by James Welsh
***
2198 AD
Pascal should have realized that there was something wrong whenever he reached the clinic. It was deep in the night – the clinic was normally closed late at night, and may the charter help whoever got sick during that time. A pale light hummed from the open windows, as machinery pumped life into the sick and dying. Pascal was expecting the main door to be locked – he was planning on waiting nearby for the guards to arrive for Imogen.
However, when Pascal got there, the front door was open. It was cracked just an inch, with the light from inside trickling out onto the rock. His curiosity triggered, Pascal gently opened the door and peered into the clinic. There was no sign of life in the lobby. But then Pascal looked down, and he saw that the polished floor was ruined with scrapes and scratches. At first, Pascal thought that someone had been dragged in screaming – with a monster of a doctor like Bends, this wasn’t entirely farfetched. But then Pascal remembered Imogen, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she had been taken against her will. But when was she taken? Had she already been loaded into the frigate bound for Earth? Was he too late?
But Pascal couldn’t give up hope. And so, he spun around and began trotting towards the dock. As he rushed along the sidewalk, thoughts broke into his conscious. He wondered how the guards could have possibly taken Imogen to the dock without arousing suspicion. From what Pascal had heard, she was not the type to surrender quietly, and she would have fought every step of the way.
As Pascal neared the dock, he slowed down. Whatever it was that the guards were attempting, Pascal knew he couldn’t be caught watching it. And so he stepped off the lit sidewalk and into the darkness. He continued his journey parallel to the sidewalk, as if he was walking alongside a river of light. The dock was just ahead, and he could hear the signs of activity. He found his sanctuary behind a boulder and peered past it.
Usually, the platform was filled with dockworkers, busy with loading and unloading cargo on the conveyor belt in the hollow of the pier. That night, however, the workers were gone. Instead, the dock was crackling with guards – a handful of them were grunting as they pushed a crate off a cart and onto the conveyor belt. The belt ran through the marrow of the dock, out to the lip where the launches connected with the airlocks. Normally, a launch would be waiting at the end of the pier to haul any cargo, but Pascal didn’t recall any launches scheduled as being docked. He couldn’t understand what they were loading the cargo into, if not a ship. He also didn’t see any of his brother miners in the sea of faces.
The guards had finally heaved the crate onto the conveyor belt and activated it. As the belt grinded and hummed, the crate moved along. Pascal watched as it passed Martinique, the compliance inspector who was responsible for smoothing out every soul in the colony until they looked the same. Martinique, who rarely smiled, wore a grin that was haunting in the amber lights. He had the look of a parent who was watching their child take their first step.
The guards watched as the crate moved down the belt and past the airlock, which closed behind it. From there, the crate continued rumbling along, towards the garbage chute at the mouth of the pier. Then, it was a long fall for the crate, as it would have bounced off the sides of the tunnel until it finally landed at the bottom minutes later. It was there, in the darkness, where the crate would be exiled to amnesia, littered amongst the garbage and bodies of colonists departed. It was a hole deeper than memory, where things were buried to be forgotten.
Satisfied that the crate was disposed of, Martinique motioned for the conveyor belt to be stopped. “We took out the garbage. Let’s head home.”
While the guards streamed from the dock, eager that their shift was over, Martinique stayed behind. Curious, Pascal kept his eye on the guard, wondering what it was he was up to. Suddenly, Martinique turned and faced Pascal’s direction. Pascal held his breath. Could Martinique see him? It was impossible – Pascal had been painted into the shadows. No one could see him.
And yet, somehow Martinique could. Slowly, the guard’s face became infected with the devil’s smile. He pointed at where Pascal was hiding and mouthed the words, “You’re next.”
As Martinique casually walked away, Pascal clamped his hand to his mouth. Inside that thick moment of horror, Pascal was more awake than ever. H realized what – or rather, who – had been in the crate, and he knew that he was going to be next.
He turned and ran into the darkness, feeling as if he was sprinting into Martinique’s black eyes. There was no escape, and it was only then that he learned what fear really was.
***
2199 AD
As Pascal walked down the hallway of the clinic, he was surprised to find that no one else was around. It was so rare to be alone, and it was medicine to Pascal. He needed to get as far away from that room with Tumbler as possible, and his footsteps were drumming an allegro rhythm against the floor, and he was diving headfirst into the saltwater of his tears. His eyes burned, and he couldn’t see anything except the sad ending to his story. Tumbler had been a hero to Pascal so many times, and how did he repay him? Pascal couldn’t save his old friend just once from the monsters who rinsed their hands with Tumbler’s blood. Pascal was alone, and while there was no one to comfort him, there was no one he could fail.
He was so busy splashing through the pain of his day, that Pascal didn’t even hear the echo of the voices. It wasn’t until he passed by the cracked door that he heard the voices. But he didn’t know who was talking, and so the voices were like music without instruments. Pascal stopped walking, and he waited for his memory to catch up with him. He recognized the voices, and immediately the instruments were wearing faces: Martinique and Bends.
Pascal gasped – this made him even more horrified, as he wondered if they had heard him. The two most evil men in the colony were just feet away, like a demon talking to his reflection in a lake. The only shield that Pascal had was that door, and it was open and creaking softly on its hinges. Pascal’s first instinct was to keep walking – he had already drawn himself into enough trouble without eavesdropping on those two beasts. But then Pascal thought of Tumbler, and he became brave.
As Pascal carefully planted his ear into the crack in the doorway, he could hear Martinique. “You’re going to follow that order, Kevin,” Martinique demanded. “We give you enough leeway that you can do us this small favor.”
The words were written in the ink of Bends’ sneer. “But you think you can just take him away from me? After all that I’ve done? He’s a work of art, and I’ll fight for him – you can guarantee that.”
“Now, what could a doctor possibly have against us?”
“I know more of your secrets than you think. If you take Mr. Tumbler, I’ll drown the colony with all of the things you want kept hidden.”
Martinique was far from intimidated – in fact, his laugh came easily. “You don’t understand it – at least not yet. If you try to hurt us, all you’ll do is hurt yourself.” There was a slight pause. “So, what is it about Mr. Tumbler that makes you want to keep him?”
“The disease you infected him with – I’ve never seen anything like it. What the scientists did back on Earth was truly remarkable – it’s a masterpiece that needs to be seen. And you’re going to take a good story out of my hands, just as I’m getting to the ending? You can call me a monster all you want, but an animal can’t appreciate art like I can.”
Martinique was quiet for what felt like a minute. Pascal’s ears became flooded with the sound of his own heartbeat. Finally, Martinique said, “I’ll make you a deal. You can keep your patient for now, and you can do whatever you want with him. But you are going to keep him quiet. And the next time we ask you for a favor, you are going to give in, no matter how terrible it’ll be for you. Are we clear?
“It sounds like I’m leaving you with no choice,” Bends said, delighted that his connections back on Earth gave him so much power so far away.
“I guess we aren’t clear then. You aren’t going to walk
away from this thinking that you’ve won like you always do. You’re wrong – I do have a choice. I could have broken your neck right now and taken Mr. Tumbler out to be punished. But I’m going to let you live, because you’re more useful to me as a living tool than as a dead man. Just remember though: all tools break.”
“It sounds like a deal to me,” Bends agreed. The doctor’s voice was shaky, but Pascal couldn’t tell if it was because he was nervous or excited or both.
Pascal could hear the sound of both men rising from their chairs. He looked around, panicked, and found a nearby room with its door open, offering refuge. Pascal hid in the room just as the two monsters entered the hallway. While their footsteps died away, their voices did not, their terrible conversation still tolling in Pascal’s ears.
Pascal’s worst fears had been confirmed: if a leader like Tumbler was not held sacred, then there could be no hope for his followers. The union members were now more mortal than they had ever been, and they did not even know it. But where Pascal could not rescue his friend, there was still time to save the other miners.
***
2198 AD
“Trenton, you have any news?” Tumbler repeated, hopeful.
Although it was early in the morning, there was already a long line for the food store. The line trudged along for every colonist who got their parcel of terrible food. Pascal had been standing in line, silently obsessing over Imogen’s murder at the bloody hands of the guards, when Tumbler had slipped into line behind him. Tumbler had to ask his question twice in order to be heard. The crowd was just murmuring, but the memories inside of Pascal’s head were deafening.
Finally hearing the question, Pascal jumped and began to turn, but Tumbler put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Keep looking forward,” Tumbler requested softly. “If I have surveillance, I don’t want them to see us talking. So…?”
Pascal cleared his throat. “Um, well, last night I did what you asked. I trailed the guards and Imogen from the hospital to the dock.”
“Was she in restraints? Was she drugged?”
“No – she was walking under her own free will,” Pascal lied. He was glad that he couldn’t turn around and be confronted by Tumbler’s incredulous look. “I followed them the whole way to the dock, and I watched as she shook hands with Chief Latch – yes, she was there too – before boarding the launch.”
“Now, why would she do that?” Tumbler wondered, dazed.
Pascal shrugged. “Maybe she saw something that the rest of us didn’t. You said so yourself that she got put away for speaking out. Maybe, she finally saw there was no point to it. She might have cracked a deal with the leadership – maybe a ticket home in exchange for her silence.” He then added, “Maybe we could learn from her example.”
“If what you say is true, then I’m not interested. The only thing I would learn from her is how to be a coward. You know, I’ve spent years of nights wondering why we let a terrible invention like the charter run our lives. I think I just finally found my answer, though, after all of this time. The only reason why the charter has any power is because there are people like Imogen who give their power away. If there’s one thing I can teach you, it’s that…Hey, watch where you’re going there.”
“Sorry,” a voice next to Pascal said. Out of the corner of his eye, Pascal saw a man walk swiftly past them. Although Pascal only saw the back of the man’s head, there was something familiar in his walk. Pascal waited impatiently for the mysterious man to be out of earshot before whispering back, “What was that about?”
“Nothing, the guy just bumped into me. He was probably just trying to cut in line – I don’t know why, because the food’s not worth it.”
“Did you recognize him?” Pascal asked.
“I don’t know. I thought it was one of the guards at first, but he wasn’t wearing the guard’s uniform…”
Suddenly, Pascal heard a gasp behind him, followed by the sound of a body softly crumbling to the ground. Pascal turned and found his friend, his Tumbler, shaking like mad on the rock, his eyes rolling to the back of his head, vomit trickling from his lips down his cheek. Pascal gasped and knelt down, cradling Tumbler, trying to keep him still through his seizure. The scene had caught the attention of the others, and the line broke apart. Within a few seconds, what seemed like the whole of the colony was gathered around the two friends. The union miners looked on in funeral sadness, their hands to their mouths, their eyes covered in sores from crying, as if Tumbler had already died.
“Someone, get the doctor!” Pascal screamed, finally finding his voice. “Find Bends!”
If only Tumbler had allowed Pascal to turn around during their conversation, the young man would have seen what happened. He would have seen Martinique – disguised in the mechanic’s uniform – bump against Tumbler, with a nanoneedle brush concealed in his hand. He would have seen the guard inject Tumbler with a slow death, a poison that would destroy every bodily function in the years ahead, saving his life for last. To the charter, this was a fair enough punishment.
And even if Pascal had been looking at Tumbler at the moment of the murder, Martinique would have still carried out the crime. If anything, Martinique would have smiled at Pascal while he carried out the killing. The guards had never felt the blade of fear – only its hilt. And they certainly had nothing to fear from the island of man that was Trenton Pascal. Young Pascal only had one friend across the stretch of the universe, and he was burning up in his arms. Pascal couldn’t trust anyone else, and no one else trusted Pascal. And Pascal couldn’t take his accusations to the guards, because the guards were the criminals.
And so Pascal was shackled in silence. Martinique knew this, and this was why he was not worried. Because Pascal would first have to break his chains in order to break him.
***
2199 AD
The same day that Pascal had his nose broken by Canto, the miner was already back on the colonial grounds, preaching to anyone who would listen. Bends had managed to straighten out his nose, although Pascal suspected the doctor had made the procedure more painful than it needed to be. The swelling had not gone down yet, and so Pascal still had a little trouble breathing, but he had plenty of life in him.
He had gotten back just in time, too. There was a replacement crew of three miners who were walking the path to the dock, from where they would blast off towards Harbor. As the crew passed, Tumbler tried his best to rescue them – where he had failed with Tumbler, he had to succeed with them.
“Phaethon, Ishmael, you all have to listen to me! You men are smart enough to know that to obey is life and to rebel is death. You think that the charter hates you, but it’s only tough love, the way a parent loves their child. Would you feed someone, clothe someone, or put a roof over someone’s head if you hated them? No! The charter gives you these things. But what they give, they can take away. Back down while you still have a breath in you!”
The group of miners laughed – the old one they called Ishmael looked at Pascal with pity, but didn’t say anything. As Pascal watched the miners head towards the dock and their waiting launch, he wanted to scream and beat his fists against the stone. He was going to fail with them too.
And yet, for every defeat that Pascal had made with his hands, he still pushed on. Because by that point, he had seen the face of his enemy, and he understood what had to be done. He was fighting death itself, which had the killing hands of Martinique, which had wormed its way into the hearts of both Imogen and Tumbler, which had filled him brimming with fear. And he knew that the only way to kill death was with life, and so he was going to save every union miner he could from the conspiracy of guards. And the only way he could save them was by making them abandon the ship of the union. It was the only way Pascal could possibly redeem his little soul.
Pascal thought of Tumbler, and his preaching cracked.
Vela
2199 AD
It was night on the star as the planet dawned. From standing in the flowing fields of f
ire on the star Carina, it was possible to watch the planet Janus rise from the blankets of horizon. And while the mother star was warm and her child planet was cold, Janus bounced back so much of the starlight that it could have been mistaken for a sun of its own.
And, like always, whenever a Sun rises, a Moon falls. As Janus marched around the star, the space station Harbor was walking along the same footpath, just a million miles ahead of Janus. From the moment Harbor was crafted and settled into orbit with a watchmaker’s care, the station and the planet Janus chased each other around their maypole star. They were dancers condemned to never finding their marriage through rhythm.
As the space station streamed over the star, a chip of its promise broke away and rained down like a drop of diamond. The Ship Digamma – the launch that had left Harbor and was heading towards Carina – was a thrown dart, cutting through the strings of space. Ship Digamma was clacking along on the rails of sunshine from Carina – as the shoots of photons from the star became brighter and thicker, Digamma flew even quicker. Just two hundred years before, the same trip would have taken the rocket ships months to finish. But for the starling launches, it was just a matter of minutes.
And even then – as the launch accelerated towards the speed of light – its pilot and passengers hardly noticed. If anything, flying on a bullet into infinity felt almost boring. One of the passengers – a stocky man with dirty blond hair almost cut down to the root – was tapping idly on his armrest. At first, it seemed that no one had noticed the noise. But then the elderly man with the thick glasses and thin hair spoke up, and then it was apparent that they had just been ignoring him.
