Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Voyage of the Drake, Episode I: Quintessence, Part I



The Drake was now two hours, forty-seven minutes, and eleven seconds overdue for a ten-light-year-jump to the next point in its scheduled journey. It was the only way that its passengers and crew would ever make it to the Outer Cygnus Arm within their children's lifetimes. Not that they would not survive to that point; suspended animation prolonged a lifespan by about fifty years, and the ship would hold together just fine as long as it did not collide with anything. But the Virgo Foundation was sponsoring this trip; failure to deliver what was promised was not an option. Wormholes were to be opened every three hours on the dot. For reasons that the crew would soon learn, the ship's computer was just now beginning emergency measures.

To the Drake's sleeping captain, Adrienne Gorrana, the world was just a blank void that she visited here and there, an amorphous dream which she was sometimes just conscious enough to experience. And yet lately something definite had been entering that dream. It was a single, repetitive tone. Boop-boop-boop.

Eventually Adrienne realized that the sound was much too real to be part of a dream. Like a gently prodding finger it nudged her awake. She began to panic as she remembered where she was. When the pod’s hatch had closed over her back on Mazin, the holographic face on the screen had told her that what she would hear upon waking up was soft music. This was to indicate that they had entered the OCA and were within less than fifteen light-years of a habitable planet. So, something was quite wrong. She started and pressed hard against the glass above her.

The face appeared before her again, neither quite male nor female. "Please wait as final release procedures are performed." As her eyes continued to adjust to the light, she watched blue liquids flooding the various intravenous lines that had fed and regulated her body since she had gone to sleep. Small electrodes stimulated her muscles. Then, just as suddenly as it had all begun, the apparati around her ceased and began to retract from her body. The nodes at the ends of the intravenous tubes applied an adhesive to the small, crater-like holes that they had left in Adrienne's body, before withdrawing completely into the walls of her coffin-like chamber.

"Report," she demanded of the face in front of her.

"Energy input below minimum threshold for extended duration," it answered.

Raz. Pneumatic systems hissed as her compartment finally opened. She stepped onto the cold floor and immediately grabbed the door of the chamber across from her to get her balance. Her muscles did not feel weak at all, but merely disoriented. Amongst the wires that had been plugged into her were muscle stimulators.

Think, Adrienne. At this time she needed to verify the severity of the situation before she woke any other crew. If it was something that she could fix on her own, there was no need to waste resources having someone else go through the process of disconnecting and reconnecting to the sleep pod. Foundation protocol forbade it, in fact. So her damp feet made the only sounds that were to echo through the halls of cold metal for some time.

She made a mental note to check atmospheric levels; the SuspAm chemicals could sometimes produce headaches, but it felt like something was hammering its way into her skull. She stopped at a water dispenser and took in a few handfuls before continuing on.

A door opened after her face was scanned as she came to the end of the hall. Adrienne stepped onto the cold metal floor of the colorless bridge. The moisture on her feet seemed to suck the heat from her body. There was no time to fix it, though. "Active protocol."

The face appeared again on a monitor above her. "Active protocol: preservation of ship's power."

"Reason."

"Reason: loss of access to sufficient solar power source."

"What?" That was impossible, according to the numerous astronomers that had helped to train her all those months. The route had been precisely calculated dozens of times to avoid such obstacles. "Down periscope."

A metal tube slid down before her, and a screen on its side activated, displaying the view from outside the ship. It certainly seemed plausible; the closest stars were as faint as the furthest away from the night sky she'd grown up with on Tandul. She spun the view around, trying to orient herself and process the incoming data that streamed along the left-hand side of the screen.
Her breath caught in her chest when she swung the periscope around to the left side of the ship. "Even if the only things before you are other galaxies, you will see light," she'd been told. But before her was pure blackness. Furthermore, no data was coming in: no electromagnetic readings of any kind came from that direction.

“Up periscope.” She moved over to an array of screens. “Activate emergency energy reserves. We’ll get the wormhole generator up and get closer to some stars.”

“Activating.”

A moment of silence. Adrienne bent forward and put her fingertips on her toes. The SuspAm system was good at keeping muscle from atrophy, but it was no good at keeping it from stiffness. Standing and stretching her arms, she demanded an update from the computer.

“Unable to activate emergency power.”

“Is it dead as well? There’s supposed to be enough for at least one boost.”

“Emergency power at ninety-nine percent capacity.”

“Run diagnostics on connective apparati.”

“Diagnostics already run. No damage or malfunction found.”
Adrienne stared, now confused and growing frightened. “You’re saying that everything is perfectly fine for an emergency wormhole creation, but the power won’t leave the batteries?”

“Affirmative.”

That settled the issue, then. As much as she hated to do it, she’d have to wake the ship’s first officer and engineer, Edwad Jonsin. And it wasn’t just that she found him to be annoying; even with justification, taking such action would be a nightmare in terms of the reports she’d eventually have to file, and of course there was the little problem of waking someone up and putting them back under right away and the health hazards it posed. But that beat freezing to death in the middle of godforsaken empty darkness.

Adrienne’s feet were now dry, allowing her to sprint back down the corridor to the SuspAm chambers.   

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Imago

A mist of light swirls about me. Two brilliant figures approach. “Hello?” I say, afraid.

“Hello,” they respond warmly.

“Who are you? And where am I? A moment ago I was driving down the interstate.”

 “You are still on that road. Look behind you.”

There is my body! Twisted, bloody, surrounded by broken glass and torn airbag. My car is back there, a small part wedged into a strange Frankenstein-like amalgamation of nearly a dozen vehicles. “I’m dead!” I begin to weep. “That’s what this means, right?”

A hand on my shoulder. It is a soothing touch. “Yes.”

“But I have a family! I wanted to watch my kids grow up and get old with my wife and go fishing in Yellowknife and visit old castles...why don’t I get to do any of that?”

My companions speak in a language I do not know, though some of the words are ones familiar to me. The one on the right turns back to me. "You will. You will have the chance to do all of that. First, simply walk with us." I turn around once more. I am starting to hear the world around me again. Cries for help amidst the growing wail of sirens. Concerted efforts of civilians who have stopped to help. "Please, come with us. There is nothing more that can be done for now."

And so we move on through the mist. Another figure, this time with hardly any glow, sits on the ground near where we walk. It does nothing but cough violently. I look on in pity, but one of my guides takes my hand and leads me on. "What was wrong with him?" I ask. Nothing is said; we simply continue walking. Every breath of the bright fog is invigorating; I feel strong, lighter, and more aware with each passing second. "What should I call you?" I ask.

"I was called Genevieve in my younger days. I have a new name now, but I will wait to tell it to you. We are almost to our destination."

We ascend a hill overlooking the city. The sight at the crest astounded even more than the initial glimpse of my guides. Flitting about in the air above the cliff, alighting only now and then, were hundreds of glowing shapes, essentially formless aside from their narrow, rapidly beating wings. They swooped down, soared high, spun about one another, and cooed back and forth. A pair of them circle Genevieve for a moment before returning to the flock. “Are these…?” I am afraid to speak the words.

“Infants. Yes. The larval stage, if you will. Most of the ones you see are only days away from entering the pupal stage. They simply need an appropriate chrysalis to enter.”

“A baby,” I say. “They are looking for babies to occupy?”

“Yes. It is within the human body that metamorphosis must occur.”

I think for a moment. “And upon death, we reach the imago stage.”

“That is the hope. But the problem is that the chrysalis itself obscures the light, as you will remember, since you went through life never quite seeing it, with your eyes anyway. Quite often a person leaves his chrysalis while still in the pupal stage, or in some level of transition to imago. The mist around us is our sustenance, but a pupa cannot process it and will die. One who was caught between pupa and imago will usually live, but, not having fully developed, will do only that. His existence will be full of suffering until he can completely morph.”

I look out over the city for a moment, letting this all sink in. "And children that die?"

"We remain as larvae for a number of years after entering a chrysalis. It is difficult for development of both body and soul (to borrow a phrase from the old life) to happen at the same time. Thus, the larva will simply find a new chrysalis."

"Is there mating and birth in this life, then?"

"Yes, but not in the way that you are accustomed to. Soon it will be shown to you."

We walk down the hill and into a different part of the city. Here it seems that the mist is heavier than ever. It seems like an abandoned place; the occasional cry of an infant, the stumbling steps of a drunkard, or an impatient car horn betray the hidden human presence. A small canal brings water by silently. Two more brilliant figures are standing by the water. We watch as the light begins to swirl and undulate about them. Their hands are clasped and they stare at one another. Suddenly they are completely engulfed. "What happened?" I ask.

It seems that only a golden globe remains. "Wait a moment." The light recedes. The pair is there once more, and now one of them holds an infant in its arms. The wings flap intermittently; I can tell that it will not fly right away. "Now you see," said Genevieve, turning to me. "And there is much more yet for you to see."

I grow impatient. "This is all amazing. Really, it is. But tell me what I really want to know. You know what that is; I just haven't figured out how to ask it. How did I get here like this? How is it that we develop into full imago? Is it based on what we did in our bodies?"

"Indeed it is. It is when we acquire true love for all of our fellow man that we reach this stage. When we have become humble and will sacrifice ourselves for the good of others. That is when we are able to breathe this mist."

"And if this is life after death," I ask, suddenly concerned, "then where is God in all of this?"

Genevieve smiles her sweet smile once again, the mist ripples around her, and then I understand.