Flower-of-Sands_The Extraordinary Adventures of a Female Astronaut

by Grahame R. Smith

  ‘Well, yes, actually, frankly, I would like that … very much.’

  ‘You do realize that I am an artificial person, an AI, the ship’s avatar, in fact.’

  ‘Yes, I do realize that. I can’t help it. I have tried.’

  Ninthe turned to her, eyes deep blue and moist, her face angelically lovely.

  ‘It’s understandable. Our creators designed us to be attractive. Also, I have been directing pheromones at you since day one.’

  ‘Really?’ Flower-of-Sands’ eyes widened with astonishment. She swallowed. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I like you. Just because I am artificial, it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.’

  ‘You like me?’ Flower-of-Sands’ voice was barely audible in the rarefied, recycled air.

  ‘Well yes. It can’t be one sided.’

  Flower-of-Sands did not know how to respond, so she sat quietly waiting for Ninthe to take the initiative.

  Which she did. ‘Sands, why don’t you go to your bunk and wait for me. I have to finish some calculations and then I will join you.’

  Feeling ridiculous, Flower-of-Sands flew back to what was left of her private space and settled into her bunk. She started to strip off her drop-skin but despite her desires, dozed off half way through.

  When she awoke, Ninthe was already naked beside her, peeling off the remainder of the skin, her hands unbearably gentle. Deliciously vulnerable, Flower-of-Sands was an undiscovered country about to be explored and questioned, each moment of it a delight. Opening her implant-net, she allowed Ninthe to invade her at will. She belonged to Ninthe, was an extension of her, freely available. She forgot their dire situation, the abuse of the pirates, the escape from death only to face an inevitable death soon. Out here, on the fringes of a solar system where dark worlds drifted in black oblivion, she was happy for a while, cared for, caressed, loved, and loving.

  When she awoke, Ninthe had gone. After lying staring up at the ceiling, pondering the delights of the last few hours, she slipped on her skin and slid out of the bunk.

  As she floated to the kitchen area, she felt her suit compensating for the cold. Ninthe must have turned down the thermostat to conserve energy. They would need it.

  Edge and Faithe had hooked themselves to the side of the kitchenette. A cup and a few morsels of food floated in front of them. Flower-of-sands realized that they both knew about her and Ninthe. Faithe’s attitude was that she was not going to say anything. Edge was smirking – friendly smirking, but smirking.

  ‘Okay, say it,’ Flower-of-Sands said as she prepared the best imitation of coffee that the wilting AI could come up with. ‘Get it out of your system.’

  ‘Well, you called me a playboy many times in my previous incarnation. Now who is the playgirl – and with an AI, an artificial person? Honestly Sands.’

  ‘I like her, and she likes me.’

  Ninthe’s voice came over through their smart-skin intercoms. ‘We will reach our destination in three hours. Edge, join me on the bridge. Faithe and Sands, when the time comes get into your bunks and strap down. Meanwhile, search for potential hull breaches. We will probably use up our fuel reserve in landing, so once we are down we will be marooned, unless we find a source of fuel on the planet. Please be aware, I have located a signal on the planetoid that indicates a crashed space ship of some description. It is possible we may find others in similar circumstances.’

  Noticing that Edge was taking his time, Flower-of-Sands finished her drink and flew up the tube-shaft to the bridge. They were in a perilous situation, at the far reaches of an outer asteroid belt, facing a difficult landing on a barren dwarf planet, and probably facing death through thirst or starvation or exposure, when all she could think about was being in love with an artificial person.

  She arrived on the bridge. ‘Ninthe, I just wanted to say …’

  Ninthe looked rather drab, nothing like the radiant person from last night – night, of course, being a relative term. ‘Listen Sands, I don’t have time for this now. I must calculate a treacherous landing with very little room for manoeuvre and using very little that suffices for an engine. Later, Sands, if we survive.’

  ‘Okay, I just I would say how much I …’

  ‘I enjoyed it too Sands, but this is not the time. I hold yours and the others’ lives in my hands. Now, be a good girl and tell Edge to get a move on.’

  Sulking, Flower-of-sands floated back to the kitchen. Half way she passed Edge. He gave her the thumbs, up but looked grim. He was obviously pessimistic about their prospects.

  Because the pirates had taken so much of the ship’s infrastructure, the ship was potentially dangerous. Everything loose needed locking down or fastening to the floor or bulkhead, or stored in invisible drawers and storage units. The pirates had detached and taken away large areas of the ship’s propulsion system. Searching for leaks and hidden damage in these areas had become routine, but now took on special significance. Faithe and Flower-of-Sands worked tirelessly for hours, after which they retired to a shared bunk, strapped down, held hands, and gazed up at formless shadows on the ceiling.

  The lights went out and Ninthe’s voice came through their smart-skin intercoms. ‘This is it, folks. It will be bumpy, and it will be a high gee manoeuvre. Use your training.’

  The two women closed their eyes and waited. Apart from a small stirring deep inside the bulkhead, nothing seemed to happen. ‘Don’t forget to breathe,’ Faithe whispered.

  Flower-of-Sands realized that she was holding her breath, and tried breathing deeply. It was not easy. Her breaths came in stuttering gasps. Faithe was having a similar problem.

  ‘I’ve made hundreds of entries,’ Faithe said. ‘But never without the protection of technology. I trained for gees at space school, but I’ve never had to use it. Let’s hope your lover knows what she is doing.’

  The ship lurched and groaned like rusty metal. They could feel the hull shuddering.

  Faithe gripped Flower-of-Sands hand. ‘That was nasty.’

  ‘I’m afraid that was just a warm up.’

  Another lurch, followed by a feeling of sinking into an abyss. Suddenly it felt as if they were bumping along an invisible primitive runway, shaking from side to side, diving, swooping, twisting, and tumbling.

  Both women held on to one another. By now, the gees were getting to them and Faithe stopped talking; she must have passed out. Flower-of-Sands tried to connect to her through her skin intercom, but she did not respond. She tried looking over, but was unable to move. If earlier she had thought breathing an issue, now she was unable to breathe and thought she would die. She was furious. Why put ourselves through this when we could have stayed comfortably in space, or even orbit, and died peacefully.

  On the bridge, Edge and Ninthe were struggling with forces they were barely able to control. Edge was piloting whilst Ninthe fed navigation directly into his implant. Because the pirates had stolen most screens and holo platforms, Edge had plugged directly into Ninthe’s cerebral network. He was not blind, but seeing through the ships eyes, as if he were in a holoigloo or some other virtual reality platform.

  Inevitably, they were moving too fast. The terrain was jagged, fierce, and likely to rip the craft in two. To the left, it was smoother. Ninthe was continuously streaming calculations into Edge’s implant. He manoeuvred the ship towards the smoother terrain, barely able to control the momentum. On either side were mountains, incredibly high; ahead loomed a fierce rock formation. He managed to lift the ship over the formation only to face a vast black cavern.

  He steered to the right where there was a glimmer of an opening. There was a terrible screeching as if the ship was breaking apart. They hit a hard cliff wall and began to somersault through the opening.

  A clearer landscape now stretched before them. He began to slow the craft down whilst Ninthe released two balloons that they had manufactured from the linings of escape pod launch cradles.

  And there it was – a ship, sunk in sand, only half of its
hull visible. And parts of it scattered across the desert landscape. On either side were hills, canyons, and mysterious, grotesque formations.

  The ship began to slow and Ninthe released another balloon, which, like the others, was only partially effective in the thin atmosphere. The ground loomed towards them. They seemed to bounce, roll, and bounce again. Edge shouted. ‘It’s now. Hold on, we are about to hit the turf.’

  A single hit followed by a few anxious seconds. Then another hit, and another. Then a long, bumpy, treacherous slide through alien soil.

  They stopped.

  Flower-of-Sands opened her eyes, her eyelids heavy and aching. Faithe stirred beside her. Slowly, they climbed out of the bunk.

  There was little gravity and they felt as if suspended on pulleys or hot-air balloons. Their smart-skins had the capacity to compensate for too little or too much gravity, but throughout the journey to the planetoid, they had disabled that capability to conserve energy. They decided that the skin’s gravity functions should remain switched off until they ventured outside.

  They joined Edge and Ninthe on the bridge. ‘Well done, Edge,’ Flower-of-Sands said stroking his arm. ‘That was a spectacular piece of landing.’

  ‘Even although you nearly got us killed,’ Faithe laughed.

  Edge ran fingers through his hair and sighed. ‘It was difficult, off the scale, because we were flying little more than a raft. I hope it was for the best.’

  ‘We need to investigate the wreckage,’ Ninthe said briskly. ‘There may be something for us there. It is three kilometres away, but with such light gravity you should make it quickly. You have all had advanced astronaut training, I presume.’

  Flower-of-Sands felt a little hurt by Ninthe’s attitude of treating her the same as the others, but dismissed this as a side effect of the stress they were all under. Ninthe continued, ‘At some stage, perhaps a billion years ago, this might have been a moon to a large planet. There are remnants of an atmosphere, such as nitrogen, methane and other gases, and the terrain is not just flat with craters, but interesting – mountains, and canyons, and variation in colour and texture. Deep cold, which will challenge your smart-skins.’

  ‘Okay,’ Edge said. ‘The pirates took our pressure suits, but we can put our skins into survival mode. Set the gravity equalizer to 50%. That should give us enough control and stop us from flying away.’

  ‘It is best I remain on the ship,’ Ninthe said. ‘I need to effect repairs and take inventory. I can join you later, if you find a reason to stay.’

  ‘Are you sure,’ Flower-of-Sands said pensively.

  ‘Of course, I would not have said so had I not been sure. I can join you later and you can report back all the time.’

  ‘Good,’ Edge said. ‘Let’s get moving.’

  Outside was rugged and eerie. They moved quickly, hopping in single file, Edge leading. The sun was surprisingly bright, lighting up a glistening white and uneven surface. Their suits were working hard to compensate for the cold; mountains and serrated landscapes silently threatened their peace of mind as their breath forced heavily in their chests.

  Flower-of-sands contemplated the extraordinary sequence of events that had brought her and her friends to this desolate world. All she had wanted was to visit the Great Wheel, procure the necessary drives to do so, and leave with no imposition on anyone else. Instead – all this had happened. Could she be dreaming? Had some unofficial holo game caught her in a fantasy from which she could not escape? Was she still in the Spectrum club, being fed some experimental hallucinogenic? Would she suddenly awaken, in her cabin, or on the space station, beside Edge – awaken into a world in which none of this had happened, where the space spores and pirates were just figments of child’s holo game.

  It was not to be. She had tried to awaken many times since the arrival of the pirates who had taken everything from Oblique. Whatever reality was, she was in it, with no means of escape except through …

  Here she stopped her thoughts. There is always hope, she told herself. They were resourceful, and they had Ninthe, Oblique’s avatar and her lover. And that was another question. What was she doing having an affair with an AI, Oblique’s avatar, an artificial person? Normally, she liked men of her own age, or slightly older. Stavros, her warrior lover on Earth, was much older, but that was an exceptional circumstance. Then so was this. Was it the unusual circumstance, the sheer terror of their situation that had caused her to not only fancy Ninthe, but to fall in love, while she already had an exciting lover in the form of Edge – although, she had to admit, Edge had been rather standoffish since his emergence from his playboy persona.

  She looked at the alien landscape, the jutting, twisting, mangled rock formations – the mountains reaching up kilometres, shadows like knives cutting across hard, unyielding whiteness. It was so unreal, she thought she would panic and lose her mind. Fortunately, her skin was monitoring her bio, mental, and emotional status, and making chemical adjustments.

  They turned into a valley. The primary was low in the sky and dazzling. Ghostly green stretched towards a cliff rising out of pale-yellow sand. And there it was, the alien ship looming before them. Still. No lights. A tomb on a faraway world. Symbols and heliographs glinted across the hull, mysterious in the half-light. They slowed and then came to rest and looked up at the enormous hull. Where was the opening?

  The ship – most of which was buried – was probably a kilometre long. Finding a way in would not be easy. There were no visible signs of air locks, windows, cargo holds - only a smooth, featureless hull.

  Ninthe’s voice came through their suits’ communications network. ‘People, I can’t locate a way in, but there is a signal, and faint sign of life. There is no active communications technology, but there is something there, something alive.’

  They exchanged looks of unease mixed with hope and began to explore for openings. Although the hull stretched up thirty meters, this was easy to scale due to the very low gravity. Edge leaped up and began to examine the highest exposed area of the ship. Faithe and Flower-of-Sands searched along the sides. They kept each other in view, as to be alone in this desolate landscape could induce temporary, if not permanent, loss of mind.

  ‘Over there!’ Faithe shouted. ‘Something is happening along the most exposed part of the hull.’

  ‘It’s an opening!’ shouted Edge. ‘Quick, let’s get up there before whatever it is changes its mind.’

  A glimmer of light had appeared, revealing an opening half way up the part of the ship’s hull that was most exposed. The crew hopped towards it, excitement fuelling their action to such an extent that they almost lost control and catapulted beyond the crash site.

  Without hesitation, they went in because they had nothing to lose. The ship represented the only hope in an otherwise doomed scenario.

  A robotic voice came through an intercom in a language they did not recognize, presumably giving instructions for depressurizing. Not knowing what else to do, they followed standard procedure and waited. Eventually, a door slid open and they found themselves in a dimly lit cargo hold. At first, they could make out very little, and then the scene became clearer. A remarkable sight confronted them.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Flower-of-Sands whispered. ‘How pitiful!’

  Chapter 15

  Clayton walked into his office clutching a half-empty mug of stimulant tea. He had been up all night, worrying and investigating the apparent disappearance of Oblique. No communication pathway had been effective. Absolute silence. Admittedly, the Marleeseen planet and its surrounding space was difficult to contact, as the Marleeseen lived in their own, unique reality; but they were possible to communicate with, especially in an emergency.

  Ultimately, the Marleeseen were benign, and always anxious to bring accord into every situation. They would not be evasive about the disappearance of a ship. If they knew something, they would admit it immediately. Yet the automated Liberty Primary Diplomatic Consul, equipped with state of the art, FTL temporal communica
tions and in wide Paradise orbit, had reported nothing.

  A grim reality confronted Clayton; the Oblique had gone into FTL shortly after leaving the station and had apparently not emerged.

  He sat at his desk and looked across at his semi-synthetic, exotic secretary, Leesha-Ha, who was juggling holos of construction plans and station extensions. ‘Lesha, can you find nothing? Has the Oblique completely disappeared?’

  ‘Sir, I have looked and am still looking. I have run 10,000 models and so far, I have come up with nothing.’

  ‘Worst case scenario?’

  Leesha-Ha was diplomatically quiet for a few seconds. ‘Sir, there has been talk of rare disappearances at the edge of the Marleeseen system, but they have always involved semi-legal flights that were not properly documented in the first place.’

  ‘Disappearances? I have not heard of such things.’

  ‘Well, they are not official, and those few who have considered them, have dismissed them as fanciful.’

  ‘Fanciful? In what way?’

  ‘Well, there was talk, a few years back, of renegade Rann derivatives pirating the area. Do you not remember?’

  ‘Maybe I do. But the rumours were dismissed as unbelievable, and probably induced by Marleeseen hospitality.’

  ‘You mean the infamous Marleeseen wine?’

  ‘Look, this is not the place for joking.’ He was quiet for a few moments, rubbing his fingers over his forehead. ‘I should have remembered the rumours. And you should have reminded me.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Worst case scenario, well, there is more than one: They made it out of FTL, but at a distant location, due to a one in a million chance of misjudged re-entry into N-space. Or, somehow something or someone intercepted them just before or after they emerged from hyperspace. There is another conjecture, of bizarre life forms existing in hyperspace attacking ships on re-emergence.’

  Clayton sighed impatiently. ‘Yes, I have heard of that. But surely, the existence of such creatures is theoretical.’

  ‘Indeed, Clayton, but everything about this situation is theoretical.’