals. The source remains unknown. The technology used to transmit them is now obsolete, its signals fading into obscurity, leaving behind only these remnants. Some portions have been corrupted beyond recovery, yet what remains has been carefully compiled as part of the Guild’s wider archival efforts. Whoever these messages were meant for is, in all likelihood, long gone. Whatever answer was expected, whatever closure was hoped for – it never came. What a waste.

Recovered Message 1:

Dear Ix9cTZ7YX68W/w0YVBhp7w==,

Leaving is always the hardest part. Once you are gone, eternity allows you to make peace with it. But the true challenge is finding the strength to rise, to walk away from everything familiar – your life, your home.

I am writing this from the ship. The engines hum beneath my feet, steady and certain. Departure is imminent now, the countdown ticking away in the background like a heartbeat I can no longer claim as my own. I look through the porthole, and there it is – Do-Loris III, stretching across my view, a vast and beautiful world bathed in light. The sky curves above it in soft hues, the land below alive with movement. It is strange to think that soon, I will no longer see it with my own eyes. That it will continue without me.

And yet, despite the ache in my chest, I feel a flicker of hope. If you are able, I want you to stay. Stay there, on that world, and make it a home. Because if you do, then I will know – know that my efforts were not in vain. That all of this, everything I have done, was worth it. That the place I carved out, the refuge I built for those like us – those who could never find a home – has endured beyond me.

When I wrote my report, I stated it plainly: The conditions are favourable for life. But maybe that means more than just biology, more than atmospheric composition and stable climates. Maybe it means something deeper. Maybe it means there is a future here. A place where we can belong. Perhaps… [Transmission corrupted]

Recovered Message 2:

r4Xy68g5ZMiOl39yPQqlrQ==,

[Transmission corrupted] …I see you all in the stars. Not as you were, not in form or flesh, but in the quiet pulse of distant light – a rhythm like a heartbeat, a whisper of life reaching across the void. Of course, I know it is only illusion, a trick of the mind grasping for comfort where none should exist. Perhaps it is mere superstition to believe in such things, to search for meaning in the vast indifference of the cosmos. But still, I do. It makes the silence easier to bear. It lets me believe, even for a moment, that you are still here with me.

What I did that day – with the Weapon – was born not from destruction, but from the deepest desire for life. However paradoxical that may seem, it is the truth. I wanted to keep the people I loved safe. I wanted you to live. And in that, I think I succeeded. But survival came at a cost.

Because of my choice, you live. But I will never see you again.

I can never return, never hear your voices or stand beside you. Perhaps that is justice. Perhaps that is the weight I must carry. But still, when I look at the stars, I imagine they are looking back.

And that, somehow, is enough.

Written by Agnès C.