Over the Darkened Landscape (2 page)

“Anna,” he grunted. “Why do you always ask me that question?”

She laughed, and the sound of her unforced humor drained a bit of the pain away. “You’ve gone through two years of sessions and restructuring, Simon. You tell me why.”

He finally managed to pry open his eyes, blinking the lids to try to lose the gumminess, but she was nowhere around. Then he remembered his neural input. “Because I’m likely to forget all sorts of things while I’m sailing. So you are doing your best to at least imprint your name into my memory.”

“Very good. Now, is your back itchy?”

He paused for a moment to sort that question out. Then, “Yes, it is. Oh, I wish you hadn’t said anything! Now I want to scratch!”

“Well, please don’t, Simon. The algal implant needs about three days to take hold. And if you can’t control your fingers we may have to strap your arms down.”

Simon kept his arms down, trying not to think about the light tickling sensation of the huge mass of algae growing on his back. He had already spent an inordinate amount of money, over half of his personal fortune, and if any step of the procedure was unsuccessful he would lose his chance and forfeit the money spent. Many others had spent almost as much, only to lose out on the newest vacation of a lifetime because their bodies and psyches could not handle the stress of the transformation.

Aside from some minor mechanical details, the algal implant was the second last stage in the process leading to his trip. It was also one of the single most important. Without it, he would have no air to breathe and no food, as it were, to eat.

“Mr. Helbrecht, I’m not allowed to tell you how long you’ve been gone. Remember? We don’t want you getting hung up on time. You paid good money to take a trip where you didn’t have to worry about what the time was.

“As for your destination, you are proceeding to a predetermined location approximately equal to one-point-five A.U. from the sun.”

“Oh. Thank you very much. Can I talk to Anna now?”

His neck had seemed to have reached its maximum extension. He tried to turn his head further but couldn’t.

Happy he had seen this view, Simon started turning his head again. This time he would look down, to his feet and beyond.

The man had said he didn’t have to worry about time. Certainly he wasn’t bothered by the length of time it took him to move his head, so he guessed this to be true.

“Hello, Simon. This is Anna. How are you doing?”

“Hello, Anna! I’m doing wonderfully, thank you! I don’t know how long it has been since I launched, but I think that for the first time since then I’m really and truly aware of things!”

Off to his right, where his head was still facing, he saw a bright light that made him pause in his thoughts. It flared brighter than anything else he could see in the sky, and seemed to be lasting for a very long time. Only after it had decreased in size by a bit did he remember he had been talking to Dr. Schaum.

“It’s very beautiful out here, Anna. I just saw a very bright light. Was it a ship, perhaps even your ship?”

After seeing the flaring light and the shine of the sun reflecting off his sail, the rest of space seemed very dark. As his head slowly turned to look down, his eyes moved along his body. It was in shadow, lit only by the low light of distant stars and by the one dim light of a small box embedded in his otherwise naked belly.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Simon. I must warn you that we can’t keep this link up for very much longer.”

“That’s all right, Anna. Hey! What’s this little thing on my stomach for? I can’t remember.”

The light from the box was a steady, mesmerizing glow. The box was small, only a few centimeters by a few centimeters. He felt his body take a breath and watched as the box rose and sank slowly and not very deeply.

“Yes, Simon, it was a ship. A barge boosting for the asteroids. You saw its fusion rockets.”

“Oh.”

The box eventually lost his interest. He focused his eyes beyond the box; first on his feet, then on the vacuum below. His mind experienced a brief moment of vertigo as he stared down into nothingness, but he quickly recovered.

“That box, Simon, is your force-field generator. It helps keep you alive.”

He felt like a freak. Standing in front of the floor-length mirror, his body had to be the most bizarre thing he had ever seen in his life. Perhaps, he mused, if things didn’t work out he could join one of those old-time circus side-shows that were now sweeping the continent. Or maybe hide away in some religious retreat.

Simon was naked, standing and staring at his body straight on. A small gray box was on his belly, embedded in his skin so that it was partly inside his body and mostly out, fixed in place just above his belly button. He touched it with his hand; it felt warm, but not uncomfortably so.

Then he raised his arms straight into the air and watched as the mutant algae slowly migrated from his armpits and around to his back. He then shifted a couple of the mirrors and watched all of his back, a brown and green carpet slowly but constantly changing positions.

Next his gaze fell downwards along the mirror, to his buttocks. The only area along his backside where there were none of his life-giving little plant friends, but only because of the waste reclaimer. It looked for all the world like somebody had mounted a shiny metal helmet on his ass and crotch to function as a diaper. Which was essentially what had happened, except his wastes were undergoing drastic changes in composition, and this diaper took those wastes and changed them into something he could use.

Finally, he looked at his right arm. Several dozen small yellow bruises marched up and down the length of his upper arm, signs of the time-delayed implants that would slow his bodily functions to help him survive his trip, although they could also contribute to the forgetfulness Anna had warned him about.

“You ready for the last stage?”

Simon turned around to look at Anna, who was standing on the other side of the force-field that kept him safe from contaminants. She had her hands in her pockets and was obviously making an effort to look into his eyes, and nowhere else.

“Sure,” said Simon. “When do we start?”

“Right away. I’ll get you to go place yourself in your body sling, and then we will be shutting off gravity and putting you to sleep.”

He walked over and strapped himself in. “This is the last time I’ll see you, right?”

“I should be on the ship when it picks you up. But yes, this will be the last time for some years.”

“Mm. Then perhaps I can invite you to meet me back on Earth after this is over; I can buy you lunch in Paris or Frankfurt.”

She smiled warmly. “I’d like that very much, Simon.”

He returned her smile. “Until then, Anna. Thank you for all your help.”

“You’re welcome, and thank you. I hope you enjoy your sail, Simon.”

He tried to tell her that he thought
enjoy
wasn’t necessarily the best word to use, but he felt himself nodding off and so just went with the flow of sleep.

*

There was a lot that could be said for solitude. Since his last conversation, Simon had not tried to contact nor had he been contacted by Anna.

At first he did talk to himself, at least within his head. Short little discussions, reminders to himself to do something or another when he finished this voyage; more often than not they were business related. But over time the need for that tapered off, and now he rarely did anything like that any more.

Instead, he just was. Existence was enough. He was a part of the blackness that was in front of him, and of the light that he was slowly leaving behind.

No more thoughts of home, of either his penthouse flat in the co-op in Bruxelles or of his winter retreat off the coast of Thailand. No more thoughts of business, the nano company he owned that he had left in capable hands while away. No more thoughts of family, his sister who he dearly loved and who had cried uncontrollably when he had boarded the railgun shuttle, and his brother who he despised and yet was saddened by the strength of that hatred.

His awareness was limited, but in the few moments of reflection he did have he realized that that made it all the more complete. He was a piece of cosmic dust, being carried by the solar wind.

He supposed that time was going by, but it didn’t really seem to be anything to concern himself with. He was where he was, and he would get to where he was going when he got there.

There was a large clump of algae that had made its way up his neck and around to the side of his ear. It was now hanging from his left earlobe. He couldn’t see it and he could barely feel it, but Simon guessed that it looked like a strange green and brown earring.

He currently had his head tilted down and to the left, eyes gazing off onto the dark. Thus he felt, more than saw, the algae break loose from his ear and slide slowly through the air to the front of his throat. It stayed there for a long time.

*

He spent all of his time just watching the algae. It now covered his chest and was halfway down his belly.

It moved slowly, but whenever his body took a breath he could see little pools of it stirring within the main mass. He had no idea why it was still alive on his dark side, facing away from the sun, although a distant part of him did remember seeing it collect under his armpits before he had been launched.

“Simon, this is Anna. We have received a distress call from the barge you saw boosting last year.”
Last year? Last year!
“We are the closest ship and have been asked to attempt a rescue. I’m afraid we won’t be able to pick you up, as we are just about to commence acceleration.

“Instead, a ship is being prepared in lunar orbit right now, and will be able to leave in just under three weeks. It should be there to pick you up about four months later than planned.

“I’m sorry, Simon. I really wanted to be there when you came back on board. I hope the extra time doesn’t hinder you. The company has asked me to tell you that they will refund some of your money, and I’d like to ask if we are still on for lunch. Take care, Simon.”

An extra four months.

It took him, he supposed, some time to find the words, as he had used none for what must have been a very long time. “Anna, this is Simon. Since I haven’t been paying attention to the passage of time, I would say that it is not a big problem. I hope you are able to save people on your mission of mercy. And yes, I do remember something about lunch, so I hope to see you back on Earth. You take care as well.”

That was that. He had extra time, but no way of really perceiving it.

The algae had surrounded his force-field generator. With his head hung down he watched, curious as to what the little plants would do next.

They had been there for what seemed a long time, although he conceded to himself that it could have just as easily been almost no time at all. But now it seemed that something was happening; the generator started to fizz and shake, and he was suddenly afraid that some algae had managed to worm its way into the box.

A few sparks flew, and then with a loud BANG! a bolt of electricity shot out and found the only other power source within the field; his neural input.

The jolt fried his connections with the input. As the device was intertwined with his speech centers, the shock he suffered caused an immediate loss of his ability to speak, or even to form cognitive thoughts that he could translate into words. As well, the input’s link with the company command vessels went down.

When the main shock hit him, Simon lost consciousness immediately. His body reacted at the same time, however, much stronger and faster than it had been for some years, as the surge of electricity forced his muscles to override the time-delay implants.

A sudden, involuntary jerk pulled his right arm in towards his body, which caused the sail on that side to begin collapsing. The force-field generator, while damaged, was still operating, and sensed the fall of the huge solar sail. It immediately cast out a micron-thin force-field fan, propping up the sail until it could again fill out with solar wind.

In the meantime, Simon’s course had changed.

“We’ve lost a signal.”

Dr. Petrone rushed over to the board. “Whose?”

Karl called up the readout. “Simon Helbrecht. Nothing coming from his input unit as of forty five seconds ago.”

“Try to coax it back on line. I’ll get Claire to plot his trajectory.”

Dr. Petrone thrust his body into the slot and pulled himself along the tunnel that connected the tracking station with the ship’s control deck. In his hurry he cracked a hand against one of the grips and then bashed his head against one of the daylight-balanced light panels when he pulled back in pain. Nursing his sore hand he pulled himself along a bit more cautiously. Claire, the ship’s brain, had anticipated the call and had the trajectory projection ready when Dr. Petrone pulled himself into the control deck.

Captain Galvez and two of her crew were also waiting for him. “We can leave in eight days, Beni,” she told him. “No sooner.”

He studied the trajectory map and sucked on his sore hand, nervous and angry.

*

He couldn’t remember who he was, but that didn’t really bother him. It felt like that was a normal state of affairs.

Come to think of it, he didn’t know
what
he was, either. Turning his head slowly, he looked at as much of himself as was possible.

All he could see was a brown and green mass, lumpy and shifting ever so slowly. And beyond that mass was blackness, punctuated by points of light.

“Our scans aren’t turning up anything, Captain.” Claire spoke out loud, for the benefit of the two people on board who did not have neural inputs.

Captain Galvez floated over to her chair and strapped herself in. The rest of the crew did the same. She turned on the pager and spoke. “All hands, strap in for boost to next search zone. Thirty seconds.”

After the thirty seconds the fusion rockets kicked in, and she was punched back into her form-fitting seat with a force of over three gees. The boost lasted for three minutes, followed by a break of equal length, before an additional two minute boost.