Eclipse

by K. A. Bedford

  Then Ferguson was standing over me, screaming, “Tell me what you’re up to! Tell me!”

  And then he kicked my head—

  I could smell the Infirmary. The harsh lights were a red glow through my closed eyelids. There was a colossal thumping in my head. When I tried moving my jaw, it ­appeared to work. Reaching a hand up to my face, I probed around in my mouth, checking my teeth: all present and accounted for. Nothing wobbled.

  God, my head hurt, like nothing I had known since my early days at the Academy.

  I could hear voices over me: Ferguson was screaming, “Tell me!” And I heard Colin saying, patronizing, “No, snot-breath, you do it like this! God, what a ­moron!”

  And there was the sound of Dad, way past midnight one night, outside the house, possibly drunk, screaming his rage and grief into the stars, a grief that would blot out light everywhere. There were no words in his grief. Words are too specific, confining, for all their wicked slipperiness and ambiguity, for what Dad felt that night and every night thereafter. His sobbing would cut ice; it cut me to hear it. It made me want to cry, too, though I had never cried about Colin.

  Once Colin was gone, I had to be the strong one of the family. Crying wasn’t an option. Trish cried. She cried almost as much as Dad, but silently, in deepest private. I never heard her or caught her at it, but I could see it in her eyes, the slope of her face. I was hearing Dad again now, and remembering how I heard him night after night. He stopped one day, months later. Colin was edited from our lives; the text of our existence bunched up to fill the gap he left when he deleted himself.

  I felt a warm hand holding mine. I could feel some moisture, a heartbreaking softness. The hand stayed there as I drifted in and out and in again, my consciousness tidal. It was Sorcha’s voice, quiet, “How is he?”

  And a doctor’s voice: “He’ll be fine, but he took a hell of a fall. His head sustained four serious…”

  The last time I saw Mom, before she left the Home System, she was on her transport and I was back home talking to her over an increasingly attenuating phone connection. We had only a few minutes. Time screamed and streamed away as the transport boosted up for tube entry. How do you say good-bye to your mother? I never did, in the end. Instead, we stared and smiled. She sniffled and cried while we said silly, trivial things and she made me promise to look after Trish, and said she’d write. I asked why she would have to wear that veil thing, and not do any work and it didn’t seem fair. She couldn’t say, in those final seconds. She smiled in a way that must have hurt her as much as it hurt me. A loving pain for her; a hating pain for me. She said I shouldn’t worry; her new husband was a good man. But that only made me hate her more. Dad needed her. We all needed her. I couldn’t understand why she was leaving us, and she couldn’t say in so many words. So we said stupid, useless things. The last thing she said, before cut-off was: “Brush your teeth!”

  Brush your teeth. The things we hold onto.

  I forget the last thing Colin said to me. My recollection of him goes back to the day before he did his thing. He was up in his room, writing something in his journal. I couldn’t see what it was; he was encrypting his writing as he went, which wasn’t a problem for him; he could read and write that same code if he had to; he had taught himself, like he taught himself everything. I remember him hunched over the Paper, clutching the stylus like it was the only thing worth living for. The light on his desk made his face stark; I couldn’t see his eyes; his whole body was bent over, shoulder muscles working under his blue shirt. He had tremendous starship models in his room. A couple he had let me help him build. Just small parts, nothing important. He had scratch-built a few of them. I remember he spent months working on the Norton-Lockheed Constellation II passenger liner, one of the first true commercial starships. It was such an antique. It had four huge Tokore System V fusion cores. They were bigger than the basic spaceframe! Those ships were real workhorses. The company built 129 of them and they were in service over forty years.

  “We’re releasing you back to active duty today, Mr. Dunne,” the disposable nurse said.

  I had been awake a few hours and had a light meal. My head felt okay. “Oh,” I said, thinking about that.

  “You had a nasty fall there. You should be more careful.” The nurse said this while looking down at her notes.

  This sounded all too familiar. “A fall?”

  The nurse looked at me. “You hit your head pretty hard.”

  “I hit my head?” I stared at the nurse, took a deep breath, and thought about things. “I’m still on Eclipse, right?”

  The nurse smiled. “Of course. Where else would you be?”

  “Thought for a moment I might have slipped through to a parallel universe.”

  “Silly boy,” she said, smiling.

  I nodded towards her display board. “Does it really say I had a fall?”

  The nurse showed me her board. Right there on the top layer was a window containing my treatment history, vital signs observations, and case notes. She paged back through it to show me the initial presentation notes.

  Pointing, I asked, “What’s this reference to Mr. Ferguson here?”

  “He brought you in,” she said. “Asked us to let him know when you were back on your feet.”

  “And he said I’d taken this awful fall?”

  “That’s correct, yes.” The nurse looked baffled, as if wondering why I was even concerned about this.

  I looked at the Service owner-logo tattooed on her head. Disposable nurses. You could program one to think just about anything.

  “Listen,” I said, trying on a wheedling smile, “I’m still feeling a little woozy. Do you think I could see an actual doctor? Would that be okay? I’d really appreciate it.”

  The nurse said, “But the doctors have already cleared you for release this afternoon.” Her eyes had that familiar look disposables get, that blank, nobody-home emptiness.

  “Yes, I know,” I said, “but it would just make me more comfortable if I could talk to a doctor. Is that too much to ask? It’s not like you’re flat-out busy, is it?” The Infirmary was empty of patients, other than my pesky self. The nurse glanced about. Checked my notes. Touched some controls.

  “You want to see a doctor?” she asked, as if only now understanding.

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  I could see she didn’t like it, but she said, “Okay, I’ll just get Dr. Critchlow. One moment.” She left, padding away down the small ward, going through a door. She took her notes with her.

  While I waited, I checked the time and date: it was 1300 hours, three days later. I linked in with ShipMind’s ­vehicle status channel: we were in the midst of our second tube jump, with the likelihood of needing another tube to get us where we were going. I called up a starchart and the helm system plotted in our likely dropout point and our final destination.

  Final destination was a routine star system, five planets, including two gas giants.

  This star system was 282 lightyears from home.

  I felt chills. To the best of my knowledge, only robot probes had been this far out from home.

  I sent a message to Sorcha: “I just woke up. What’s going on? Where are we going? Talk to you soon.”

  The nurse returned, bringing Dr. Critchlow, the Medical Team leader. He was tall, for a Service officer, quiet, and sympathetic. He had been among the doctors who had resented the way Ferguson had been treating me before.

  “Mr. Dunne, what seems to be the trouble? Nurse here tells me you have a pressing problem.”

  “Hi, Doc. Listen, what’s this about me having a fall? I know perfectly well that Ferguson kicked my head in.”

  The doctor dismissed the nurse, who had begun to protest; she nodded and departed.

  “Son,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “Ferguson did i
ndeed kick you in the head. Fractured your skull, in fact, along with some nasty neck trauma. That’s why you’ve been out so long.”

  “But the record—”

  “He brought you in, doing his best to look all concerned. More likely he was worried that if you died it really would wind up on his record, to say nothing of litigation, insurance wrangles, and the like.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “The captain insisted Ferguson’s name be kept out of it, that the incident be sanitized.”

  I sat up, too fast, and felt dizzy for a moment. “The captain?”

  Critchlow wore a sad, used-to-crap-like-this smile. “Ferguson is close to retirement. He’s got a pension coming.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I felt my anger building, and I grabbed the doctor’s lab jacket, and pulled him close: “The bastard nearly killed me.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Did you hear what I said? He could have bloody killed me!” I was shouting point-blank into his face.

  “Let me go, Mr. Dunne.” His voice was firm but quiet.

  It took me a long moment to calm down. I let him go. He adjusted his jacket. “Christ, Dunne. Haven’t you learned anything?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “The captain and Ferguson, they look out for each other. While Rudyard’s covering Ferguson, you can’t touch him.”

  “Screw them. I’ve got witnesses. You for a start.”

  The doctor folded his arms, looked down.

  “Doc?” I said, feeling the ground begin to fall away beneath me.

  He said nothing.

  “Doc?”

  Then, softly, “It’s not as straightforward as you think.”

  “You’re suggesting I let the executive officer bounce me off the walls whenever he wants?”

  “That’s not what I meant, Mr. Dunne.”

  “So educate me, Doc.”

  He stared at me, thinking it over. “You’re not the first junior officer this has happened to. Ferguson eats kids like you alive.”

  I had been informed about this, but it hadn’t really penetrated my thick skull until this moment. You can hear or read statistics about extreme crew abuse, and you feel ­horrified on a certain level, but until you’re next in line to be shoved out the airlock, you really don’t understand. “There were others? What happened…?”

  Critchlow looked as though he was about to say something, then thought better of it. He said, forcing an unwelcome chummy feeling between us. “Well, I think you’re well enough to get back to your assigned duties, Mr. Dunne.”

  “Dr. Critchlow?”

  “If you experience any dizziness, lack of coordination, that kind of thing, don’t hesitate to shoot us a note or phone us, and make an appointment, all right?” He stepped back from the bed so I could get up. He kept watching me, as if to make sure I understood his subtext. It was the same as ever on this ship: Don’t rock the boat.

  It also occurred to me that the walls might have ears even here. Or Critchlow might be worried about what might happen to him if he provoked Ferguson by helping me stir up trouble.

  “Who,” I asked, as I got up, “do I see about pressing charges? Riordan, right?”

  The doc let through a glimpse of his true feelings. “Don’t go biting off more than you can chew, son.”

  “Thanks, Doc. You’ve done enough.”

  I went to leave. Critchlow grabbed my arm. As I spun to face him, I saw the look in his eyes. New mail appeared in my head, a note from the doctor:

  “Mr. Dunne — this ship has a way of losing foolish and accident-prone junior officers out in the dark. Don’t be one of them.”

  Seventeen

  I went back to my sim work; it seemed the best thing to do. I shot Mr. Janning a note to let him know I was back on duty. Walking the corridors and passageways on my way to the sim room, I passed several officers; I saluted as required. Few saluted back. Why should they bother with the likes of me? I thought, a scummy little Level 1 tubeworm.

  Sim Training Officer Hinz told me when I reported in that my work was progressing extremely well, that I was almost finished the bridging program; I could be done in about ten days or two weeks. Mr. Janning, he said, was considering promoting me to SSO Level 2 on completion, and perhaps even rotating me into the regular Helm Team.

  Ten days, maybe fourteen. I was starting to feel like that was too far in the future for me to make predictions. Would I even be alive in two weeks? If I kept provoking Ferguson, maybe not. That gave me pause: I wondered if I was still Ferguson’s little project. I still had two more decks to scrub. I decided if Ferguson wanted me, he could come and get me. Just the thought of how it would look, me reporting to his quarters, saying, “Well, Mr. Ferguson, sir, here I am. Shall we resume our games?” — it made me too ill to contemplate.

  And where was Sorcha? Why hadn’t she replied to my note yet? Obvious, soul-destroying answers popped up all too readily. She was either: (a) playing a prank or (b) had met someone else like Alastair, perhaps someone with a few more clues about women like Sorcha, and who knew how precious she was and treated her accordingly; or, of course, (c) that she’d just changed her mind and couldn’t bring herself to tell me.

  I could have wept.

  Instead, I strapped down into my assigned sim egg, powered up the systems, and let the machines do their work.

  A moment later, I woke screaming. Hinz popped the hatch on my egg and went to pull me out, even as I tried to attack him.

  In my mind I was back in Rudyard’s head, trying to subdue a loudmouth whore who wouldn’t shut up and she had to be taught a bloody lesson and I wasn’t in a mood to put up with this kind of thing I was captain of a bloody starship and what I say goes you think when we’re out in the godforsaken dark I get the luxury of calling for help or advice no I don’t I don’t get any luxury whatever and the officers I do have are idiots or certifiable crazies so it’s just me and I have to be ready to make snap, life or death decisions and it’s all up to me who lives and dies and nobody gives me any shit or complains or says no I don’t think so captain that’s not a good idea captain so you young lady, are going to lie there and take this even if I have to knock your goddamn head off is that understood?

  “Dunne!” Somebody was shaking me. “Dunne! You hear me?”

  I could hardly breathe. My heart was hammering, and my throat burned; my voice was almost gone. Blinking, glancing around in the red light, I saw Hinz, a compact, middle-aged man, good at his job, unassuming, but tough. And he had this look on his face, something I had never seen on him before…

  He was afraid of me.

  My head hurt. A hot, burning, solid grinding pain.

  “Dunne, you all right, son? Can you hear me?”

  I croaked, “I think … so…”

  He was touching the area around his left eye. I saw he had a bruise starting to form, and swelling in the tissues.

  “God — did I hit you? Did I? Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Mr. Hinz. I’m so sorry…”

  He put his free hand up. “It’s alright right, son. You weren’t yourself, that was obvious enough. And I’ve had worse in my time.”

  “I’m so awfully sorry. Is there anything I can do? I won’t challenge you if you want to put me on report for this, sir.”

  He gave me a sharp look. “Mr. Dunne, judging by the sounds of it, that wasn’t you that hit me. You follow what I’m saying? I think the best thing you can do is get yourself back to the Infirmary, get them to have a bit of a look in there.”

  “My head does hurt, sir. And I feel … kinda strange.”

  “I’ll call ahead. Now get on with you!”

  I nodded gently, and set off. I stopped at the door. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Hinz. I’d like to make it up to you.”

 
“Just get yourself well enough to finish your program and you’ll make me the happiest man aboard. Now hop to it!”

  Outside the sim room, I slumped against the wall, clutching my head. My biostatic control interface said my brain was behaving within normal ­tolerances. I lacked the skill and tools to interrogate the interface properly.

  Then I had a paranoid little thought: what if Caroline’s bit of spyware was acting up after Ferguson’s little two-step on my skull? I checked through its self-diagnostic functions. It looked in order.

  What wasn’t in order was my mind, and the continuing feeling of being caught in Rudyard’s head, remembering that woman. I remembered her. What she felt like, what her skin felt like as my fist hit. The smell of her hair as I pulled her head back to smear a rasping kiss across her bleeding mouth. It was all there in my head. Her silent weeping afterwards was the worst.

  There was the stink of blood and semen all through the room. And the taste of once-fine, flat champagne, and sharing in a toast with Boyle and Irvine, great mates from the old days, now captains together. I remember bubbles tickling my nostrils and that hot ache in my loins, and laughing, but also, deep inside, feeling hollow. That even as Boyle, Irvine, and I toasted ourselves and talked about how wasn’t this just like the old days, I nonetheless knew something was very wrong with this picture, but not knowing what. It was getting to be a familiar feeling now. Two more bottles of champagne took care of most of that hollow feeling, that dull bitterness, the nagging sense of something wrong. And later, feeling giddy and giggly, when we did that stupid girl again—

  And then I, Dunne, tears pouring from my eyes and nose, feeling wretched, filled with more self-loathing than I thought possible, was saying, “But I’m bloody gay! What am I doing? I’m gay!” And I had all these memories, as vivid as my own, of my family, when I was a kid, trying to tell me that being gay was perfectly fine, even as my flesh crawled at the thought.