by Michael Orr
A chill galvanized me into action and I started my long hike around, always keeping watch on the life going on below me. Some of it was the same world I knew, familiar and comforting in this wasteland, but other parts were odd and disturbing.
In the far reaches of the pit, torchlight cast dangerous, flickering shadows on the walls of buildings. What kind of place was this? The necropolis of mythology? Was this Hades? Acheron?
I kept back, studying the lonely figure sitting on the ledge, suspended so far above the world. Just a silhouette in the light shining up at us. I knew who it had to be, perched there with no way to get down...no way to be part of life.
I took another step toward the lonely figure and the city in the chasm disappeared. Now I was standing in a hospital as a very young girl lay dying in the arms of her sister. There was a wailing newborn across the room being tended by a nurse.
“Promise...” The teenage mother was a mass of tears while the flock of scrubs dragged her sister away.
“Marie!!!” the sister screamed as techs muscled her out of the room. Her cries echoed from the hallway — the sound of a soul tearing itself apart.
The twins couldn’t have been old enough to drive.
Later now, fear clouded the surroundings as the surviving sister checked herself and the baby into a halfway house. She had absolutely nothing. No friends, no family, no wisdom. Not even formula for a wailing infant. The light in her eyes had blown out like a candle, emptied of the youth they’d worn in the hospital. This was life by the numbers, with no room for hope. As she looked around her new home, her gaze swept past me and I collapsed to my knees, knocked off my feet by the magnitude of her terror. Never have I imagined such desperation. Never.
Now it was Christmas and someone was knocking. The little girl was a toddler at this point. Little Anita. But she wasn’t wandering around like other kids. She sat against a rancid fifth-hand couch fondling a plastic cup while her mom answered the door.
“Myra Bandolin?”
“Yes?” She stood, wary of the young couple at the door. The wife carried a toddler about Anita’s age.
“We’re from the Church of the Holy Light. Every Christmas we reach out ta people who need help, and we picked your name. We’ve got some presents for you and your baby...”
If god was trying to provide, it was too little too late. I pranced in exasperation as Myra coldly thanked them and declined, shutting the door.
Pride. It was the only thing she had left — the one thing keeping her from breaking apart. Pride had become the marrow in her bones.
Now it was daylight and I stood in the quad of an apartment complex watching a little girl twirl around and around to the delight of the other children. Boys and girls giggled as she spun like a dervish, never losing her balance. A little boy held out a flower he’d picked and Anita beamed, putting it in her hair. The childhood idyll flashed in front of me and I knew what I was watching. Just a matter of time, right?
And here it came, predictable as could be.
The giggling girl danced among her friends even as the young mother approached. Not yet twenty and here she was with tight, thin lips and angry hands, shoulders bowed for action. A rough grasp dragged the little girl into sullen silence and she was toted away as the flower tumbled to the sidewalk.
Anita’s huge, endless eyes never left the flattened blossom. No tears; just that haunting look. The other children stared after her, their giggles a faded memory in the whitewashed afternoon.
The scene shifted, but nothing like a movie. I felt it. Lived it. The first day of school...
Anita was slightly older now, and I looked on as new kids made fun of her glasses and mimicked rats. The name stuck as she covered her tapering nose. Someone threw a wad of paper at her and those tortured eyes were too much. I had to look away, teeth scraping each other.
Over and over, a gentle, harmless girl met with the damage of other people who had no clue what their own problems cost her. Again and again, things she couldn’t help became millstones around her slender neck, constantly paying for other people’s issues.
She floundered daily in a sea of rejection, and most of her tormenters never even knew her name. It was so clear to me, now. Skittle hadn’t died — she’d never even been alive.
Now she was standing in alphabetical lineup with the teacher doing roll-call. The lanky girl next to her was just as much a misfit, and their souls cried out to each other. I could see the bonds take hold — invisible cords of energy thickening like chains as the duo was constantly shunned throughout the school year. It was the same little girl from the family Myra had closed the door on years before. Talk about fate.
The events that shaped Anita came and went; the depth of a human being developing before my eyes.
This’z how people’re made.
My own issues were down here somewhere, too, hidden in this abyss; but that would have to be a different journey. I was here for Skittle.
He jolted awake in a strange bed in a strange room somewhere he’d never been, but knew well. Even intimately.
Not Earth.
He sat up in a dizzy panic. “Time ’n date?”
Why was he asking the air? What was he expecting?
#Zero-three-thirty-three.# A voice jolted him. #August twenty, twenty-three-seventy-one.#
His stomach dropped out.
“L-Location?”
#On patrol in the Alnilam system.#
“No no...m-my current location. Where am I?”
#In your assigned quarters aboard EFS Arctica.#
“Ohhohh jeezus...” Jerrett Nash curled into a fetal ball on his bed.
It took hours to sort himself out — or rather, selves. Fortunately, he was on second shift rotation and had the time. His biggest problem was socializing. There was no way he’d subject himself to the officers mess in this condition, so his only recourse was to use his cabin’s food gen. But he couldn’t be antisocial for long. Such things drew attention.
Y’know, in my day I’d just call in sick, his Jay self advised.
It was a moment’s thought to inform this new part of himself that a sick day required a visit to medbay and a determination by the doctor. All such things went on one’s record and were subject to scrutiny by superiors and review boards. He could find himself passed over for promotion or dismissed from service.
He remembered the ship was always recording. If he exhibited signs, the AI would intervene and notify Commander BenKotch. He’d have to train himself to keep his voice inside from now on.
And I can’t just say, ‘Hey, I got my past-life self today’, he mocked.
There were plenty of verified cases of past-life integration. Prometheus offered extensive counseling for such things, but that would mean trading in his chosen career for the daily grind of a guinea pig. If he wanted to keep his life the way he liked it, he’d have to come to terms with this on his own.
The only way t’do that’s ta compartmentalize, he reasoned. So who leads?
“Well, duh,” he said aloud. Yeah, this’z Jerrett’s life, buddy-boy. Jay’s gotta be the passenger.
Passenger, yes. But why aren’t we a fucking pilot? his new Jay self bitched. s’All I ever wanted.
Jerrett ‘uploaded’ the fact that military fighters were now drone ships flown from the safety of a cruiser’s combat center.
The only in-cockpit military flying these days takes place in transports, shuttles and big three-man interceptors. Not quite the fighter-jock image we had in mind.
Man, even the future sucks.
For droll effect, Jerrett went to his viewport and gazed out at Alnilam’s luminous neighborhood. A nearby escort frigate only added to the vision.
Okay. Maybe suck’s a bit of an exaggeration.
BOOK III
* * *
37
* * *
SIRIUS – ALLIANCE SPACE – AUG 29, 2371
As a staging area for Sirius’s Alliance traffic and the processing port for Terran
visitors, Wyuki was billed as nothing special. This was Trish’s fifth visit to Sirius’s only habitable planet, and she found it kind of charming, if subdued, with its dangling cities and cascading foliage hanging like god-sized planters. But from a tourism perspective, it was a backwater with only one small sea in the southern hemisphere well below the tropic zone.
Today though, none of that mattered. Her research said this was the place to get a runabout — even an Earth model. Anything she wanted would be cheaper here, and with an Alliance warranty to boot.
The dealer was off the tourist path and she had to reserve a staff shuttle to get out this far, which was usually a hit-or-miss proposition. But being a tourist attraction came with certain perks.
She sat in the shuttle’s conference room watching the misty atmosphere give way to a marshy plain of orange wetlands dotted with tiny lakes and ponds. Sirius’s harsh light washed out the orange here and there, leaving patches of deep umber shadow.
Almost six months ago this was her first planetfall, but today it really hit home how far from Earth even this nearby star was.
And now, I’m getting my own ship!
The yacht captain announced their arrival just as the massive dealer lot came into view up ahead. Trish ran an eager eye over hectares of runabouts and larger ships in all different configurations. She guessed the small complex of domes at the center was the dealership, and licked her lips as the shuttle settled onto an adjacent landing pad.
“If you need us t’come back, we’ll be on standby,” offered the copilot politely.
“Thanks. I seriously appreciate this.” She made her way down the rear ramp and into the company of a lone Wyukin. Humans couldn’t tell Wyukin genders apart, but she assumed it was a male. His three legs and bullet-shaped head worried her, but his command of Terran Global was impressive, giving her earBabel little to do.
“A noteworthy client,” he observed. “Trish of Asherah is well known here. I can find you something personal, or perhaps more party oriented?”
“Well,” she would have to digest the news about her reputation in the Alliance later, “I don’t have a license yet, so I guess it hasta be personal, right?”
“It does it does.” He stood studying her.
“z’Everything okay?”
“Oh yes. I have just what you want.” He led her away with a careful arm-thing, commenting on this or that model they happened to be passing.
Trish stopped at several of them, eyes alight with interest. Some were tiny form-fitting capsules of various shapes while others were long and narrow with barely anything like wings. Still others were rounder and vaguely bat-like, and some few looked like sleek and streamlined military fighters. She’d never been near runabouts before, and they all fascinated her.
“These are sexy?” the Wyukin inquired, more from curiosity than for selling.
“Yeah. Pretty sleek.”
“You are described as ‘sexy’. Does this make you sleek, also?”
“Uh...n-not really. Too many curves.”
“I see. Sexy is many things. Sexy is also more than looks?”
“Whaddya mean?” Trish didn’t know where this conversation was going. Wasn’t sure she wanted to.
“Sexy is abilities? Sexy is construction?”
“Mmmaybe. Abilities, yes. Constructionnn...?”
“I show you sexy construction. Sexy abilities.” He led her up to something quite different from the others. Possibly not even an Earth model.
“I believe you will find this the more sexier option here.”
“Construction sexy?” She eyed the craft dubiously. It was highly used, although clearly well cared for. There was a retro feel to it — basically a blue-silver clamshell with a wedge-shaped dugout cockpit up front and a trailing dorsal rake in back. Truth be told, it looked more like a watercraft than a spaceship.
“The others seem newer.” She glanced hopefully at anything else.
“They are,” he agreed. “I could put you in any of them and you would be well-served. I would also make more profit. But they are not ‘you’. This one suits you. It also has features none of those offer.”
“Like?”
“Like, none of those are submersible. This one is submersible in nearly all fluids to a pressure of sixty atmospheres. I cannot say what that converts to for Terrans, but you will look it up. It is a respectable depth.”
“So, I can go underwater in this?”
“Under water, under methane, under hydrochloric and nitric acid. Under most non-superheated fluids. That is a big plus for an adventurous Terran like yourself. There are many submerged civilizations to visit.”
“But, you’d make more on the others.” She really hoped for something more intriguing. And there was her image to think about. Goddess was footing the bill in hopes this would make her even more glamorous.
“I have met many Terrans, and I can happily say that I do not share their approach to selling,” explained the Wyukin. “I like to put my customer in the vehicle that is right for her, whether it is the most profitable one for me or not. This one is right.”
“Why?”
“It just is.” He sounded quite certain. “Some things just are. You will not be disappointed. No ‘buyer’s remorse’, as some Terrans speak of.”
“It has FTL?” She dipped a toe into her pool of doubt.
“Oh yes. The others here have limited stardrive for intra-system flights, but this one is Lurrian, and Lurrians do not like to find themselves outmatched by their situation, so its stardrive is much longer range. I recommend that you never share this with your authorities, but you could jump from here to your own home system. In the others, you would be restricted to jumping around our system only.”
“Seriously?” Trish’s eyes widened. Seeing as how she was eight-and-a-half lightyears from Earth, that was a selling point if ever she’d heard one.
“If you like, I may look it up for you in the owner’s manual,” the Wyukin offered. “The full specifications are there. You would not be able to get much beyond Sol, but that is quite a range for any runabout.”
“And none of these can, huh?” She gazed longingly at the others, wishing they could match this one’s features.
“Nothing but a Lurrian runabout. And you will need to keep that fact a secret, because your authorities will not enjoy the idea of a young pilot with such range.”
“That’s prob’ly true.”
“But you will rarely find yourself out of range of your starliner even if it leaves without you. It is a sexy safety feature.”
Trish smiled at the weird use of ‘sexy’ and decided some things might be more important than whether her runabout turned people on. “Can I get in?”
“I am pleased if you do.”
After scrambling up the wing-shaped body and fitting herself in, she discovered the harness was intuitive.
“Oh, it’s comfy,” she called to him. Terran harnesses had no idea what to do about her chest.
“Of course,” the Wyukin insisted. “All runabouts are designed for flights of many hours. Plus, the Lurrians are a smaller race. Their ships will fit you best.”
“I don’t even hafto adjust the seat!” She grinned. Nothing on Earth was ever her size. “Is there any chance of a test drive?”
“Drive?”
“Test flight,” she corrected herself.
“The brain has a preprogrammed demonstration. It is acceptable.” He clambered up to the cockpit and reached in to make a series of swipes on the panel, apparently getting it wrong a few times. But finally, the ship woke.
“Welcome,” said a female voice in the full, rich tones of a living being. “I am a Lurrian Oma’Quaì single-seat exoplane. Would you like a demonstration flight?”
The Wyukin urged Trish on.
“Um, yes please.”
“Excellent. You may call me ‘Ship’ for the time being. All non-participants should dismount.”
The Wyukin slid off as the canopy shushed closed and
magnetically tamped into place. Then he watched as his celebrity customer was spirited into the sky.
38
* * *
EFS ARCTICA – ALLIANCE SPACE – AUG 29, 2371
It was a bewildering day, with one part of Jerrett knowing exactly what to do and another gaping wide-eyed at nearly four hundred years of advances. And it wasn’t just tech. People themselves had changed, too.
His Jay self expected the guys around him to be coarse and gruff like his biker buds, but the men here didn’t carry chips on their shoulders. None that he recognized, anyway.
His Jerrett self found the whole thing fascinating. Early twenty-first century men had been full of posturing, coming across with a peculiar kind of machismo as a counterpoint to the feminism and homosexuality that threatened to displace them.
In Jerrett’s day, those currents had gone by and the changes they caused had already worked their way through the culture. From his perspective, Humanity was settling into adulthood and moving right along. Men and women now worked together without any noticeable bias, letting each other be themselves.
Naive much? Jay quipped. No way we’ve come that far in a few centuries.
Maybe I just haven’t paid much attention, Jerrett mused. But there’s no denyin’ these guys aren’t like Len and the boys. I’ve never met anybody like that.
Sump’m in the water, Jay guessed.
That’s when it hit...everything about Trish and why Jerrett couldn’t get past her. Thinking about the guys brought him back to his first meeting with Miss Thierry and how strange he felt in her presence.
Skittle! Both parts of himself jumped. His body started shaking violently.
Past-life shit’s real! Karma...soul ties...all of it!
SIRIUS – ALLIANCE SPACE – AUG 29, 2371
Trish was glowing. “This’z the coolest thing I’ve ever done.”
