The Black Seas of Infinity (34 page)

It’s an awkward struggle, and I end up
tumbling out shoulder first, the glowing orb escaping my grip as I
hit. The floor clanks softly as I fall into it, the grating
vibrating faintly and bouncing the light farther down the dark
corridor. The weak gravity slows down everything, distorting every
move into a slow dance.

I stand up in a passageway that is obviously
artificial. Carved precisely out of volcanic rock, the furrowed
floor flows without a break up into smooth walls, arching slightly
as the sides curve into a concave ceiling. The tunnel doesn’t
extend very far in front and back of me, both sides disappearing as
they round corners. The right side stretches a bit farther. I’ll
try that.

I round the corner, and the hall extends a
ways farther, ending in another blockade of smooth ebony.

I put down the sphere, lean against the
barrier, and push. Nothing. I turn my shoulder and attempt to push
it right. Still nothing. I rotate and try left. Nothing. I crouch,
press my fingers against the lower curve, and pull up. There is a
slight creaking, and the slab moves a little. I strain harder, and
the door slides up more. I stop for a minute, brace with my left
arm, and try to reach backwards with my right to scoop up the
glowing orb. It’s a little too far. I let go of the door and make a
quick grab for the light.

Scooping it up, I spin around quickly toward
a now falling door. I barely make it and the bottom lip crashes
into my shoulder, shoving me down onto my knees. Swinging the rest
of my body under, I let the door drop. It slams closed, the sound
muted by the thin atmosphere. Rising to my feet, I hold up the
light. The space I’ve entered is immense! Scattered all around are
small pedestals, the coarse material resembling unpolished metal
tree trunks. Seams mar the chamber at six-foot intervals, a thin
weld extending from floor to ceiling.

In the distant shadows, I see the edges of
what looks like a much larger object. Raising my light I stroll
toward it. Holy shit! A spaceship! It’s roughly the size of an Air
Force jet, compressed and flat on the edges like a B2 bomber. A
gray, textured surface that resembles lead encases the craft. I
circle around, tracing the body with the light. The ship has a
large, central mass. The front is upraised, the back sinking into
the body in a smooth downward slope like a half-buried pipe. The
forward tip is rounded into a sphere, the gray material breaking
open into a latticed cluster of windows that resembles a giant
insect eye.

The long sides extend out of the central mass
and slope down toward the floor, the ends sporting cylindrical
projections that are probably some sort of weapon. The whole
surface is segmented, consisting of beveled, parallel slates. The
elevated center brandishes long spikes, emanating from some
sheltered cavity on the right side and running parallel to the
center tube. The middle is suspended a full four feet in the air by
the down-swept wings. I duck under the wing. The convex underbelly
sports a rear central hole—probably an entrance hatch—the black maw
suspended a few feet above the ground.

Strolling over, I peer inside. I can see a
curved, smooth ceiling, but not much else. I crouch down and leap
up, angling my jump in an effort to make it inside. I’m gaining
more control over my body, as my head bumps only lightly against
the ceiling, inevitably followed by a short fall. I land on my feet
in a slight squat. That was a perfect, straight-out-of-the-cinema
move!

Raising the light, the glow flows over the
satiny gray walls, revealing a smooth bump resembling a seam every
two feet, the thin lines stretching up and across the oval ceiling
and cascading down in a curved line toward the bumpy floor on the
opposite side.

The ground is black and slightly viscous,
configured in a repeating pattern that resembles diamond plate, but
with smoother edges. The walkway is fairly wide as it flows around
the sides of the entrance. Doors forward and aft close off the
short hall. The one on the opposite side of the hole appears to be
closed, the smooth gate completely featureless as it merges at the
corners into an arched frame. The one on my side is open, leading
into what looks like a cockpit. I wander in. Three squat chairs,
sculpted out of something akin to stone, top curved foundations
that splinter into various thin poles. The seats have the
appearance of being melted into the floor. Small hard bubbles of
varying sizes cluster around the base. All three chairs are
buttressed by wide lips on the right, the black surfaces ridden
with an assortment of small indentations.

I experience a sense of déjà vu. The
workmanship and pattern of design is remarkably similar to the
crashed ship we found back on Earth. I feel awkward and out of
place, like a high schooler pretending to be a grown up. I look
around tensely, half-expecting some rebuke. Nothing. Just silence,
and the vague sense of weightlessness and baffled sound I’ve had
ever since I landed on this planet. Everything seems amplified now,
the exotic surroundings and recent confrontations adding to a
climate of tension. But there is no one present. No revealing
movement.

This might be a stroke of luck. The ship back
home was gone over with a fine-toothed comb. It took us years of
perplexing research that was generating almost no answers. One day
a man we had never seen before walked in and pulled aside the chief
scientist. After a brief conference in a side office, the
researcher emerged looking shaken and edgy. When he rejoined the
other scientists, he seemed to have all the answers. They were able
to start the ship. I think they even took it out for test flights,
although by that time I was removed from the project.

Strange, I almost forgot about that. Come to
think of it, I did forget about that, and it was only the sight of
this cockpit that brought back the memory! But that isn’t something
I would easily forget... A shudder passes through me. Not physical,
but my mind reels, as if fighting off a cold. I grow dizzy, and
have to grab hold of my knees to keep from falling over. I am
gripped by an overwhelming impression that my memory has been
tampered with. I try to trace back through my thoughts. Specific
memories of the incident are nebulous. What else is hidden in the
recesses of my consciousness? Maybe this was all preplanned and I
was supposed to take this body? Maybe the conditioning wore off
with the unpredictable transfer of consciousness! Or maybe it
hasn’t, and I’m following someone else’s grand agenda!

I concentrate, folding my consciousness
inwards. I get the notion that I am viewing a long hallway in a
dim, gray building. The ceiling towers over me, its features lost
in the shadows. A pale blue glow, the light emanating from an
unseen source, illuminates the premises. Small rooms line the
sides, their gloomy interior sporting worn metal file cabinets.
Faded yellow tags mark the drawers. I step into one of the rooms
and stoop to read the label.

“Seven years old, camping in a canvas army
tent in the backyard.” The one below it reads:

“Seven years old, gathering lumber from a
scrap yard to build a tree fort.”

I don’t have time for this!

I close my eyes and concentrate, pulling
myself back into the current reality. I open my eyes to the same
central chamber in the ship.

I’ll figure all this out later. Walking up to
the middle chair, I peer into the holes running alongside. The
shallow pits appear somehow to collapse into an impenetrable
blackness. Some of the orifices in the ship we recovered had a
weird, gelatin-like substance in the depths. It could be
manipulated by hand, and acted almost like a keyboard. I feel dizzy
again, like my brain sped past me for a moment! I stoop over and
slowly delve my hand into the hole. They alight on a gelatinous
substance. I sit down and twist my fingers about. The entire ship
lights up. In a scrambled frenzy of motion, a projected screen
springs to life. It shows a dusty cavern of industrial girders and
stark walls stretching out before me. Apparently this is a view
outside the craft. The floor spreads out in a long, smooth strip,
the far end dissolving into the shadows. The walls host some barely
visible carvings, the marks large and crude. I stare at them for a
moment, and they seem to stir some buried memory, but just what
that is eludes me.

I think I can operate this ship, at least
well enough to get it aloft. The real question is, where will I go?
I have no idea where I am or where Earth is located. I would hazard
a bet that the creatures at the outpost I just escaped won’t be too
happy to see this ship. They probably don’t even know about this
whole complex. I wonder if it was here first, or if it was meant to
spy on that outpost. I jockey my fingers in the gap. A low rumble
flows in a swooping crescendo behind, beneath, and finally breaks
away in front of me. A brilliant flash blanks out the screen, the
intense radiance drenching the chamber in a polarizing flood of
pure white.

Just as quickly, the light vanishes. There is
no longer a dark wall of rock in front of me. A large, perfect
circle has been cleaved out. A wide gap now offers up long
stretches of sand, the undulating dunes flowing out in a maze of
gray embankments toward the distant mountains. A sliver of some
celestial body peaks out from behind the rugged peaks. Pale and
slightly orange, it looks too small to be a planet. Maybe this is a
moon orbiting a moon? A chill settles over me, and I realize how
far I must be from home! I never felt any kinship to my fellow man,
but he was an inconvenience I could at least understand! This is
feeling more and more like some endgame I’ve buried myself in. Not
only am I far from anything I know, I don’t even have faith in this
body anymore! I’m seeing things...sensing things... It feels like
I’m losing my grip on reality. I don’t even know what reality is...
I have to stop thinking like this! Getting bogged down now will
only leave me in an even worse predicament.

I must have activated the weapons. I twist my
fingers in a different direction, and the ship starts to move
backwards. I hastily push the other way, and the craft moves
forward. The gap looks big enough to fit through. The ship is
harder to operate than I first thought, and I clumsily scrape the
right side as I pass through, the wing emitting a muffled crunch
followed by a spray of rock. The collision starts to spin the craft
sideways. With some hasty manual manipulation I tilt the ship back
and forth, managing after a few tries to level it off.

I sail out, gliding low above the sand. I
push forward more, and the ship picks up speed, soaring toward the
far mountain range. I think I’m too low as my passage is stirring
up immense clouds of dust. The underbelly skims off a few tall
dunes, the craft buffeting left and right with each impact. I arch
my hand back and bring it up a little. Maybe I should head for
orbit? Then again, I’ll bet my former captors have something like
radar. On second thought, I’ll cruise to the other side of this
planet and then try for deep space.

A green light on the left of the screen
erupts into a frenzy of flashes. What is that? All I see are pale
dunes speckled under a canopy of starlight! I glance to my left and
see a narrow strip of screen. Funny, I didn’t notice that before.
It must have sprung to life when the ship powered up. A long, sandy
plain stretches out to the jagged peaks of a distant mountain. Two
small, dark specks at the far corner of the screen catch my eye. I
focus on them, and the picture zooms in. Two small craft, their
fronts resembling flattened metal eggs, are angling in toward me. A
pulse of light, and a bluish burst escapes from the rear of the
closer one.

“What are you doing here?”

The voice pops into my head out of thin air.
The words aren’t in

English, and the accent is a bit off, but the
intent is clear.

“Identify yourself or be destroyed.”

I twirl my fingers frantically. The ship
lurches right, then left, then back-flips in a dizzying loop before
finally leveling out.

Flashes of light blaze by me, bleaching out
my side screens as they pass in a blinding fluorescence that
drenches the cockpit. The pulses continue in clusters of fire as
they shoot past me. I relax my hand, and the craft slows. I can
almost feel the ships closing in. A minute...two...and then I pull
down sharply. My ship back-flips and takes up a position behind the
pursuers, then I level out. Two small, semi-metallic spheres, a
dark cylinder jutting out of the back, now float just in front of
me. One of the cylinders starts to glow. That would be the craft
powering up to take off. I start shooting, and the craft explodes
in a ball of light. I curl my fingers, and the sky around the other
craft lights up in bursts of fire. I don’t exactly know how to
aim—I’m just winging it—and none of my blasts appear to be that
accurate. The vessel dives into a skillful display of evasion,
dipping and spinning quicker than I can follow. I fire more
frantically, the night sky exploding in a maelstrom of turbulent
eruptions. The enemy craft starts to loop upwards. One of my
projectiles hits the bottom, and the tail end flares up. The fiery
edge shoots arcs of lightning toward the cockpit. The craft starts
to crack, the splintering walls expanding as shafts of light spew
out the fissures. The whole mess flares up briefly, the
augmentation quickly reversing as it collapses into a white-hot
ball. A flare up, and the ship is simply gone. Glancing across all
the screens, I see no other signs of pursuit. Pointing the nose
forward, I punch it. The speed increases exponentially, the surface
features mutating into a shifting blur. I’m moving so fast I can
almost see the curve of the planetary body beneath me passing in a
haze of speckled gray. I pull up and sail into space.