Post by Shadaras on Mar 29, 2008 13:46:03 GMT -5
I watch the stars at night. They are endless in their variety; some shine blue, others red, but most appear to be yellow-white. I have never understood why landborn cannot watch them, cannot come to the observation bubble that crowns this starship, the Polaris Unbound. She is not mine, though I love her as if she were. I understand her, and I doubt any other on the Polaris, save the captain himself, has such a connection to this great construction of metal and plastic. At times, she seems to sail on the collective dreams of the worlds.
I come here every night, simply to watch the stars soar by. Though night is nothing more than an illusion out here, where time has little meaning. By convention, all starships have their clocks synched to Earth-standard, as do space-stations that hover in space as waypoints, but that simply gives the crew a standard schedule to work by. The passengers keep their own time, and we give them no notice, and I less than most.
The stars sped by. The next wormhole, the one that would take us to Alpha Centauri, our destination, was approaching. And that spectacle, the one I always wish to watch, but rarely can, is one of fire and light. There is no other way to describe it. It only lasts an instant, but seems to last so much longer. I closed my eyes, remembering the last time I saw it. Years have passed since then, yet I can still remember clearly.
A call through the intercom destroyed my thoughts. A automated message blared out, saying, “Wormhole approaching. All passengers to designated Safe Zones.” It repeated, and I sighed. My duties called for a return to the engine section, where I spend so much time. It is a job that I love, and I know the engines better than anyone. Yet I cannot see anything outside from there, and that is the one thing I dislike about it. But there is no other job that I would prefer. The Polaris’ engines are mine, and no other’s.
The corridors were crowded with passengers, all Earth-norm. A pity, I thought, as I wove my way through them. I preferred the more exotic travelers of the other worlds and space. But passengers were passengers, and their money would keep the Polaris going on its journeys, sailing through the stars.
Down in the engines, I took my place among the engineers. The air down here seemed cleaner than the oft-breathed air of the passenger levels, though I knew it was an illusion, as everywhere on the ship was given air by the same gardens. But it was an illusion I welcomed. I made my way to my station, moving quickly through the narrow walkways we’d been given.
The dials, screens, and levers that crowded around me were familiar presences. The screens, of course, were the most important, as they held all the information about the engines, the knowledge that was necessary to keep the engines running smoothly. I glanced over all of them, making sure that everything was normal, before fixing my gaze on the viewscreen. I could see the wormhole up ahead of us, a blurred area that didn’t seem to quite line up with the rest of space. We would enter it soon, and in that moment, where time stopped, was when everything was the most dangerous.
My hands were on the two levers that were most important for me. The safety shut-off, which I always keep a hand on for these jumps, but have never needed to use, and the overdrive. Both were ‘just in case’ type levers, as the rest of the crew kept track of the more normal things. We had all claimed our stations, and we all worked together, though we rarely spoke during critical times like these.
The passengers never understood just how dangerous wormholes were. They were put in ‘Safe Zones’, where they wouldn’t notice the time-jump. But the Safe Zones were no different than anywhere else on the Polaris, when it came down to it. I shook my head, breaking the chain of thoughts. We were almost at the wormhole, and it wouldn’t do to be distracted.
The blurred field of stars filled my viewscreen, and I closed my eyes, offering a quick prayer to the Lord of Stars. I always did. I knew that others among the crew did as well, but the passengers would always ignore the dangers and act as if everything was normal, and perhaps even be annoyed at the interruption to their routine.
A flash of fire and icy light filled the viewscreen, and my attention jumped to the engine readouts. I watched the numbers scroll past, almost too fast to read, and felt my stomach tighten. Something wasn’t right. The level bars agreed. One, the fuel meter, was dipping into the red in a fast rhythm like a heartbeat.
I could see the efforts of the others in trying to fix the fuel levels. I would have joined in, but there was nothing I could do that the others couldn’t do better. Overdrive wouldn’t help, since the problem was the fuel itself, not the fuel lines.
Time was passing. A minute of battle with the fuel had passed, and we were most of the way through the wormhole. But not all the way. I felt the moment our fuel ran out. It was a shudder, an almost imperceptible shake. Without even thinking, I shut the engines off. Their whine pierced my heart, but there was nothing else we could do.
I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes and listening to the silence. Nobody was making a sound. We were still moving through the wormhole as planned, but our exit would be much, much rougher than it should be. Even I, who had almost no fear, was afraid. Not for myself, but for the Polaris. For the ship that was my life. If she was crippled, then I would be as well.
I felt the safety rigging fall into place, holding me against the chair, and opened my eyes. The ice and fire of the wormhole was coming to an end, and normal space was visible. Out there, we would be safe, relatively speaking. But while in here, anything could happen. It was common knowledge among the crews that if your engines died in netherspace, the inside of wormholes, then bad things would happen. It was in here that most mutations occurred – mutations that gave most the appearance of monsters.
The end was nigh. In the time spent between netherspace and normalspace, a time that should be no more than a moment, but would now be longer, we would be transformed. The Safe Zones had protections against this effect, theoretically, but they had never been tested on this scale. I smiled bitterly. We would have the ‘honor’ of testing it, though none of us had ever wished to become a prisoner of science and its tests.
Sharp, clear images of space and stars now filled my viewscreen, though there were still tinges of fire and ice. A humming filled the ship, one that was usually a comfort, for it signaled that we would be exiting netherspace. But now it brought chills, and I tried to quiet my mind. I didn’t want to think about what the netherspace/normalspace transition would bring.
The flash of fire and light that marked the transition, normally nothing more than a moment of blinding light, lasted for what felt like forever. One second. Two. Three passed, then four. And then, after five endless seconds, we were in normalspace once more. I glanced down at myself, and felt a flood of relief. There was nothing obviously wrong with my body.
I don’t know how long we stayed near the exit of the wormhole, waiting for another ship to come by and give us the fuel we needed. The Earth/Alpha Centauri run was a common one, so we didn’t need to wait too long. But time passed slowly, and I lost track of the days, as we each found out what the transition had done to us.
I was one of the lucky ones, they said. I survived with a human-normal body, after all. But I couldn’t bear to look at the stars anymore. I couldn’t survive in the endless sea of space. Even looking through the viewscreens and knowing it was out there was too much. The looks of pity that my crewmates gave me were even worse, however. I could look at them, even the ones who only bore a rudimentary semblance to their previous appearance, and consider them the lucky ones. They could stay here if they chose, after all. I couldn’t.
In the weeks that it took to get to Alpha Centauri, I spent most of my time in my room. Friends brought me food at mealtimes, but I barely ate. After a full week had passed, I gave up trying to act normal. I requested permission to be put into deepsleep until we arrived. I was given my wish, and the rest of the trip was a mystery to me. In some ways, I’m glad. But in others, I wish that I had stayed awake through my final journey through space and savored what time I had left with my friends.
I was awakened when the passengers were being loaded onto a shuttle to Alpha Centauri Station. I, along with all the other crewmembers for whom this would mark the end of their time on the Polaris, would have one final meal with the rest of the crew before being flown to Chiron.
The meal was a quiet affair, as most of us were avoiding the subject of anything related to the mutation. But that was hard to do, so we ended up eating in silence. A final farewell, and we were loaded into a shuttle for the flight down to Chiron, the primary planet of the Alpha Centauri system. The captain himself flew us down, and though I recognized the honor, it did nothing to soothe the loss of the stars.
I spent the flight down in silence, my eyes closed so as not to see the stars. If I saw them, I lost all control and panicked. And that was what I hated, for it cut me off from that which I loved, and changed joy into pain. I could hear the soft voices of the others, the ones who could not perform their jobs anymore, or simply couldn’t deal with their mutations and be a part of the crew.
When we disembarked, there were no final words from the captain. He let us off, raised a hand in salute, and took off again, leaving us to scatter through the world. I found myself a simple job, but one that required much thought. I didn’t want to think about the stars anymore, for if I did, twin impulses would rush through me. One was desire and longing, the other, pain and fear.
I do not know what happened to my crewmates. I didn’t keep track of them, for fear of the memories that would come. I have my new job, my new life, and I never speak to anyone about what brought me to Chiron. I am one of many who have come here over the years, not speaking of the past they left behind on some other world. Though people wonder, they do not ask. I am grateful for their gift of peace, if nothing else.
And now, when I come home at night, I do not look up, for the stars and the memories they bring hold nothing but pain and loss. I shut myself up inside and close the windows tight. I pay no attention to news of starships passing by, or to new discoveries about space and the stars that populate it. I refuse to remember the time when I was normal, when I could bear to watch all the stars in the sky.
But for all the stars in the sky, I would be normal still. But for all the stars in the sky..
I come here every night, simply to watch the stars soar by. Though night is nothing more than an illusion out here, where time has little meaning. By convention, all starships have their clocks synched to Earth-standard, as do space-stations that hover in space as waypoints, but that simply gives the crew a standard schedule to work by. The passengers keep their own time, and we give them no notice, and I less than most.
The stars sped by. The next wormhole, the one that would take us to Alpha Centauri, our destination, was approaching. And that spectacle, the one I always wish to watch, but rarely can, is one of fire and light. There is no other way to describe it. It only lasts an instant, but seems to last so much longer. I closed my eyes, remembering the last time I saw it. Years have passed since then, yet I can still remember clearly.
A call through the intercom destroyed my thoughts. A automated message blared out, saying, “Wormhole approaching. All passengers to designated Safe Zones.” It repeated, and I sighed. My duties called for a return to the engine section, where I spend so much time. It is a job that I love, and I know the engines better than anyone. Yet I cannot see anything outside from there, and that is the one thing I dislike about it. But there is no other job that I would prefer. The Polaris’ engines are mine, and no other’s.
The corridors were crowded with passengers, all Earth-norm. A pity, I thought, as I wove my way through them. I preferred the more exotic travelers of the other worlds and space. But passengers were passengers, and their money would keep the Polaris going on its journeys, sailing through the stars.
Down in the engines, I took my place among the engineers. The air down here seemed cleaner than the oft-breathed air of the passenger levels, though I knew it was an illusion, as everywhere on the ship was given air by the same gardens. But it was an illusion I welcomed. I made my way to my station, moving quickly through the narrow walkways we’d been given.
The dials, screens, and levers that crowded around me were familiar presences. The screens, of course, were the most important, as they held all the information about the engines, the knowledge that was necessary to keep the engines running smoothly. I glanced over all of them, making sure that everything was normal, before fixing my gaze on the viewscreen. I could see the wormhole up ahead of us, a blurred area that didn’t seem to quite line up with the rest of space. We would enter it soon, and in that moment, where time stopped, was when everything was the most dangerous.
My hands were on the two levers that were most important for me. The safety shut-off, which I always keep a hand on for these jumps, but have never needed to use, and the overdrive. Both were ‘just in case’ type levers, as the rest of the crew kept track of the more normal things. We had all claimed our stations, and we all worked together, though we rarely spoke during critical times like these.
The passengers never understood just how dangerous wormholes were. They were put in ‘Safe Zones’, where they wouldn’t notice the time-jump. But the Safe Zones were no different than anywhere else on the Polaris, when it came down to it. I shook my head, breaking the chain of thoughts. We were almost at the wormhole, and it wouldn’t do to be distracted.
The blurred field of stars filled my viewscreen, and I closed my eyes, offering a quick prayer to the Lord of Stars. I always did. I knew that others among the crew did as well, but the passengers would always ignore the dangers and act as if everything was normal, and perhaps even be annoyed at the interruption to their routine.
A flash of fire and icy light filled the viewscreen, and my attention jumped to the engine readouts. I watched the numbers scroll past, almost too fast to read, and felt my stomach tighten. Something wasn’t right. The level bars agreed. One, the fuel meter, was dipping into the red in a fast rhythm like a heartbeat.
I could see the efforts of the others in trying to fix the fuel levels. I would have joined in, but there was nothing I could do that the others couldn’t do better. Overdrive wouldn’t help, since the problem was the fuel itself, not the fuel lines.
Time was passing. A minute of battle with the fuel had passed, and we were most of the way through the wormhole. But not all the way. I felt the moment our fuel ran out. It was a shudder, an almost imperceptible shake. Without even thinking, I shut the engines off. Their whine pierced my heart, but there was nothing else we could do.
I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes and listening to the silence. Nobody was making a sound. We were still moving through the wormhole as planned, but our exit would be much, much rougher than it should be. Even I, who had almost no fear, was afraid. Not for myself, but for the Polaris. For the ship that was my life. If she was crippled, then I would be as well.
I felt the safety rigging fall into place, holding me against the chair, and opened my eyes. The ice and fire of the wormhole was coming to an end, and normal space was visible. Out there, we would be safe, relatively speaking. But while in here, anything could happen. It was common knowledge among the crews that if your engines died in netherspace, the inside of wormholes, then bad things would happen. It was in here that most mutations occurred – mutations that gave most the appearance of monsters.
The end was nigh. In the time spent between netherspace and normalspace, a time that should be no more than a moment, but would now be longer, we would be transformed. The Safe Zones had protections against this effect, theoretically, but they had never been tested on this scale. I smiled bitterly. We would have the ‘honor’ of testing it, though none of us had ever wished to become a prisoner of science and its tests.
Sharp, clear images of space and stars now filled my viewscreen, though there were still tinges of fire and ice. A humming filled the ship, one that was usually a comfort, for it signaled that we would be exiting netherspace. But now it brought chills, and I tried to quiet my mind. I didn’t want to think about what the netherspace/normalspace transition would bring.
The flash of fire and light that marked the transition, normally nothing more than a moment of blinding light, lasted for what felt like forever. One second. Two. Three passed, then four. And then, after five endless seconds, we were in normalspace once more. I glanced down at myself, and felt a flood of relief. There was nothing obviously wrong with my body.
I don’t know how long we stayed near the exit of the wormhole, waiting for another ship to come by and give us the fuel we needed. The Earth/Alpha Centauri run was a common one, so we didn’t need to wait too long. But time passed slowly, and I lost track of the days, as we each found out what the transition had done to us.
I was one of the lucky ones, they said. I survived with a human-normal body, after all. But I couldn’t bear to look at the stars anymore. I couldn’t survive in the endless sea of space. Even looking through the viewscreens and knowing it was out there was too much. The looks of pity that my crewmates gave me were even worse, however. I could look at them, even the ones who only bore a rudimentary semblance to their previous appearance, and consider them the lucky ones. They could stay here if they chose, after all. I couldn’t.
In the weeks that it took to get to Alpha Centauri, I spent most of my time in my room. Friends brought me food at mealtimes, but I barely ate. After a full week had passed, I gave up trying to act normal. I requested permission to be put into deepsleep until we arrived. I was given my wish, and the rest of the trip was a mystery to me. In some ways, I’m glad. But in others, I wish that I had stayed awake through my final journey through space and savored what time I had left with my friends.
I was awakened when the passengers were being loaded onto a shuttle to Alpha Centauri Station. I, along with all the other crewmembers for whom this would mark the end of their time on the Polaris, would have one final meal with the rest of the crew before being flown to Chiron.
The meal was a quiet affair, as most of us were avoiding the subject of anything related to the mutation. But that was hard to do, so we ended up eating in silence. A final farewell, and we were loaded into a shuttle for the flight down to Chiron, the primary planet of the Alpha Centauri system. The captain himself flew us down, and though I recognized the honor, it did nothing to soothe the loss of the stars.
I spent the flight down in silence, my eyes closed so as not to see the stars. If I saw them, I lost all control and panicked. And that was what I hated, for it cut me off from that which I loved, and changed joy into pain. I could hear the soft voices of the others, the ones who could not perform their jobs anymore, or simply couldn’t deal with their mutations and be a part of the crew.
When we disembarked, there were no final words from the captain. He let us off, raised a hand in salute, and took off again, leaving us to scatter through the world. I found myself a simple job, but one that required much thought. I didn’t want to think about the stars anymore, for if I did, twin impulses would rush through me. One was desire and longing, the other, pain and fear.
I do not know what happened to my crewmates. I didn’t keep track of them, for fear of the memories that would come. I have my new job, my new life, and I never speak to anyone about what brought me to Chiron. I am one of many who have come here over the years, not speaking of the past they left behind on some other world. Though people wonder, they do not ask. I am grateful for their gift of peace, if nothing else.
And now, when I come home at night, I do not look up, for the stars and the memories they bring hold nothing but pain and loss. I shut myself up inside and close the windows tight. I pay no attention to news of starships passing by, or to new discoveries about space and the stars that populate it. I refuse to remember the time when I was normal, when I could bear to watch all the stars in the sky.
But for all the stars in the sky, I would be normal still. But for all the stars in the sky..
