We walk at gunpoint, the five of us. I think we all know that we are not those who have been deemed worthy of life. I don't see much of the others' reactions. I'm still overwhelmed with the revelation of who I was. What I did. I hadn't believed myself capable of atrocity on such a scale. When it came to it, I thought I had it in me to be a good person. I was wrong.
Tears stream down my face. I'm past caring who sees me cry. Dignity is such a tiny, unfathomably meaningless thing, in the face of my worse self. This is grief, I think. Not for the life I'm about to lose. I unquestionably deserve execution for my crimes. The crimes I don’t remember. I think I'm grieving the person I dared to hope I might be. And maybe the bliss of ignorance. At least I won't have to live with this knowledge for long. I don't want to.
Still, it's no small thing to look into the airlock and imagine the killing void on the other side. The pain in ears, sinuses, lungs. The water boiling from the mouth and the surface of the eyes. The outrushing of breath that will never be retrieved.
The others are imagining it too. We all hesitate, despite the guns behind us. "Can't you just shoot us?" one of my fellows asks bitterly. I don't remember what name they picked for themself, we've barely talked. And I can't see their number, their jumpsuit is folded down and tied at the waist like mine. I can't bring myself to care who they are. "You can walk into the airlock," the android tells them coldly, "Or I can shoot your knees out and you can crawl." It's such a petty, pointless bit of cruelty. I'm angry, I think. Distantly, behind the grief. But I'm not surprised.
We choose to walk. The doors close behind us with terrible finality. Machinery begins to spin up. Listening to the hum in the walls, I wonder if they're going to depressurise responsibly and let us pass out in here, or actually chuck us out straight into hard vacuum. Somehow I suspect the latter.
The person opposite me is sobbing, scared. "I heard that if you breathe out, it doesn't hurt as much," I say. "It doesn't make a difference," someone else claims. I don't have the energy to dispute it. We won't have time anyway. Maybe I'll hit my head on the way out, I think, but I'm not optimistic. It's only meant to take a minute or two to cycle, how long can that take? It feels like forever. In a way I guess it is, for us.
Maybe the doors will open slowly enough that we'll be pasted against the gap when the air rushes out. I don't know if that would be better or worse. Probably worse. I wish I didn't have to think about it. I wonder if any of the others will miss me, when they reach the colony without me. Do they know I've been marched away to my death? Do they know who I was before? I hope not. I hope they don't grieve.
And then the doors blow open, and the starfield spins, and my eyes scrunch shut against the alien sensation. I remember to breathe out and there isn't really time to process whether it hurts too much because
I am
ceasing
to be.