by Joe Vasicek
He ran his hands along the aging wall tiles, admiring the level of detail in their grainy feel. Noemi must have put a lot of time and effort into crafting the dreamscape. He had never seen this part of the station before, yet it gave him a bittersweet longing much like homesickness. No doubt that was a residue of Noemi’s own emotional projections.
When creating a new simulation, the dream monitor stimulated the cortex to elicit feelings and impressions from deep within the subconscious. Most of the time, it was faster simply to let the monitor do the work, projecting the subconscious mind onto the artificial world. As a result, the simulations were full of subjective, emotional elements. That was why the station felt so familiar, even though he had only been there once before.
But Jeremiah didn’t want to explore Noemi’s world; he wanted to return to his own. He touched his thumb and middle finger twice in rapid succession to bring up the option screen, then swept his hand across his vision to wipe out the simulation and store it for her later use.
Using his other hand to scroll down a light blue menu, he carefully considered his options. Should he return to one of the methane ocean worlds he’d encountered on the other side of the Edenian dust lane? Or perhaps the casinos and resorts of Beta Oriana’s main planet?
As he skimmed the list, the last option on the menu stood out to him. It was a simulation of his own creation: the botanical gardens at Edenia II. He knew it was a bad idea—it was only the second day of the voyage, after all, with nearly three more months to go—but now that the dreams had begun, he couldn’t resist.
He took a deep breath and selected the last option. Moments later, he walked barefoot over the mulchy ground, running his fingers across the deep furrows in the mossy bark. The giant redwood trunks loomed around him like a wall of familiarity shielding him from the lonely void. As he took a deep breath of the warm, moist air, he imagined he could hear his sister’s laughter through the trees.
Chapter 4
Jeremiah yawned and stretched before pulling himself wearily out of the pilot’s chair. Blotchy red marks had formed on his skin where the leather had pressed against his arms and cheek, and his muscles felt sore and cramped. He groaned and did his best to work out the kinks; barely a week had gone by since they’d left Megiddo Station, so it was only going to get worse. Better get used to it.
He peered around the edge of the doorway before stepping into the cabin, wary of invading Noemi’s privacy. To his surprise, he found her kneeling at her bedside, already dressed in his jumpsuit. A small jeweled cross glittered against the wall in front of her, dangling from a silver chain.
So she’s religious, he thought to himself, stepping into the cabin.
The moment his foot struck the floor, her eyes flashed open and she leaped to her feet, snatching the cross from the wall. “Whoa,” said Jeremiah, but she’d already hidden it behind her back.
“You don’t have to worry,” he said. “I was just curious.”
She bit her lip and stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.
“Look,” said Jeremiah, “you don’t have to be afraid; it’s not like I’m a militant humanist. What is that you were just praying to? Is it a cross?”
Noemi said nothing. He sighed, realizing it was all but futile to try to explain himself, but went on anyway.
“I’m just curious, that’s all. Understand? Curious. Most people in the Outworlds are pagans—oh hell, you probably think I’m pagan too. I’m actually a New Earther from Edenia—here.”
He walked past her to the wall compartments on the other side of the cabin, opening the highest one. His parents had given him something like that cross before he’d left: a pendant with a green leaf and a rocketship, the emblem of the New Earth movement. He’d stuffed it away and almost forgotten about it, but if it helped Noemi to see that he was religious too, then maybe it was worth pulling out.
“Here we go,” he said, pulling it out to show her. “See? This is to me what your cross is to you.”
She took the pendant gingerly from him, frowning as she examined it. He made the sign of the cross on his chest and pointed to it, to tell her what it was for. She looked from him to the pendant, then shook her head and handed it back to him.
“Huh? What’s the matter?”
She moved to the cot, as if to use the dream monitor. In the cramped space of the cabin, that was the only way to leave and be alone.
“No—wait,” said Jeremiah. He reached out and took her by the arm, stopping her. She gave him a look as if to say ‘let me go,’ but he held out his hand and gestured with his eyes at the cross that she held behind her back.
“Come on—let me see it. Don’t be shy.”
Her face paled a little, and she bit her lip, but when she saw that he wouldn’t relent, she reached out and tentatively placed the cross in his hand.
He held it up to examine it for a second. It was small, barely larger than his thumb, but the workmanship was quite exquisite. A bright blue jewel the color of Delta Oriana III lay in the center, with an ornate inscription circling it. The beams of the cross were made of titanium, inlaid with platinum. The silver chain was as thin as thread and smooth as silk, as finely made as the rest of the piece.
Noemi wrung her hands and shifted nervously on her feet. It was evident that the cross was her most prized possession, and not just because of the precious metals.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not going to confiscate it.” He looked around for a suitable place on the wall to hang it and settled on the release handle for the cot, where Noemi had placed it before. When she saw that he wasn’t upset, she let out a long breath, and her body visibly relaxed.
Smiling to himself, he stepped over to return the New-Earther pendant to its compartment. Before he could, however, Noemi put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. He turned around just as she held out her hand.
“Uh—” he started to protest, but she silenced him with a sharp glance and a firm command in her native language. Though the words were unintelligible, the meaning was clear.
Jeremiah drew in a deep breath and scratched the back of his head. He looked at the pendant in his hand for a moment, then gave it to her. As he expected, she hung it from the same handle as her own pendant, letting it dangle beside the cross.
Noemi turned and looked up at him as if to ask what he thought of it. He tried to return her smile, but it felt too forced; there were reasons, after all, why he’d kept his mother’s pendant out of sight. He glanced away quickly to avoid letting it show. When he tried to leave, however, she took his hand and gently pulled him over. Kneeling down in front of the religious emblems, she motioned for him to do the same.
“What is it this time?” he muttered under his breath.
Next to him, Noemi clasped her hands and bowed her head, concentrating on her unspoken prayer. Not wanting to seem out of place, Jeremiah did the same, trying in vain to think of something to pray for.
“God cast us out of paradise,” his mother had taught him. “We made ourselves unworthy by defiling our home, and so He sent us out to wander the cold, unforgiving universe.”
To wander the stars, he thought to himself, taking a sharp breath. I wasn’t worthy of paradise.
He stole a glance at Noemi and wondered what she was praying for. She looked so serene, with her head bowed and her hands curled up against her forehead. Was that how she managed each day without suffering a mental breakdown? It wasn’t like she had anything else left, after all—except perhaps him.
He turned back to the pendants dangling on the wall and closed his eyes. Please, God, he prayed, if you’re out there and you’re listening to me, please help me to take good care of this girl until she can find her way.
* * * * *
Sweat ran down Jeremiah’s face as he pulled the elastic exercise bands from the ceiling down to his waist. His muscles strained with exertion, already soft from the low artificial gravity on the Ariadne, but the workout had a calming effect on him, clearing his m
ind even more than the dream monitor. That was good, because the urge to revisit the simulation of his birth world haunted him like the itch of an unhealed scab.
Noemi sat on the cot just a hand’s breadth in front of him, her body limp and unconscious with the dream monitor covering her face. She seemed to spend most of her time in there, which was to be expected. That was what it was for, after all: an escape from the cramped narrow space of the cabin and the frightening depth of the starry void. Even if Jeremiah’s own thoughts were tortured, it gratified him to know that she, at least, was finding some comfort.
With a final grunt, he finished his reps and retracted the bands into their compartment in the ceiling. As he picked up a change of clothes for his shower, a soft whine caught his ear. He turned and frowned, listening intently. With how far they were out into deep space, things could go bad very quickly if anything started to break down.
The whining came again, followed by a whimper. He realized with a start that it wasn’t coming from the ship, but from Noemi.
He set down his clothes and crouched in front of her. She wore the same yellow chemise that she had on the first day, the blanket around her legs to keep them warm. Though she was still unconscious, her arms twitched and her bare shoulders trembled ever so slightly, the way they do when someone is having a bad dream. He hesitated for a moment, unsure what to do.
With both hands, Jeremiah carefully lifted the visor of the dream monitor to reveal her face. Tears dribbled down her smooth, pale cheeks, while the edges of her mouth were turned down, lips slightly parted. She looked so frail and vulnerable, he felt a sudden and surprising urge to go into the simulation and save her from whatever was causing her pain. Of course, that was impossible, but looking at her, he couldn’t help but feel that way.
He lifted a finger and gently wiped away her tears. Her cheeks were soft and smooth, and he lingered for a moment before pulling his hand away. A deep yearning stirred within him—a yearning he’d felt all too often in the long, lonely voyages where the stars gave cold comfort.
He wondered whether the voyage was starting to get to her too. Did she ever stare into the depths of space the way he did? Had she ever been consumed with terror at her own smallness in the face of the black, starry void? Or was the pain due to something else entirely?
Probably the latter. Driven out of her home without any money or possessions, left to the mercy of a stranger whose language she couldn’t speak—it was a wonder she hadn’t cracked already. Perhaps that was why she’d seemed so distraught when he had refused her that first night: her failure to satisfy a deep-seated yearning to know that she wasn’t alone. In that, perhaps they weren’t so different after all.
Back home, he used to spend a lot of time wondering about the girl he’d settle down with someday. All of the ones at the settlement had been related to him somehow, but every now and again he went with his father to the orbital stations to do business with the haulers and merchanters. From those excursions, he’d developed a few small crushes, one of them with a cute girl whose family ran the station. Compared with the other women in his life, she was positively exotic: long black hair, dark olive skin, a bluntly honest attitude that some men found off-putting, others intimidating. Perhaps if he’d rejected the traditions and chosen to stay in the Edenia system, they would have married and raised a family. But the call of the stars had proven too strong, and now he wandered the void alone.
He stroked Noemi’s cheek again. She drew in a sharp breath, lips parting ever so slightly as her muscles relaxed. The dream monitor beeped twice, and her eyes slowly opened, meeting his own.
“Uh, sorry,” he said, suddenly feeling quite foolish. He withdrew his hand and stood up, hesitating for a moment before heading for the cockpit.
“Jerem-ahra!”
He stopped in the doorway and turned slowly around. Noemi slipped the dream monitor off and bounded after him, her bare feet pattering on the metal floor. In two steps, she stood in front of him, arms by her side with fingers outstretched. She stared at him awkwardly for a moment, then reached up with one hand and gently stroked his cheek, the same way he had stroked hers only a moment before. He flinched a little at the touch, frowning at the look of pity on her face.
What’s going on here? he wondered. He was about to push her away, but before he could, she leaned in and gave him a hug.
The gesture caught him completely off guard. For several moments, all he could do was stand there. Something about her touch was reassuring, however—something that made his legs melt. He returned her embrace, and as he did so the room seemed a little brighter, the air a little fresher, the all too familiar cabin of the Ariadne like someplace new.
“Thanks,” he whispered. For several breathless moments, they held each other in silence.
As she let him go, her fingers traced their way down his arms until she was holding his hands. Eyes never leaving his, she stepped back and gently tugged at him, pulling him toward the bed. The expression on her face was one of nervous anticipation much like the first night, and yet there was also a degree of trust that hadn’t been there before.
Jeremiah knew what she wanted, but he held back, fighting the urge to follow her into the cabin. Her expression fell, and she looked vulnerable again—even more vulnerable than when she had been plugged into the dream monitor.
“I can’t,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She tugged at him again, then bit her lip and let go, arms falling by her side. The way the chemise left her shoulders bare, she looked as if she were willing to give her soul to him, and die if he didn’t take it.
Do you have to refuse her? he couldn’t help but wonder. So what if it means making a commitment? It could still work out, you know.
He shook his head and put the idea out of his mind. It was a ludicrous thought—they didn’t even speak the same language, much less know anything about each other. And even if they did make it work, where would they go? Most Outworld settlements didn’t take kindly to strangers who didn’t have at least some stake in the society. They would accept starfaring young men who married into the community, but an already married couple would be shunned like outsiders. Since she couldn’t return to Megiddo Station, Noemi was all but an outcast—and he would be too, if he joined her.
But wasn’t he an outcast already?
“Snap out of it,” he told himself. Noemi gave him one last desperate look, but he turned away from her and stepped into the cockpit, leaving her alone.
* * * * *
Triangulation was the most important part of interstellar travel. The slightest miscalculation could put their next jump off course by as much as half a light-year, sending them into a nebula or a molecular cloud. Jumping into those regions was dangerous because the interstellar matter compromised structural integrity as the ship entered real-space. Jeremiah had heard tales of unfortunate starfarers whose ships had broken down in the high-density regions. Some of their distress beacons still broadcast faint signals, marking the derelict coffins of all those poor souls who had ventured too far past the rifts to be saved.
To triangulate his position, all a pilot had to do was pick three known stars and measure their angles in relation to one another. The Gaian Imperial catalog was rich with astronomical data, not only for the Coreward Stars but much of the Outworlds as well. So long as the jumps were short enough to ensure a high level of accuracy, it was almost impossible to get lost.
Which three stars to choose, however—that was the question. The standard convention was to choose the destination star first, but the other two points were completely up to the pilot.
Jeremiah’s father had taught him to always use the departure star, since it was closer than any of the others. For the final point, he usually chose Gaia Nova, mostly because it lay in a well-charted region of space and was easier to find, but also because it represented the spiritual and cultural center of all humanity. Jeremiah had never been there, but he’d heard stories from returning pil
grims of the Temple of a Thousand Suns, the holy shrine dedicated to the memory of Earth and the hope for humanity’s future. One day, he would probably make the pilgrimage himself, but for now it was just a point on a starmap, a faint yellow star drifting in the blackness of space.
For the Ariadne’s next jump, he selected Delta Oriana and Alpha Oriana as before, but he hesitated before choosing the third point. Perhaps it was because it was just too tedious to triangulate by Gaia Nova every time, calculating angles that changed by only a fraction of a degree with each consecutive jump. Or maybe it was because it didn’t feel satisfying on some other level. After all, many of the outworlders believed that the stars and planets were the dwelling places of mythical gods, who granted special blessings on the starfarers who triangulated by them. Jeremiah didn’t believe in such superstitions, but when he was out in the void with only the cold light of the stars for company, it was hard not to wonder if there wasn’t any truth to those old pagan beliefs.
Inevitably, he settled on Edenia as the third point. There was only a few degrees difference between it and Alpha Oriana, but it would do. As he stared at the orange-yellow point of light in the telescope, he wondered what Sarah was doing now—and whether she still missed him.
He was so absorbed in his own melancholy thoughts that he didn’t hear Noemi enter the cockpit. She tapped him on the shoulder, startling him. In her hands, she carried two bowls of synthmeal, dried fruit and flavoring already mixed in.
