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Outpost
Lieutenant Commander Elias Jimenez was asleep at his desk. One arm, his right, cradled his head while the other arm hung limp at his side. The metal surface of the desk was a more familiar resting place than the pillow on his abandoned rack, but he did not sleep peacefully. Jimenez breathed in rough gasps and grimaced in concert with twisting lips and twitching fingers.
Jimenez dreamed of escape. In the nightmare he prowled the perimeter of his confinement, increasingly agitated that he could not find his way out. He stalked to the right past his desk, examining every surface and corner as if some magic door should appear. In his dream (as he had done countless times while awake) he groped past the antenna monitoring panels, skirted the unslept-in rack pulled down from another bulkhead, and ignored the powered down and inoperative leisure console. He moved on, feeling his desperation growing.
Jimenez squeezed into a U-shaped, narrow passageway and explored bulkheads, overhead, and deck in pounding frustration. The U was a tidy tangle of fully automated and computer controlled maintenance equipment. Also crammed into the tiny space were the Kitchen system and toilet facilities. It was all depressingly, angrily familiar.
He emerged from the U to continue his circuit. He stared down at a pattern of nearly invisible lines tracing a wide octagon on the deck, but stepped across the airlock hatch seams without pausing. The rapid hammering of his heart deafened him. Claustrophobic fear stifled him. Jimenez, still asleep at his desk, breathed faster and in greater gasps.
He reached the third bulkhead, which in the odd-shaped chamber was positioned directly behind the desk. His breathing stopped. He stood transfixed in front of a viewscreen that dominated the entire bulkhead. It was blank. He waited in anxious and barely contained panic for his liberator.
Jimenez jerked violently awake, scattering objects on the desk that included the report tablet he had been reading. While he struggled for breath a small robot slipped from the U on silent wheels to retrieve the tablet and other displaced objects. Jimenez ignored the 'bot. Long habit and duty forced his attention to the clock.
Four hours. It had been days, maybe weeks, since he had been able to sleep any longer. Everything had become a blur during this lengthy round of incursions. Again, duty demanded that he check the readouts on the console fronting his desk. While doing so he carefully rubbed feeling back into the deep groove on the right side of his dark face. The crevice ran from forehead to chin and mirrored the lip of the desk where his head had been resting.
Readings were normal. The 'bot, having retrieved all loose objects from the deck and placed them back on the desk, disappeared into the U. The room was silent save for the barely audible hum of the computer and the sensed vibration of the external tracking antennas making their calculated sweeps.
Jimenez picked up the reading tablet and glanced at the words glowing from the screen, but his eyes would not focus on the status report. A vague queasiness invaded his stomach at the same time a gnawing itch began to chew at the roots of his teeth. His sinuses constricted painfully and Jimenez was forced to breathe from his open mouth.
He knew the signs. He tried to relax; fighting it only intensified the sensations, but he was helpless to control muscles flooded by reaction induced adrenaline. Violent shivers raced through his body and Jimenez clenched his hands hard enough for the uncut nails to tear new half moons of blood across his palms. A faint, pulsating whine drew strength inside his skull, its rhythm out of step with his heartbeat. Jimenez felt his heart skipping beats and then double-timing in confusion while his brain began to expand around the implant in his skull.
Jimenez's unspoken word of protest did not halt the steadily intensifying sensations. Not again. Not yet. It is too soon. I cannot ... but I must.
Jimenez struggled from his chair and turned to face the viewscreen. He probed his mouth with one finger to rub painfully itching gums and stared at the blank screen. His other hand pressed tightly against one ear as if holding in the pressure in his head.
"Entity approaching," the computer announced unnecessarily as the viewscreen darkened to display the star pierced blackness of space. Into that blackness a familiar shape formed.
"I have found you," framed the words in his mind. All the sensations that forecast her arrival blessedly ceased.
"So you have. Again."
"You missed me."
It was the eyes that haunted him. They glittered at him, so huge on the screen, so bright with undefinable color and alien intelligence. They beckoned to him more strongly than even her fair, sensuous beauty.
The visage on the screen did not come from the cameras mounted on the outer carriage of the station. Had Jimenez bothered to switch to video he would have seen no more than the massed array of antennas now trained on an empty area of space that could have been scant meters or endless parsecs from the station. The view on the screen came directly from his brain via the implant in his skull.
He shook himself from her gaze. He felt a heavy, sick bitterness descend upon him. Always he must wait in anticipation of her arrival and suffer through the pain of her approach, only to have to force her away. It just wasn't fair. Still, Jimenez dutifully focused on his training, collected his thoughts around a single imperative, and delivered the command that would repulse her.
Jimenez's eyes had closed in concentration. When he opened them an amused smile touched her lips.
"You lack conviction, my lover."
He uttered a resigned sigh and then was silent a long time. He watched her float effortlessly on the screen, at home among stars in the vacuum of space, seemingly just out of reach - or just within reach, depending ... on thoughts Jimenez did not wish to pursue. He gathered himself for another effort.
"Alien!" His mind shouted, pouring prejudice and rejection into the word. "Go! Return to Hell, alien beast!"
The words sounded rehearsed and vacant even to Jimenez. He was not surprised when she remained unmoving before him. Discouraged and alarmed at the emptiness he felt, Jimenez searched for the strength he needed. He thought of his wife, Tima, and of the children they would never have. He softly touched the charm he always wore. She had waited for him out of love and loyalty for the two years of his assigned duty, and then she had waited another two years when he was extended at his post. In the end, though, poor Tima, so sweet and frail, could not bear the burden of his constant peril. When Jimenez was extended yet again, she quietly left her beautiful, tiny Moonbase apartment, stole into an airlock without her atmosphere suit, and cycled the lock. Tima's death was a terrible consequence of Jimenez's duty ... an unexpected price that Jimenez could not reconcile or forget.
Jimenez considered it the highest honor to have been selected for duty at the interplanet outpost Forever Vigilant. He, along with thousands of other candidates, was tested for the uniquely qualified mind-set required to absorb the psychological training required. Of those selected, few were able to complete the training and many went insane. Many others later died of implant rejection complications or dropped out of the program before undergoing surgery. Although he was the fourth to be stationed at Outpost in the eleven years since its construction, Jimenez had served at Outpost for the last six of those eleven years. No one had yet been found to succeed him.
Outpost was positioned outside the orbit of Mars and circled the sun like a minuscule artificial planet. The sun's gravitational pull was not strong enough to hold a tiny craft like Outpost in orbit, but Outpost possessed just enough self propulsion to remain in the shadow of Mars and used Mars' planetary pull to drag it around the sun.
The Outpost concept came out of desperation. Humans had reached near space. Permanent, manned satellites dotted the night sky. Settlements were being attempted on both the Moon and Mars. Manned probeships were reaching out even further. Then people began to die: Alien Contact so terrible it was un-survivable. The pattern of death began at the outermost reaches of space achieved by humanity and began a slow, inexo
rable fall toward Earth.
Edgar Ophmostifulle was the only aberration in the pattern. He survived Contact. While his friends and colleagues at Mars Station died around him, the Ethiopian scientist survived repeated Contacts and reported what he learned. He hung on at Mars Station for six terrifying months alone, and during that time the rest of humanity remained untouched. Mars Station Two was dedicated to his memory, and Outpost was his legacy.
Outpost was built on the concepts developed from Ophmostifulle's observations and theories. A single, isolated individual, possessing a rare chemical make-up in the brain and exhaustively trained in psychological techniques, would in theory be an attractive lure to the Alien while having the means to repulse it's advance. The brain was also fortified via an implant, which reinforced and supplemented key chemical exchanges in the brain, which proved indispensable to maintain repeated Contacts over longer periods of time.
That was the paradox facing Jimenez. Outpost was a beacon powered by Jimenez's own thoughts that unfailingly drew the Alien to it. Like a beautiful, deadly moth, the Alien was drawn to the shining bulb of Outpost, only to be burned and repulsed until the attraction again became too great. The light of Outpost Forever Vigilant still burned strongly, but the human who powered it felt frayed and near collapse.
"Go away," Jimenez muttered to her.
"Send me away," she responded, knowing he could not.
"You are death to me." His words grew stronger. "You are death to all humanity! Can't you understand that? Can't you see the torture you inflict?"
She was troubled by that. She spoke carefully and touched him with the sincerity behind her words. "I do not know about humanity. I care only for you. It is death for me without you. You called me to you. It is you who torture by sending me away."
"I have no choice," he said. There was deep despair in those words that masked a longing she knew was there.
"Yes, you do." Jimenez waited for her next statement, already knowing what it would be. "Tell me what happened to Edgar Ophmostifulle," she asked. He sighed and answered.
"The Station collapsed. He died." Jimenez could quote this part of the conversation word for word, so many times had it been spoken, but he seemed powerless to interrupt it.
"The Station collapsed, yes, but he did not die, Elias." Jimenez did not respond. "None of those who preceded you here died, either. You know that."
"They died," he repeated, not knowing if he believed it. Jimenez's thoughts were sluggish and becoming incoherent. The trouble was that he did not know what happened to his predecessors. He was told they died. Yet buried in the computer records were too many inconsistencies, too many hints that no lifeless body had ever been removed from Outpost. Neither had Ophmostifulle's body ever been recovered. There were also the words he had found scratched into the undercavity of the desk: "Today I fly". Jimenez often wondered whether they were words of trepidation or anticipation.
"They'll never die, Elias. They live forever with their chosen, exploring the universe together. You can be immortal, too, Elias. We can be together always." Silently now she opened her arms in welcome. Those depthless eyes pleaded with him to come to her and promised him ... everything.
He wanted to. The fear faded away. Jimenez's body began to shimmer and took on a translucent color. He thought of duty. Choking down the maelstrom of desires she had released within him, Jimenez struggled with his own yearning and won a respite. Slowly, reluctantly, his body solidified again.
"You are young," the soft, melodious voice resumed, undaunted by the setback. "We can travel the stars together, you and me. I offer you the Universe and ask only for your love."
There was no denying the sincerity in her words or the power of her thoughts. Like hands on his back, it pushed him towards her. He could not remember why he fought her, or even if he should. His body again began to shimmer as he hung between his world and hers. Her eyes transfixed him. He felt lost in a whirlpool of unnamable colors that drew him closer, enfolding him. She reached out her hand and spoke again, caressingly.
"Come with me. Our desires are the same; our will is one. Escape that metal tomb into the stars. Take my hand and fly!"
Jimenez's body was now more ethereal than solid. For the first time in six years of staunch resistance he surrendered to her call. Delighted, she laughed with childish joy and abandon. The laugh was meant to welcome him, but it reeked of Alien as it echoed in Jimenez's mind. The chill of that Alien mind-sound sliced through the numbing surrender, sending a shockwave that overwhelmed the unique defenses Jimenez's mind maintained against the Alien. For the briefest of moments Jimenez experienced what a normal human felt when Contacted. The explosion of madness drove out everything else.
When Jimenez came to he was sitting in a pool of his own wastes. He had voided himself as well as vomited up the contents of his stomach. His arms shook uncontrollably with the effort of holding his upper body off the deck, and Jimenez knew it would be some time before he would be able to stand. These things held only his brief attention, however, because he could see that she still remained in the viewscreen.
The joy was gone from her eyes. Tears streamed down her face and her soundless sobbing seared his soul. She bombarded him with emotions: love, pain, fear, horror. She had seen her boundless love turn to ugly madness in his mind. "Will you never love me?" She wept. When he could not answer her she wailed in distress. "Then cast me away! Send me back to the black depths of space carrying the burning anguish of your rebuff."
Now, he told himself. Now! Fling her away now while she's vulnerable. For a long moment he tried to gather himself for the effort. He could not. Crying out, he fell back into his own filth.
She still remained. Jimenez could feel her love and distress emanating from her even now. There was no where for her to go, he realized. She was as trapped as he was, destined forever to perform this macabre dance. There was no duty left in him, only impulses and emotions as indelibly ingrained in his human psych as those which drove her. He could go to this beautiful creature, either to die or to live whatever life she offered.
Then he thought of Tima, who had loved him too much to live. Jimenez saw the irony for the first time. Tima had been no less trapped than the Alien by her love for him. She had held on until the suffering brought on by his absence and her fear for him had overwhelmed her, but she had never wavered in her love and had never asked him to turn away from his responsibility. He knew that he did not have what it took to take the path Tima did. He was no longer sure if that showed strength or weakness. In his heart and soul - below the shattered foundation of duty - was the bedrock of Tima's lost love. Was even that enough any more to hold him here? Jimenez did not know.
What would best serve her tender memory? He asked himself. Should he continue to be the forever vigilant protector of humanity at the expense of this second chance at love? Or should he take this proffered chance before the Alien, too, perished from her love of him? The loneliness and longing grew more unbearable with each new appearance. Then Jimenez remembered that inhuman laugh, and there could be only one answer.
Jimenez forced himself to stand. He spoke to the computer and silenced the jarring sounds of the alarms that he had become aware of. Mentally girding himself for the effort, he met the eyes of the Alien.
"You have lost again," he told her, and felt his resolve already wavering at the despair that washed over him. Then the heartache lessened as she struggled to gain control of herself. She said nothing to him, but she let him see the deep regret and longing that inhabited his own breast.
He sent her away, closing his eyes to her dwindling form, but he could not shut out her parting words. They were brave, simply stated words. She refused to plead or force further pain on him and there was no denying their truth.
"You can send me into oblivion, but I will find you again. I have no choice but to seek you." There was a pause and he thought she was gone. He opened his eyes to see her fade from sight as her last words reached him
. "I love you, Elias."
"I love you, too," he whispered aloud.
He stared at the empty square of space until the computer blanked the screen and informed him it would be three hours before there would be sufficient power to transmit a report. That suited Jimenez just fine because he needed time to compose himself.
Jimenez slid into the chair at his desk and tried to ignore his foul condition. He sighed, knowing he was doomed to face his temptation again and again, and that one time he would fail. He recalled her inhuman laugh and held that scalding memory close to his heart, feeling how it strengthened him and hoping desperately that it would be enough to send her away again the next time.
He rested his head on the desk. One hand traced the words scratched under the desk even as he thought of that laugh, taking some of the strength from him. "Today I fly".
Jimenez wakened from a fitful doze. It had been less than two hours since the last Contact. His teeth began to itch.
THE END
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