Cardiff: Doctor, are you up yet? Breakfast is being served as I speak. Please, join the rest of the crew.
The door, locked by him the night before, still appears to be locked and secured. He rubs his fingers over his eyes, still attempting to wake up.
Long: Uh, okay… I will be out for breakfast.
Long grabs the edges of his sink firmly with both hands. He runs the water in the sink with a sluggish turn of the cold water handle. He moves his hand through the water, and forms a cup with his hand.
After splashing his face in the same vigorous manner, he peers out at the morning spectacle outside his window. Whilst looking out of his window, Doctor Long squeezes each of his fingers within his tight fists one at a time, cracking his joints sequentially.
In the mess hall, Doctor Ghent is running his spoon through his oatmeal breakfast. His mannerisms draw the attention of both of the women sitting with him. Ghent draws in slow, deep breaths; he is obviously preoccupied with matters internally. He is oblivious to the scrutiny, under which he is eating. With a firm grasp of his spoon, his shaking hand transfers the irregular movement, amplifying the effect visually. Specks of oatmeal are flung off of the spoon in the vibration; he appears completely unconcerned about the mounting mess on the table around him.
Ghent: They won’t let us leave, you know. Their silent words have made it obvious to me that they won’t let us just leave when we wish. Unseen, yet ostensible and conspicuous, they watch our every movement. Each and every breath we draw is noticed.
Mendez: Doctor Ghent, have you been sleeping at night? When you say things like “silent words”, I can’t help but to try and figure out what you mean.
Ghent: They are those who stand outside your bedroom windows at night. Our ambitions for this place offend them. That feeling that you are being watched will alert you to their presence. They are disguised, at times, within our inner-most desires.
Mendez: Did you hear my question Doctor?
Ghent: They are obviously confused about our intentions here. They will find a way to destroy us, one at a time, or they will subdue us. I have no reason to pretend otherwise any longer.
Mendez: Seriously? You are seriously going to ignore me?
Ghent: They sometimes appear as we do; sometimes they appear as plain figures without form or figure. Emerging in the silence and dark veneer of night, they come to watch us. A sleepless night will show you this truth to be evident. Look for their dark eyes, wait for their gaze, and listen for their silent voices.
Cardiff looks down and away, avoiding the passive gaze of the speaker. She grabs her mug and draws it to her lips, and sips on the coffee in her mug. The fingers on her other hand extend and retract into a fist several times before she shakes her limp hand to stop her compulsive movement.
Ghent: I am sure that you think me delusional. Just remember the unlikely proximity of delusion and cognizance. Awaken your senses, and open your mind. See with more than just your eyes.
Mendez: How might one go about seeing with more than just their eyes?
Ghent: Do not think me a fool, who does not understand what you are doing. You know what I speak of. You have seen your desires and aspirations dry up and become hollow at the hands of these silent sentinels. You know them to be hollow and empty, yet you still desire to delve deeper. You believe that your consorted opinion and purpose will prevent that which has already happened here once.
Mendez: I have seen odd things in my time here; things I cannot explain. What you are saying sounds to me as delusional as anything I have heard before. You may see and hear things that I cannot, yet I cannot subscribe to such conjecture and madness. Steady your mind, find the reason within; you will discover that what you are suggesting is no more than the product of a troubled mind. Beware the cryptic, avoid the inner sanctum and fix your eye upon the horizon. We have to remain fixed upon reality if we wish to survive this together.
Long enters the room abruptly, the conversation halts as the conclusion is reached. At the pronounced interruption, Long grabs a bowl and spoon off of the countertop; with dishes in hand he grabs an oatmeal packet and mixes water from the tap with the contents of the pouch. After thirty seconds in the microwave oven, the oatmeal is removed and is placed on the table in front of him. With one hand grasping the spoon and the other still rubbing his eyes, Long sluggishly moves to put the oatmeal in his mouth.
Long: I know this is probably one of those times that can simply be summed up with “I walked in at the wrong time”, but what are you guys talking about? I couldn’t make any sense of the bit that I had heard.
Ghent: Well, good morning to you. It makes perfect sense to one that is blessed enough to have any.
Long: Well, I guess I could say good morning to you, too. It certainly is a shame that Lawrence isn’t here to liven things up a little. His untimely demise seems to have robbed of any further chances for a normal conversation out here.
Ghent: Yes, I have felt despondent lately. Mr. Lawrence certainly had the aptitude to lift the spirits; yet, I would not go as far as to say that we have been lachrymose in his absence. If I might also add, demise is, in my opinion, usually untimely.
Long: Doctor, you do know people do not talk like you do, right? I guess you could say that every time you open your mouth to speak, the only thing that I ever hear is a load of pretentious crap.
Ghent: Of course, any man with your lack of propriety and understanding would think so.
Long: See. You could’ve just said that you think that I am dumb and immature. That would have made more sense. Isn’t the point of communicating to communicate with others?
Without uttering as much as a silent word, Ghent quietly stands up and leaves the mess hall. Before leaving, he mutters one final thing without turning around to address his audience.
Ghent: Hopefully you can understand that fish gotta’ swim and birds gotta’ fly.
Long: What about ostriches? They don’t fly well. Some expert on biology you are.
Cardiff: Stop it, you two! I want you to remember that our survival up here will likely depend upon the ability that we all have to operate as a single entity, without petty arguments like this.
Long: You’re right Captain. I’m sorry.
Mendez returns her attention to Cardiff, who is sitting quietly across the table from her. Cardiff is fidgeting with her hands anxiously and looking down at her mug in front of her. Long sits with his warm oatmeal in front of him.
Long: I just said what everyone has been thinking, right?
He looks to Mendez’s watchful eyes, which are still fixated upon Cardiff; Cardiff is still staring into her mug. Cardiff does not remove her passive stare from the mug in front of her as she begins to open her mouth to speak.
Cardiff: Doctor Mendez, you re with Ghent. Long you’re with me; today we are heading out to site Bravo.
Long: So we are checking up on Prometheus, then?
Cardiff: Yes, satellite imagery shows progress on the site, yet Prometheus is not responding. So we are going to check it out and see if it is something that we can repair.
Long: Alright, I will make sure that we have the gear on board.
Mendez: I am going to find Ghent; hopefully he hasn’t wandered off too far. I’ll have a radio on me.
Cardiff: Let me know when you get tasked.
The sun burning in the sky above the dome casts brilliant daylight down upon Doctor Long. He loads his heavy crate onto the back of the heavy all-terrain rig that he has become so accustomed to riding in. Long ensures that he has extra oxygen canisters loaded, just in case. Yesterday’s incident still feels fresh in his mind, so does the sensation of nearly suffocating.
Cardiff exits the airlock; her holstered side-arm is securely fastened to her belt and thigh. Long finishes strapping the cargo onto the back of the rig, he then turns to look at Cardiff.
Long: So, you really think you might need that out here?
Cardiff: If experience has taught me anything, it has taught
me to always err on the side of preparation.
Long: Well, I suppose nothing up to this point has been expected or predictable, so why should today be any different? How did you find that anyway?
Cardiff: What do you mean find? Lawrence must have put it back in my room for me; he even cleaned it for me.
Long: He actually threw it out into the dirt the day he died.
Cardiff: Someone brought it to me clean…
Long: Uh, okay. Anyway, I don’t think that the gun will do us any good. What we need is more oxygen cylinders.
Cardiff: You are quite the optimist Doctor.
Long: I prefer realist.
Cardiff: I guess to be a realist that one would require some knowledge of reality. I am not really even sure that any of us have any conceptual understanding of that at all.
Long: I guess that is a fair statement.
The subtle humming noise of the electrical motor masks the sound of the gentle breeze outside as Doctor Long starts up the rig. With a quick jerk forward, the rig sets out on the venture further up the mount to the site of the second dome, currently under construction.
As the rig moves along the landscape, nowhere near any well-driven paths, it rocks side to side as it traverses the endless garden of rock and sand. Cardiff remains silent, yet she appears quite contemplative to Doctor Long.
Long: So, what’s on your mind? You look like you have something to tell me.
Cardiff: Just thanks for bringing me my gun. Aside from that everything is fine.
Long: I didn’t though.
Cardiff: Anyway, we ought to make sure that Prometheus is doing what it has been tasked to do by the computer though.
Long: Okay, fair enough. Don’t know that you sound very convinced of that yourself though.
Cardiff: You would do well to keep such thoughts to yourself! I am dedicated to seeing this mission become a success! I have no other objective out here.
Long: Whoa, okay. Sorry.
The second site is located close to the location deemed favorable for mining by the first expedition. From space, the deep rifts near the second site look as cracks in a terra cotta pot. The navigational computer on board the rig shows these images from space as they are transmitted from the satellite overhead.
Long: Looks like I need to watch where I am driving, so that we don’t end up falling into one of those fissures around Bravo.
Cardiff: Please do, I don’t feel much like falling into a bottomless crack, and into complete darkness. I’m not really in the mood for it today.
Doctor Long navigates the rig around thousands of jagged, black rocks, ranging in size from balls to the size of cars. These rocks litter the landscape as far as they can see. After about an hour of driving through fields of rock, over hills and through sand filled ditches, the sun gleams off of the near-distant glass ring that is the dome at site Bravo.
The rig carefully traverses the narrow bridges of rock that provide passage across the chasm of blackness. Fissures seem to surround the site like a treacherous moat. The front tire begins to slide off of the rock, the rig leans to the left a little bit.
Cardiff: Turn the wheel up the rock and give it some more power! I knew I should have driven.
Long: Keep your shirt on Captain; I have driven before you know.
Cardiff: I am aware of that, but I am also pretty sure that you just about killed us right there. It isn’t that I don’t trust you; I am just a bit of a control-freak. It is just something you will have to get used to.
Long: No, what I need to get used to is the fact that if I take my helmet off out here, then I will turn into a popsicle with eyes. I have enough to worry about out here without you yelling into my ear through your mouthpiece. Throw me a bone here, Captain. Otherwise, I am muting you.
Cardiff: Actually, at this altitude the pressure isn’t enough to turn you to ice. Your water will just evaporate; you’ll be a dry guy, just like your odd sense of humor.
Long: Whoa, look who’s being all macabre. It’s not me. Seriously though, the mute button is right here. Don’t make me do it. I did it to Lawrence.
Cardiff: Fair enough… Hey do you see Prometheus over there? It’s over there on the top of the glass wall on the right side.
Long: On it.
The heavy rig rolls up within fifteen meters of the mammoth machine. Prometheus, the enormous construction machine, sits atop thousands of spheres of glass, approximately two meters in diameter, which are fused together and arranged in a ring-shaped pattern that spans two hundred meters from one side to the other. The cylindrical formation looks more like an expensive wall now than the beginning of another dome.
Ripples shimmer in the air surrounding the inexplicably hot mass of glass being extruded from the “mouth” of the machine under intense heat and pressure. Long steps off of the rig first, he stands and stares at the wondrous process taking place before him. Cardiff also steps out of the rig and watches intently. The scale is amazing, but what really has captivated both of their attention is the perfect nature of the work of the machine.
With no one at the controls, Prometheus simply gathers sand up, which is plentiful in supply, and uses super-heated gas from the fusion reactor within to melt the sand into an oddly-colored glass. The spheres are extruded in carefully placed locations to make the larger structure. The resulting perfect dome is the product of years of this repetitious process.
Long: Well, it seems to be working just fine. So, why are we here exactly?
Cardiff: It isn’t necessarily the process that isn’t working properly; it is the fact that the satellite feed cannot pause the construction.
Long: Why would that be important? I guess I am missing the whole point here.
Cardiff: Well, site Bravo is being built as a mining and production facility. The “package” of the building materials for the actual machinery and facility that go into building it have just been put into production by Badlands. After it gets produced, they will load it all into an autonomous freighter, and send it out here. It is supposed to fall into the middle of this dome, before it gets completed by Prometheus. So, when Bravo is completed to a certain point, Prometheus is supposed to wait for the supplies to arrive. Unfortunately, it is not responding, so there is the problem.
Long: Well, if I had known that this would have been the problem, then I would have packed a sledge hammer and some duct tape.
Cardiff: I would have looked forward to you ruining hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of company property, but that will have to wait for another day.
Long: There isn’t too much you can’t fix with duct-tape.
Cardiff: I think that I will take your word on that one.
Long: Well, I guess I will just climb on up that slippery wall of glass and just “take a look”… How exactly to you anticipate us getting up there again?
Cardiff: I would give you a boost, but that would only get you about a tenth of the way up to where it is. Good thing I brought rope, and not just any rope, a rope with a hook on the end of it. Toss that up and snag the machine.
Long: You really are always prepared for anything aren’t you? You brought a gun and some rope.
Cardiff: Well, I don’t think we have all day. Get to it already.
With a quick toss of the lighter-than-usual hook, the rope is fastened, Long hands the rope on over to Cardiff.
Long: Ladies first.
Cardiff: Aren’t you the gentleman?
Cardiff grabs the rope tightly with her gloves, and places her boots up against the wall. Hand over hand, she climbs up the rope, and the glass wall. With some effort, she completes her forty-meter ascent up the wall of glass up to Prometheus. She looks down at Long, who is standing at the bottom, just looking up at her. A well placed hand on her hip and a quick “Get up here!” look from Cardiff and Long begins the same ascent.
Several minutes later, the two stand atop the wall, just behind the behemoth machine. Cardiff brushes off the dust from one of the moving “legs” t
hat support the machine while it sits atop the glass wall.
The rising wall of glass continues from their position in an enormous circle around a desolate plain. This dome looks like it will be larger than the original. The glass wall gleams in the sunlight.
Deeper Into the Void Page 20
