craggy and awful
to snatch away unsuspecting souls
who think Nature
is a mother and not a liquidator
Let’s go
strangers in a strange land
orphans of the heart
strangers in a strange land
now cinders drift apart . . .”
“I think it fits,” Alexander said. He was the young operator of the robomechs that would take care of any repair job I might sense during the flight.
I nodded agreement.
“I mean, it is a strange land indeed!”
Amishi looked at me, half-embarrassed. “I want to thank you for yesterday.” His yellow skin seemed to redden slightly.
“No need for thanks, just part of the job.”
“By the way,” Alexander interrupted, “how’s the ship feel?”
“Fine. Fine as a ship could feel. Your robomechs may be useless extra baggage.”
He winced at that, and I was glad I had said it. I didn’t like Gingos Alexander.
“Glad to hear optimism,” a booming voice said behind me. I turned to see Bruce Krison smiling like an idiot.
“You’re smiling like an idiot,” I told him.
“Thank you,” he smiled. “That’s one of the nicer things you’ve ever said to me.”
“Everything running smoothly?”
“Yes,” I said curtly.
“What about the incident of the fire.”
It was blunt. Too blunt not to catch me off balance. “Close,” I finally said.
“Too close. And unnecessary.”
“I thought the others were still in the fire.”
He looked at me steadily, and I returned his gaze, afraid to, but afraid not to. He sighed. “Well, there’s a phone call for you.”
“A phone call?”
He winked. “A Miss Morain.”
“Tell her I’m not allowed to talk while in training,” I said, straightening my tie and turning to leave.
She called for the seventh time on Launch Day. But conquest was in my blood, and the great eye of the sun lay ahead.
I died in less than a fragment of a millisecond.
I looked out and saw my body strapped in a chair, needles puncturing it, glucose bottles dangling delicately above it like transparent fruit on a metal tree. There were dark circles under my eyes. I looked dead—gray and all And it always seemed, that flash of an instant when I left my body, that Death had freed me.
Behind my body sat Amishi, in charge of regulating my slowed metabolism—in charge of my life. The lights on his scopes pulsated green and yellow. In the shadows stood the captain, without duties, trying to look like his job really mattered. We all knew that it didn’t; he was an ornament, a leftover from the days when men sailed the seas and lower skies.
I left that scene, slipped into a heavy cable and shot like light wriggling over every coil, around every twist, faster than the biggest roller coaster ever, laughing. Everything proved to be intact, and disengaging myself from the system, I fled back to the contrasting quiet and darkness of the cyberbase in the dome of the saucer where I was to rest and survey with only a skim setup to warn of impending crisis.
It was the second day out. Six hundred thousand miles gone. It was the second night out in reality. In the darkness of the cyberbase, in the coolness of its crystal body, retiring my mind within my mind, the strange sleep of cybernetic unawareness crept over me, and the time for Daily Rest was at hand.
“Because it’s there,” I said. (Man’s desire to conquer Nature drives him to all heights and depths, proving his sovereignty, I lied to myself.)
There was an appreciative ROAR of La-ha-ugh-ha-ter from the press.
Bacon (of the Times!) waved his hand.
“Mr. (pig: unspoken”) Bacon?”
“Exactly (I) how many (#) days will the trip require????”
A lady reporter cllted from the rear: “Why do you want to go to the sun? Why to the sun, the sun?”
“Because it’s there” I said/lied into her empty eyes . . .
Upon waking, I ran routine checks and found everything up to par. I peeked from a well-placed rivet and saw Amishi talking to Malherbe. They appeared to be arguing, but before I could esp out and hear them, they separated. The conversation was over.