The Forever Journey

by Paul F Gwyn

  Nathanial looked Arnaud up and down, at a loss for words. Usually he would have had a witty retort for him, but Nathanial’s mind was rocking like a boat during a storm. Instead of continuing their conversation he headed to the door, turning back to look at Arnaud once more before leaving.

  “I cannot…I need to think…” He shook his head. This was wrong. “I need to be alone,” he mumbled, hating himself for the look of hurt that took control of Arnaud’s usually joyous expression.

  5.

  NATHANIAL RUSHED OUT of the laboratory, and headed directly for the one place often devoid of people. The greenhouse. He glanced through the door, checking the cost was clear, and once sure he entered. He made his way deep into the greenhouse, until he found himself by the window looking out to the aether. His reflection cast a haunted look back at him.

  Just what was Arnaud doing bringing the plate on board the flyer? Or keeping it at all? He paced the greenhouse trying to calm himself. His mind was full of questions, and not enough answers for his liking. He was most fond of Arnaud, but…

  What Arnaud had said; his reason for keeping the plate. It was absurd! They were both men, and this was… This was not how God made man to be. So many years he had spent wrestling with this, trying to find a reason, to understand. He had hoped that perhaps out in the aether he would meet God, and discover the truth, but since leaving he had seen so much more. Things his mind could not have imagined. And… No.

  How could he explain his own feelings for Arnaud?

  He started to pace the greenhouse, stopping when he caught a glimpse of someone at the rear of the room. There had definitely been no-one in the greenhouse when he had entered. How had someone managed to sneak in without his realising? He walked around to the person and caught himself.

  “You… What…what are you doing here?”

  The figure spun around and greeted him with a grin. The man was tall—not as tall as Nathanial, of course—with white hair. Nathanial approached him.

  “Sir, what are you doing here? Did Arnaud bring you aboard somehow?”

  The man looked at Nathanial and laughed a deep, fulfilled laugh. “Come now, Nathanial. There is no need for formalities now, we are well acquainted. Call me Sébastien.”

  And it was true; it was Arnaud’s father, Sébastien Fontaine, looking just as he had when Nathanial had last seen him in London. “Very well, Sébastien,” he replied, regaining his senses. “Will you not tell me how you came to be aboard Esmeralda? One does not simply appear on a flyer mid-…” He stopped abruptly, and thought of the Mercurian plate. “Of course, another ghost. I was right, this is all because of that damned plate.”

  Sébastien shook his head. “That is not of importance right now. There are other, more pressing matters to which we must attend.” He directed Nathanial to the chairs adjacent to the window before saying politely; “please sit.”

  Nathanial nodded.

  “I know how you are feeling right now, confusion could not be worn more clearly on your face.”

  Nathanial felt his face flush. This was beyond the pale. “I’m sorry for my rudeness,” he said, wondering at the notion of apologising to a ghost. But that did not make any sense. If Sébastien was a ghost, then that would mean Arnaud’s father was dead. Nathanial shook his head. Nothing was making sense any more. “I am pleased to meet you again, sir. Is there anything I can help you with?” he asked, feeling more and more incredulous by the moment. “I…have a lot on my mind.”

  An unperturbed stare greeted Nathanial. “I am very aware of that, I am here to help you. You need to talk, not just to think. You need to see things from a different point of view.”

  He looked at Sébastien with further confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “I know you have certain thoughts, thoughts that you believe equate to you having been made wrong. You are incorrect for thinking this. There is nothing wrong with you, or your thoughts.”

  Nathanial tentatively asked; “They are not wrong? I cannot believe such a thing, otherwise I would not feel so conflicted.”

  “Is there really such a thing as right or wrong? Or are we just conditioned to act according to what our governments, our parents, our society dictates to us?”

  “There are absolutes,” Nathanial interjected. “God’s laws, higher than anything man can…”

  Sébastien raised a hand. “God’s law?” He laughed in derision. “By whose reckoning? Could it not be that they are merely laws man has attributed to God, led by their own fears and ignorance? It is my belief that not everything can be split between right and wrong. There is a whole area that falls in-between. Just because someone disagrees with another, it does not make one more correct than the other. As a scientist, you should understand that better than most. As for Arnaud, there is nothing that he needs to say. I could tell it from the moment I met you back on Earth.”

  The more he spoke, the more Nathaniel believed him to be Sébastien. If something had happened and this was his ghost then did that mean Sébastien had met with God, learned of truth beyond Nathanial’s understanding?

  “As a scientist, my mind should be more open than many, but as a man, I still believe I have been made wrong,” he said, trying to understand his own thoughts. “God created two beings, man and woman, to procreate, then spread out across the Earth. It has always been that way. You hear talk of deviants more and more, but they are just that, aberrations. And…” He looked to the deck. “I fear I am one of them.”

  “Are you saying my son is a deviant?” Sébastien laughed at the idea. “My son is the most loving person you can meet, he sees the joy in everything. And he sees it in you, young man. If you wish to cling to God’s law, then consider this. What is God above all else if not love? ‘Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.’ You are not made wrong, but right.”

  Could it really be so? He looked away, out through the porthole, and into the aether. Was God out there, waiting with the answers Nathanial needed? Or could it be, that as Sébastien had suggested, that the answer was already before him? Nathanial hoped the latter was true. His spirit lifted somewhat, he turned back to thank Sébastien, but he was no longer present. The greenhouse was silent.

  Nathanial walked around the greenhouse, peered out onto the gangway, but of Sébastien there was no sign. Of course there wouldn’t be, Nathanial realised, the visitation had served its purpose.

  His eyes caught a reflection in a pane of glass by the door. The feeling of ice ran down his spine. It was an all too familiar figure. Impossible, he thought, but then no more so than a visit by Sébastien Fontaine.

  Nathanial spun around to find him. “Father?”

  There was no-one there.

  For a moment longer Nathanial remained standing there, his eyes lost in the aether. The answer he had sought his entire life, it had been in him all along.

  He straightened his back, feeling a renewed sense of certainty and turned away.

  Nathaniel knew what he had to do.

  Chapter Six

  “A Man of Courage Does Not Run Away”

  1.

  ARNAUD WOKE GROGGILY, gasping for air; it felt like a ball of sandpaper was being forced up his windpipe. It seemed even when he did not consume considerable amounts of cognac the night before, he would still rise with a pounding headache.

  “Merde,” he wheezed through cracked lips.

  A sound.

  He was not alone. Arnaud could not remember being disturbed in the middle of the night, but then again, when did he ever? He was, by nature, a deep sleeper.

  “That’s an unpleasant cough, Doctor Fontaine. Need I fetch you some water?” Nathaniel’s voice filled the room and was, itself, filled with warmth. The red-headed Englishman was standing at one of the work benches tinkering away, his face lit with a pleasant smile.

  Arnaud raised a curious eyebrow before entering a second fit of coughing. “Oui, it would seem so, but not to worry, I mean
to make a visit to the common room.” He freed himself from the straps of the cot and could not help but return a smile.

  Nathaniel put down the two components that he held, letting them float just above the work-surface. “I must admit, I spoke very harshly to you last night,” he began, and Arnaud was not going to disagree with that, even out of politeness. “I apologise, really. I think that we are all growing tiresome of this wretched journey, myself included. But that does not justify my behaviour.”

  Arnaud felt as if a thorn had been plucked from his side. He almost had enough of Nathaniel’s erratic behaviour, and it was a relief to hear these words. “It’s all right; I have felt the strain of this forever journey also. Consider it forgotten.” He was sincere is his forgiveness, though he would not have been able to stay frustrated at Nathaniel, even if he tried.

  He dressed quickly, and then joined Nathaniel in his tinkering, eager to begin a fresh day.

  While the pair worked together, Arnaud thought appreciatively of Nathaniel’s apology. He was just happy to have his friend back.

  2.

  “ANNABELLE, ARE YOU here, or have you followed Commander Bedford aboard Sovereign again?” Nathaniel said, chuckling. “You have not touched your food yet, it is now surely cold!”

  “Sorry?” Annabelle said, raising her head, utensil clinging to her right hand. “Oh, right. Yes. I was just thinking through the dreams I…we…have been having.”

  “It is alright, there is no need to apologise,” he said, spooning a large portion of stew into his mouth. “You have a hypothesis for why we are having these dreams?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. I cannot work out why we are having them, but that doesn’t stop me looking at what they mean.”

  “Indeed. They are specific to each of us, so it is no shared dream that we are looking at. Instead, we should be looking at what they mean to each of us: Are they trying to tell us something? Or is it something else entirely? Is there a core reason behind this?”

  Annabelle, watching Nathaniel sit with a thoughtful expression on his face, wondered what was running through his brilliant mind. She had begun to piece together what the dreams meant to her, but could she voice that to Nathaniel? He was her closest friend, yet still…

  Standing up from his seat, Nathaniel wandered the room, rubbing his chin with his thumb and fore-finger, presumably trying to remember his dreams. He stopped, as if to continue the conversation, but no words came from him. Annabelle gently called his name, and he turned to look at her.

  “I…I need to talk to you about something,” she said, and turned away from his intrigued look. She could not look at him while she said what was on her mind. “I said I had been looking at what the dreams have meant. While re-reading what I had written, I found something, a memory, one so entirely despicable and horrible that I had to pretend it did not exist, for fear of losing my sanity.”

  Nathaniel came back to the table and sat beside her. “Are you okay? What is it?”

  “I do not know how to voice such a thing.”

  “I will not make you do something that you are uncomfortable with. Know that I will support you in any way I can.”

  Annabelle looked at Nathaniel, a sad smile on her face. “If I cannot tell you, I will be running from it forever myself.” He tried to interject, but she refused him the opportunity, continuing: “There is a lot I have not told you, not told anyone.”

  She watched Nathaniel; afraid to carry on, afraid what saying it out loud, admitting it, could mean. He said nothing, instead wearing an expression nearing dread. She didn’t like causing him to feel such a way, but there was no way she could tell him this, without causing such a reaction.

  “I realised that my dreams were always set in the same place. The scenery, I knew I recognised, but could not remember from where. After last night’s dream, I know. It has always been in the Chiricahua Mountains.”

  “Oh my goodness.”

  “There is a lot about that place that will stay with me forever. I cannot think of it without remembering what happened to my family. My mother and father…” She caught another pained look on Nathaniel’s face. “There is something else, the little girl I keep seeing, she is a part of it. I have seen her face before in dream. I believed it was just a desire on my part to have a child. Now, I’m not so certain.”

  “I cannot imagine what it was like to lose your parents in such a manner, for that I am truly sorry. It cannot be comfortable having these dreams that make you visit there.”

  “It is not, no. Yet, it feels as if it is making me face what I have hidden for so long.” She stood up from her seat, and walked to the cooking area, facing away from Nathaniel. Images of Ceres swept through her mind. “When Koivunen attacked me on Messor Base I had a moment of deep panic. As if an unwanted memory was attempting to tunnel back into my brain. I suppressed it, but now, with all these dreams and my wondering, I know now what it was that I hid from.”

  She turned her head back to Nathaniel, tears streaming down her face. The change in her made Nathaniel move swiftly over to her, embracing her. He wiped away her tears with his thumbs, pulling her closer to him. For a moment, she felt safe. Safe from her memory, safe from the pain.

  “I remember far too much now,” she said, the words spilling without thought. “I remember the sight of my father with a brave’s axe in his skull, the blood shining in the dim light of that cave. And I remember being bound, the leather straps cutting into my wrists until I thought my hands would turn black and shrivel away. They almost did. Perhaps that would have been for the best. Maimed girls are undesirable.”

  “Here now, that again?” Nathaniel said. “You are a beautiful young…” He paused with realization. “Oh.”

  Annabelle nodded. “It’s a strange thing. I don’t hate the Apache, not all of them. Some of them, though, I would see burn. The one I was given to as a war prize, he was…not gentle.” She shuddered. “But these are my memories, my life. Good and bad, they’re mine to own, don’t you see?”

  She allowed herself to sob for a while, holding Nathaniel in sombre silence, comfort coming from their tight embrace. Annabelle pulled away from him softly, tears still clinging to her face. “You have had a life of pain, my dear Annabelle. I do not know what to say.”

  Annabelle, without looking at Nathaniel, nodded, and walked back to the table, delicately sitting down. Her head hurt from thinking, and remembering. Her eyes felt like they had two oceans storming around them. She thought Nathaniel looked almost as pained as when he had believed Arnaud dead.

  “There is one more thing that I have begun to think. Something that would make sense of my dreams.”

  Nathaniel looked at her, joining her again. He didn’t look like he could handle any more.

  “I…I think a child came from that.” She paused, trying to find words. “The girl from my dreams, she is around the age that my child would be. I cannot be sure, but it feels as if it is true.”

  “I cannot believe it. Is it true? You have a child?” Before Annabelle could reply, he added. “You did mention a child when we were on Mars. However, such was your state at the time, I thought it was delirium talking and paid no heed to it.”

  “I would have presumed as much myself, if it had been the other way round. My memories are hazy, and I am too scared to keep pushing, but if this feeling is any indication, then I believe that I do have a daughter. The feeling I get when I see her in my dreams is so profound. I feel the need to protect her, to save her.”

  Nathaniel’s looked at her with understanding. “Where will you go from here?”

  “I do not know yet, but there is one other I must talk to before I decide anything.”

  “Commander Bedford.”

  “Yes.”

  The two sat in profound silence. Annabelle felt a sense of release. Yes, it had been uncomfortable to realise and voice her painful memories, but also, she could not have had a better person to be there for her in this time. She liked to believe she knew how Geo
rge would react, but he was also a Navy man—would he want her if she was soiled goods? Nathaniel had no such issue; he was her friend, he would remain by her side whatever. She watched Nathaniel for a while, his eyes filled with sorrow and what she thought was confusion. “Is there something else on your mind?” she asked.

  Nathaniel came back into the room and his head turned to her. “There is something, but I do not think it would quite be appropriate after what I have just found out.”

  “You know you can talk to me about anything, much like I did with you.”

  He nodded in response, but held his silence.

  There was an unusual look in Nathaniel’s eyes that Annabelle had only seen a few times. Mostly followed by something important. Sensing that he may feel as she had done, trying to find the words to say, she asked, “Has something happened to you? Something bad?”

  Nathaniel shook his head, instead looking slightly more relaxed. “It is nothing that you need to worry about, more that I need to worry about.” He smiled ruefully. “You aren’t the only one with dark secrets, my dear.”

  Annabelle held his hand. “Then tell me. You let me inflict my secrets on you, surely I can allow you the same courtesy. And I’ve worried about you recently.”

  Nathaniel chuckled softly. “I am far more transparent than I care to be, if you’ve sensed my troubles. But no, it is nothing akin to the horror you went through. Rather it is something that I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. I have always felt that I was made wrong,” he added after a pause of consideration. “I have such thoughts that would be considered deviant. I know that love is the grandest emotion that we can have for another. That by God’s law ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination’, but there is someone that I have fallen so deeply in love with that it contradicts that, and I fear being cast from God’s love.”