by Scott Rhine
The pink targeting dot flew over the hull toward him. Soon after, a second dot appeared, bobbing unsteadily. Two out of a possible four shooters had come after him. “Blow the fuel dumps,” he shouted, not caring that he broadcast over all the channels at once.
When he felt the heat at his waist, Herk reached for the airlock door controls. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. He used his talent to ignore the pain. The second dot lit his chest when the COIL hissed. He wanted to cheer when the spot on his navel disappeared, but the heat remained.
Breathing hurt. “Now,” he ordered.
As the first set of explosives triggered, the blast sent shrapnel his way, but he worried more about damage to the ship than him catching a fragment. The chain reaction of bombs followed them across the plateau, erasing everything they had worked for years to build. Clouds of ash and dust rose up to obscure his position as he collapsed onto the door control, sealing the ship so it could make orbit.
He could only see spots in front of his eyes. Coughing, he smelled burning hair and nylon. His rubbery legs dumped him unceremoniously to the floor.
He heard Risa override the interior door and shout, “We have to peel him out of that armor now. Ouch. It’s so hot it’s glowing.” Someone dragged him toward the main cabin as his wife unlatched his spacesuit. “We’ll save you, caro mío,” she promised. Tearing the abdominal armor off ripped off skin that was still clinging to it like a piece of fried chicken.
Only then did he pass out.
Chapter 45 – Destinies
Mercy watched the crew returning from Elysium as they emerged from their pods. The Ascension airlock would need repair work before flying through space again. Herk still had liver damage from microwave radiation because the pod couldn’t repair all of his extensive injuries from almost cooking. Even super-science had limits. When Auckland told him he had to give up beer, Herk actually cried.
The deep-healing process restored Auckland to his normal bronze tone.
Risa and Rachael needed scrubbing from excess arsenic.
Yuki rid herself of dozens of cuts and bruises.
Yvette was memory-wiped back to the first day she entered Sanctuary. Even her age regressed.
Without the Magi in charge, pod use wasn’t enforced. Oleander was permitted to enter through the storage room with Johnny’s body because decontamination was too dangerous for her. Park assisted as he was the only colonist without a scratch. That left them with only thirty pods—an average of two for each survivor. There would be no more.
“They were very costly to manufacture, even for our species. Consider the rest a reward for your rapid victory,” Snowflake said. “Use them wisely.”
“How is this a victory?” Mercy demanded. “We started with eighteen astronauts, and we only have fifteen left—Crandall, Johnny, and Toby are all dead. Yvette doesn’t even remember the mission.”
“Those who remain may join the Communion of Souls.”
Mercy cried in the control room. “But we made a mess of everything. We didn’t help the society on Labyrinth. We tore it apart with civil wars and gave tools to murdering slavers.”
“You helped them take the next step toward maturity and eliminated nearly all the contamination. Gifts are neutral. The hearts of the recipients decide good or evil. The fires of war heat the crucible of the soul.”
“Isn’t Sensei going to explain everything?”
“No. His task is to instruct children. You are now adults.”
That sucks. “How do we fix our mistakes?” Mercy asked.
“Atonement through service.”
“For the pandas?”
“No,” Snowflake said. “Uplifters may only visit each civilization once. There is no back, only forward.”
There were many other questions into the night, until Mercy couldn’t keep track of the list of new questions they generated.
****
When the crew built a memorial to the fallen in the chapel, no one mentioned their crimes.
To cheer up the mourners, Mercy threw a party to celebrate Stu’s fifth birthday and Oleander’s pregnancy—a girl according to Toby’s notes.
Yvette’s only question during the party was, “Was I happy?”
Mercy replied, “You and I were very good friends. We will be again.”
“That’s all?” Yvette asked.
“We gave you the option to write yourself a letter or send a video. You declined,” Mercy explained.
Yuki asked, “What did we get for all of this abuse and cleaning up someone else’s mess?”
“We inherited this ship, as promised, and everything our people can glean from it. Someday, we might be able to build more.”
Addressing the group at the celebration, Mercy explained, “We have a few months until our scheduled jump to subspace. Once the majority of you are safely in stasis, I’ll enter the second saucer under the mountain. Refueling on Labyrinth is pretty simple. I open a secondary valve, and the pilot will lower us into a clean water supply. I located a high-elevation lake that radiation has wiped clean—that way we don’t need to filter out the fish. Once we submerge the opening, water will pour into our reservoir. With a methane or ammonia world, the process takes longer.”
“And then?” asked Zeiss.
“You wake up in Earth’s orbit,” she replied.
“We have so much to share with them,” said Risa.
“We’ll be heroes,” Nadia added.
Glancing at the floor, Zeiss said, “Some of us.” The commander and Red had taken full responsibility for violating several UN edicts when they stole Ascension, and by extension Sanctuary. No one knew what the result of the court martial had been.
“Way to kill a party,” Lou complained.
“Either way, we’re going home,” Zeiss insisted. “They need what we’ve learned.”
“We can finally have children,” Red countered. “Even if we have to stay on Sanctuary.”
Lou said, “Mercy, you were talking to Snowflake a long time. There must be some other news.”
“All we need before the big freeze is a second volunteer to belong to the ship.” When she explained her sacrifice, Lou refused to believe it.
Red supported Mercy’s claims. “We can’t refuel or leave this system until someone occupies the control cradles. Without a replacement, we would eventually crash into Labyrinth.”
“I’ll still be me… but I’ll be the ecosystem and gravity for the ship as well. We can see, hear, and still talk to you all through the interface,” Mercy said. “We just won’t be able to walk around.”
“The volunteer must be one of the six planners,” Sojiro clarified. “That’s why our initial selection was so important.”
Lou insisted on being the second volunteer. “If my wife is the ship, no one else is going to commune with her. Besides, I’m the best pilot.”
“Our son should have one living parent,” Mercy objected.
“You can still pilot or commune as a normal human,” Sojiro said. “I’ve been merging with the control systems since we arrived. Snowflake let a few facts slip over the years. I’ve been trying to keep the rest of you away from the second control room until you knew the consequences of entering.”
“That’s why you’ve been secretly hiding evidence of the Magi?” asked Yuki. “You wanted to make sure no one else got chosen first?”
“No. If anyone opened the door, I would have offered to take their place,” said Sojiro. “I was hoping to complete my paintings first. Since I have, I should be the second volunteer.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“I’m . . . expendable,” Sojiro said.
“No, you most certainly are not,” Yuki replied.
Sojiro spread his arms. “Everyone else has someone to stay behind for.”
Yuki and Park both hugged him and went to his room to see the final artwork fictionalizing their voyage to other worlds. One by one, all the crew members flipped through the pages on the meter-tall smart
paper, often peeking over someone else’s shoulder. Zeiss summed up the consensus with, “This is your best work yet. I hope you can still paint when you’re out of your body.”
“There will be other art,” Sojiro replied.
Mercy spent most of the evening drawing up legal documents and making financial arrangements for her family. Before she entered the control cradle, Lou requested time alone with his family.
Auckland said, “The rest of us have a better idea. We want to give you seven of the pods as a final gift.”
“That seems like a waste,” Lou replied.
Mercy cleared her throat. “Your optic nerves improved a little each of the last two times you went through. The doctor thinks that seven more passes should be the magic number. You’ll be able to see again. Don’t you want to look at Stu with your human eyes? See all of me?”
“Wow,” Lou said. “That’s seven critical injuries, seven rejuvenation treatments to return someone to age thirty again.”
“Two pods each from you and the two volunteers make six. I’ll give you one of mine to complete the set,” Red said.
“You’d give that up for me to have a few normal days?” Lou asked, his voice cracking.
“They’ll be extraordinary days,” Red said, her own throat tightening with emotion. “Consider it payment for Mercy for the next hundred years or so of service to mankind.”
Lou accepted the gift of sight.
****
When the Llewellyns could delay no longer, the entire family stood crying in the barn chapel beside Sojiro. Everyone else was frozen.
When the Japanese man approached the wall of Persephone, it turned white. After he tapped it three times, he said, “I come to join.”
A triangular hall opened in the side of the mountain, and Sojiro walked in without hesitation. Even when he vanished from sight, Mercy lingered at the threshold, kissing each family member one last time.
Stu grew bored and wandered off to read a book.
“You can all still talk to me any time you want,” Mercy explained, sniffing back tears. “Once the ecosystem is safe again, I can unfreeze anyone who wants to collect data from the star systems we’ll be passing through. Several people have volunteered to keep you company. Cheer up. On Earth, you’ll both be rich and famous.”
“But you’ll always be our home,” Lou said.
“Stu is special—the first human child born among the stars. Earth will need him.”
Lou asked, “Can I come join you some day?”
“Maybe you’ll find a flesh-and-blood woman to take your mind off me.”
“Never happen,” he insisted, pressing his forehead to hers.
“If you still feel that way when Stu no longer needs you, I’ll welcome you at the door.”
###
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Table of Contents
Approaching Oblivion
Amazon EditionCopyright 2013 Scott Rhine
Characters with Talents ListedAuckland –
Map of Spacecraft Interior—Lensward Hemisphere
Map of Spacecraft Interior—Mountainward Hemisphere
Chapter 1 – Stroke of Genius
Chapter 2 – Robert’s Rules of Order
Chapter 3 – Nine Angry Women
Chapter 4 – Asking the Impossible
Chapter 5 – The Inevitable
Chapter 6 – A Perfect Summer Day
Chapter 7 – Good Lassie
Chapter 8 – An Unholy Alliance
Chapter 9 – Dog Days
Chapter 10 – Motivation and Meteors
Chapter 11 – Spousal Reunion
Chapter 12 – A Run to the Corner Store
Chapter 13 – Truth and Consequences
Chapter 14 – In Search of Sasquatch
Chapter 15 – The Party’s Over
Chapter 16 – Approaching Oblivion
Chapter 17 – Evidence of Things Not Seen
Chapter 18 – X-Ray Rainbow
Chapter 19 – The Labyrinth from Above
Chapter 20 – Zeus’ Giant Eagle
Chapter 21 – Aliases to Protect the Innocent
Chapter 22 – Proof
Chapter 23 – Pandemonium
Chapter 24 – Elysium Fields
Chapter 25 – Meet the Greens
Chapter 26 – Gilligan and Gibraltar
Chapter 27 – Wish You Were Here
Chapter 28 – Persephone Lost
Chapter 29 – Plato and the Secrets of the Lost Pandas
Chapter 30 – The Language of Patience
Chapter 31 – Gift Conference
Chapter 32 – The Journey of a Thousand Kilometers
Chapter 33 – Pit of Despair
Chapter 34 – First Contact
Chapter 35 – Tic Tic Lah-Zay
Chapter 36 – Busy Little Elves
Chapter 37 – Death Spiral
Chapter 38 – Who Watches the Watchers
Chapter 39 – The Fall
Chapter 40 – Legacies
Chapter 41 – Cover of Darkness
Chapter 42 – The OK Corral
Chapter 43 – Sacrifices
Chapter 44 – Fire in the Sky
Chapter 45 – Destinies
