Back
I have no idea how I came to be there but I met him when I was very young and at the time it seemed to be a dream.
It began in silence, with him sitting opposite me, staring at me, weighing me. His eyes struck me, they seemed washed out gray, the pupils were black and seemed too round, without a persons characteristic oval shaping. They were the color of spent ashes with bricks of coal at their center, cold now. Nothing was quite wrong about the rest of him, it just wasn't exactly right: a little too slim, hair a little too dark, teeth too white and his skin was the darkest I had ever seen. He did not remind me of anyone I had ever met before.
Casual and calm he sat in his fine antique cane back chair. It held him correctly. Everything seemed to be as it should.
When he spoke his quiet voice imprinted itself upon me, echoing to me through years of thinking. For on that day, he wrapped my life's purpose up in his hands and gave it to me.
"It's not very often that I meet another person from my homeworld." He stood and I saw his hands clearly for the first time, they were more delicate than a person's, with five fingers instead of four. My calmness began to vanish and panic welled up in my throat. He wasn't from my world of that I was sure. As my thoughts were growing and my mind filling with fear, his head spun towards me, his eyes narrowed as they burrowed through me, slowing my breathing and easing my muscles up and down my spine. The rising fright was quelled and I relaxed down into the cushions of the couch. The gray eyes broke away from me again but I remained calm, things seemed to be just as they should. Coughing lightly he walked to his left in the cavernous room, passing from view twice behind columns rising to the vaulted ceiling. "Thirty of your years have gone by since I last had a face to face meeting with another human. It has become quite strange and quite special, these meetings, as their rarity increases. Thirty years is a long time but there have been separations of far longer periods. The longest was a period of four hundred years between conversations, of course during that time I had taken it upon myself to go on a sabbatical, to clear the head and examine what my goals would be for the next several epochs. Nevertheless it was a joy to finally see a human face once again."
He reached a counter and grabbed a glass of water (I think he filled the glass from the tap, but I don't remember clearly). He turned to face me, took a small sip, smiled a crooked smile and said. "Thirty years passes so quickly I can see her as clearly now as the day we met and talked. She was beautiful, but then we all can be if we choose. We met on a planet as tradition tells us, "Wrapped in the width, breadth and warmth of the earth, upon the grass, under the sky." it seems to strengthen us and bring us back from the ethereal spaces that we spend our time in." He downed the rest of his water, placed the glass carefully back upon the counter and sauntered, with an otherworldly gait, back over to the chair. The high cane back framing him as royalty, he filled the seat with comfort.
"I came upon her sitting on a knoll, overlooking a grassy plain of such a rich green, it almost hurt. "Hi," she said to me. "Hi" as if no time had passed and there was no distance between us and our home. And then "It's good to see another face when it's been so long." But she didn't look my way until I said "Hi" back, then she turned to face me and I saw her eyes. Nothing could hide the deep tiredness within them. I settled down next to her and watched the sky setting on the horizon.
"She was beautiful..."
He falls silent for awhile and I let him. His whole presence seems to waver slightly in front of me. It must have been a minute or two before he spoke again.
"We simply sat and talked for a long time: what we had seen recently, whom we had seen, where we were going next. But the conversation eventually came back to Earth, as it always did when we meet: what part was she from, what she missed? We pulled memories from each other of warm summers, snowy winters filled with expectations, playing games as children, art, love, sex. All this and more we talked about. Our essential mortality. Our life before the voyaging had begun, so long ago, so far away. We dragged and scraped each other clean till the marrow of our memories was hollow, then poured those memories over our own, deepening and enriching them. This was always the most important part of a meeting. This exchange was all we had left connecting us with our past."
He coughed again and glanced around the room.
"All this that surrounds you is not an illusion," he said, changing the subject. "I have collected all this from your planet and placed it here. In my long life I have spent much of my time observing other sentient species for as long as they interest me. Yours has filled me with enjoyment for forty of your generations, six times I have been to your surface and lived a full life among you only to return here when its' brief time is over. Three more times I have met one of my own people there to talk. (Yes one of them was with her.) Many times have I just visited shortly, walking among you, breathing the same air, eating of your many wonderful flavors, filling myself upon all your works and endeavors. I am always looking for the new and undiscovered, but it is getting harder and harder to find anything that I have not already seen in the wide heavens."
He stood abruptly, seemed to grow slightly and leaned towards me.
"We are long lived now, my species. I do not know if I am immortal, but I believe I have been alive for eight hundred and seventy six thousand years!"
He didn't shout it or even say it very loud, but the words seemed to drain him and after they escaped, he collapsed upon himself in the chair and sat silently again for awhile. Again I let him sit, I knew he wished me not to speak.
"Over that length of time, I have traveled far from my original starting point and even with my sophisticated navigational equipment, I am not even sure in which direction to go if I choose to return. It is always a goal for me and I am always comparing star charts wherever I go. Nothing ever seems to match. Sometimes I wonder if my ship with all it's own intelligence fears that if we return home I will never leave again, so it never lets me find my home.... Well, I don't know if it's true, but regardless, I try now to accept each day and wait until the next. At least it relieves some of the boredom, to have a slight game of wits with someone else. Even if that person happens to be me.
"Maybe I'm going mad. No matter, I've been mad before and it only takes several decades to come out of it."
The crooked little smile that briefly formed on his lips faded as he looked down and breathed in a deep breath. "But you see...I'm tired. All the years of travel have weighed upon me. Each one, a new fraction of an ounce upon my back. And in the past thirty years especially, each one has seemed to be twice the weight...."
"She asked a favor of me when we were through talking about the past. It was more of a prayer, or a hope. You see, she was tired and could not find anything to make her want to continue. Everyone she had known, all she had seen, all of it had overwhelmed her, beaten all the color from her. She had no feeling remaining for any of it! So much life had gone past her she could not bear to try anymore. Any reason she thought of to continue wasn't enough and to say it was....well she thought it was a lie. She was tired of the lie that had become her life.
"She asked nothing more of me than to be present as she died. It was important for her to have one of us present during her passing." He chuckled a little to himself. "Ironically, when she had made her decision and began looking for another human, it had taken her several hundred years to locate someone."
Again we sat for awhile quietly as the great gears spun around behind his gray eyes, their grinding almost visible.
"We found a calm corner of black space far from any star and she started to shut her systems down. Once the process was begun it only took a few minutes, the last I heard from her was a simple data transmission. A list of names of people and what to tell them if I met them in my continuing years. At the end she thanked me for helping her on her way." His eyes of granite stayed dry but the crooked smile crept its' way back on to his face and I could see the sadness of the memory and the tearing within him that it caused.
"She was so beautiful..." He breathed in deeply again and let it out in a measured pace. Focusing on me again as he did at the very start of our one sided conversation, he said. "The questions she raised are troubling to me, I feel many of the same things that she did but I am not certain if my conclusions are the same and I need to ask you something, that is why I have brought you here. I need a viewpoint from someone on the other end of life from me. I can no longer think clearly on this issue, all my thoughts are confused with years, more a gathering of experiences than anything else. Before you can answer, I need you to listen to a small portion of my story, and hear what I've seen and done.
"In the time of my life, spanning some twenty nine thousand two hundred of your generations, I have seen sights that would bedazzle you, astonish you, entrap you for years. They would fill you with so much wonder you would cry for the beauty.
"Before your race was born, a discovery was made that allowed us to travel through the stars, first for extended periods of time and then seemingly without end. We left in one's and two's at first, bold adventurers intent on voyaging the cosmos and reporting back to Earth on all the wonders encountered. Soon it became dozens and then thousands, always technology made it cheaper and easier. Of course some stayed home. I hope there are still some of my people on my world of greens and blues, but I doubt that I resemble them much anymore, they must be as changed as I.
"Early on, just several thousand years after I left Earth, we came across five stars orbiting each other, each a different color, each sending a spinning tendril down to the sump of blackness that was the blackhole they rotated around. We gathered there for thousands of years but even that did not hold our attention for long. This was early in our journeys and we thought of that as a long time, but soon we departed from there and have never joined together in great numbers again."
"Centuries later I came upon two perfect pinwheel galaxies colliding. They looked like spinning wheels of dotted lights crossing each other in a requiem dance. I have forced myself to return there once every thousand years to see the changes and record them for the experience of others that I meet in my travels. Trillions of sentient creatures have perished during that time. I feel them each time I approach the cartwheeling magnificence. To this day, during the year when I habitually travel to record my observations, I must force myself, through fear and sickness, to go there. In all my voyaging that is the one significant event that most brutally shows the unforgiveness of the universe. I have since shown twenty three others my recordings, they all were amazed and moved, but each one of them had a story of their own, each one different, each one spectacular in beauty, horror or many, many other ways."
He went on for hours, maybe days, I could no longer tell. He told me of the planets of life and death, stars and galaxies, people of simple means and great minds he studied with, Spacefareing races, stone age races, beautiful animals, terrible tyrants and peaceful societies. During his long span of life he interfered in some cases arbitrarily, and in others he stayed objective and distant. With each change in his behavior, he experimented to see what the outcome was. He had become adept in influencing a society or even an ecosystem in many ways to create a specific outcome. His patience was supreme, his knowledge unimaginable
Most often now he just observed. (At least that's what he told me)
"Maurel," I was startled by the use of my name. I hadn't known that he knew it. I believe he read my mind but he could have easily discovered it in the phone registry. It didn't matter. It was frightening in its' directness. "Now that you have heard a small portion of my life's travels, I wish to ask you something, a simple question."
"Why should I continue with my life?"
He was quiet all of a sudden.
After hours of listening to his stories: true eons of travel across the vast spaces, discoveries of exotic creatures and species innumerable, explorations of places beyond comprehension, what was I to tell him?
He just sat there again enfolded by the cane back chair with its' tight weave of fine wicker. Sat staring at me. As seconds turned to minutes his focus on me began to waver, his ashen eyes seemed to fuzz around the edges, first the black specks of charcoal faded, then the eyes themselves became a smooth shade of gray. His pupils disappeared slowly merging with the rest.
Quietly he said, "You don't have to tell me right now. Go home, think upon it, I have the time," chuckling now, "of that, I have too much. When you have an answer you will remember how to find me, you will know where I am."
Rapidly now the rest of his body joined his eyes in their loss of form, fading and losing its' color. The extremities first: fingers, toes, then hands and feet and arms. Speeding up now, he became a swirl of smoke spilling into itself. A small cloud of dust and then just pollen in the light.
I stood up, looked around the room once more and that's the last I remember.
Years later the memory of that day would fade. Somedays I would be sure of its' happenings, others I would believe nothing. The preposterousness of the conversation forced me never to ever say a word to anyone about it. Who would believe me? Especially when I don't believe myself, at least not everyday. Even with my uncertainties, I still wanted to answer the question, for each year, as the belief in the conversation with him wavered, my obsession with his query strengthened. What reason could I give to him to go on living, a creature with power over death and the ability to travel wherever he wishes in the cosmos?
Always the question remained.
Thirty years passed by me. His number. The amount of time he had thought specifically upon the question without finding an answer that suited him.
Forty years, then fifty.
I was no longer a young man when the thought started to form from within me. I could no longer separate his needs and wishes from my own. My life may not have spanned twenty nine thousand two hundred and one generations, but it had been full of its' share of accomplishments and failures, all important to who I was, all filling me up. The parallels between us were apparent to me. We were filled up. What would make me want to go on, what singular simple reason could there be?
When the separation between us faded, I started to see what could make him and me wish for more. The answer grew from the question as all the best answers do, expanding upon it and making it into a purpose.
The day that it crystallized within me, it was raining lightly in the park. My son was nearby with his children. He was watching them play exuberantly among the playground toys. They laughed and danced between swing set and slide almost unable to choose which was the better. I stood and left them to their joy, quietly walking away, my feet sure of their path, my mind clear, but uncertain if I would return.
Downtown my feet led me, uneven step followed by uneven step, my age making me a drunkard of years. Soon now it would not matter, the weight of the question, obsessing me for my adulthood, would be gone. A little fear gripped me. What would I be without it? It was my inner spinning center around which all other things in my life seemed to revolve. But it was overwhelmed quickly by the great sense of accomplishment I felt. Few people in the world are ever visited as clearly and powerfully by something in their youth that gives them a purpose beyond the everyday normal frame of life.
Hours later, I was walking into a light industrial sector of the city surrounded by warehouses and small strip malls filled with shops and repair stores. Puddles filled an uneven parking lot, as I made my way across it towards an old office building. The walls were a mall beige in color and the sign above the door read, "Eshaal and Associates." The sign didn't elaborate on what business the company pursued but by now I knew this was my destination. I hurried my shuffle a little, for it was getting dark and I hoped that someone was still inside.
I pushed the simple glass front door open and stepped into a simple lobby. From behind a plain counter and below another "Eshaal and Associates" sign, sat a small woman in a pale suit. She looked up at me over her glasses and said, "Good evening Mr. Kon." Somehow I expected her to know my name. "He has been waiting for you for some time now. Please continue on down the hallway to your right but then you know the way now don't you." I said, "Yes, I do, thank you."
Now, as I turned towards the doorway at the end of the hall, the corridor seemed to pitch downhill, funneling me towards him. Faster and faster I walked, nearly running the length of the hallway. Suddenly it spilled me at the doorstep, and left me standing in front of the door, it's deep, dark, wood grain sitting solidly before me, I was completely disoriented. Looking down I saw the handle and reached for it, but just before my fingers could grasp the knob, the latch clicked and the door opened of its own accord, swinging silently and smoothly.
The rich paneling of the interior grew from the doorway, unchanged from my last visit. Carpets on the floor, mirrors and paintings on the walls, so many that some leaned against the walls, unable to secure a mounting place. Innocuous in the center of the room was a couch with a chair opposite it. Resting within the seat, staring a calm hello at me, sat the man who had given me my obsessions years ago. He, of course, looked unchanged, just like the room.
On my walk here my thoughts had been clear, I had known what to tell him, I knew the answer to his question. Now my thoughts grew chaotic, years of conflicting emotions rose within me, constricting tightly all of a sudden.
I'm not crazy! My dreams weren't lies! You do exist!
You did this to me! Why did you do this to me?!
What if I never tell you my answer?
Maybe I should just let you die?
Who gave you the right?
Through all the reeling commotion in my mind, he sat there calmly. If he could read my thoughts, he showed no reaction.
I entered the room. Again his ash gray eyes grabbed me and tried to hold me. I held my distance from them and veered my walk away from the familiar couch. Slowly I walked, skirting around one column, passing around to the left of him. His curiosity was piqued, and he leaned slightly forward to follow me. I walked to the counter, where he had filled his water glass years ago, there was a sink there. "I was never quite sure if there truly was a sink or not," I smiled to myself, with my back to him, "I don't know why it was important to know."
He was smiling with the same crook in it. I could see it in my minds eye, it came through in his answer, "You were looking for some proof of my.... insubstantiality."
"I know who you are, or more precisely, I know several of the many skins you have worn. Some of them were quite intriguing." I gripped the faucet and turned on the water, it splattered into the sink clear and cold. "Why did you choose me?" I shut off the faucet and turned to face him. "I mean, there must have been many other more worthy people to choose from, why me?"
He chuckled, the light tumble of it drawing memories back to me across the decades. "How much of your life did you devote to my question?"
Filling my eyes with all my mettle I looked at him directly, "It consumed me."
"I knew it would."
His logic was clear, somehow he was able to find someone receptive to the question or perhaps he made me receptive to the compulsion. I nodded in agreement with his planning and walked over to take my customary seat, across from him, eye to eye, on the couch.
He looked at me and waited for me to begin. No matter how confident I tried to remain, his overwhelming presence agitated me. I cleared my suddenly thickened throat and started my answer, quietly.
"Your question was difficult at first, until I had lived enough myself to see more of what you meant, more of the distance you had traveled. I read a lot in the early years. All the great minds of my world, drinking in their thoughts, some conflicting with my own, most at least conflicting with others. But after ten or fifteen years of that I came to the conclusion that you would have read them all, hell you may have written some of them. So I stopped reading as much. During the center of my life I tried to ignore you and your question, but I could not. Somehow, even then, I realized that the answer would help me just as much as it would help you. Over time the obsession was woven into my life so tightly, it became my life. I fit the other parts: work, family, friends, within its' framework.
"When the realization of what you had done to me became clear, I knew what the answer would be. What reason I could give to you for living.
"Do you know my conclusion? I think you do. I even believe you knew what the answer was going to be, or at least hoped that I would give you this one. But then to you, even this little distraction would be another scene for you to enjoy.
"You gave me a question to answer. So as an answer I'm going to give you a question. But what could I ask? You asked me to give a reason to a god (in everything but name), why he should go on living? How could I think of a question with enough importance to sustain you for ten thousand more generations? You have spent your existence experiencing the cosmos, seeing all you can see, doing anything that you could, but even in your vast possible explorations, you've tired of the travel. You yourself said that it is getting harder and harder to find anything new. What is left for you, you ask? Well, there is nothing for you! Nothing!"
I found myself half standing. We breathed in cadence together for a heartbeat or two. I saw he was no longer smiling and looked small, enveloped in the wings of his chair. The moment broke and my next statement was even and measured as I calmly sat down into the couch again.
"Now you will live for the rest of us. We shall be your purpose. Not just me or the people of my world, but us all, every living being in the universe. And the weight of our numbers will, at the very least, force you to continue your life. For the quest I am sending you on, is the One from which all others spring."
I moved forward on the couch and rested my elbows on my knees, my lips had gone dry and my smile felt cracked on my ageworn features. I looked into his eyes, disconcertingly old in such a young looking face.
"I want you to find the answer to it all. I want you to answer the big one and tell us what our purpose is in this wide expanse of darkness? Why are we in being, is it a design, if so by who, if not does anyone know more? There has probably never been a person in better position to search for this answer. Yes, there have been uncountable people who have sat and thought about it and even many who believe they could travel by astral means to answer "why?", but never someone with the longevity or mobility to follow the trail to its end. To locate someone or something who concretely knows the answer, bring the name of the creator out of hiding show it to the masses of the universe and give them power over that darkness. It would be better still if you could bring the supreme being out itself, to speak to us all, to explain." I paused, for I saw a small grin forming round his teeth again.
"Stop smiling!" I said to him angrily, "I'm not done."
"Once you have located the answer, however long that takes you, I want you to send the message out to any and all who can understand. This second part is much more important than the first part of your quest. The knowledge of God is not yours to keep if it is found. How you send word out to every thinking creature is your problem, but I foresee you will end up enlisting the help of your brethren in your endeavor, but realize it is your task and no others!
"I have no idea how long this will take you, but your task is to be the titan of legend and bring down the brand of fire from the mountain, no matter the wrath of god.
"It would not surprise me if you discover that many of your fellows are already in pursuit of the great answer, but your search can only help.
"You put your will upon me and used my life, now I am charging you. Do you accept my challenge?"
I was sweating, the armpits of my shirt were drenched, my heart was beating in my chest, but I had never felt so free. My whole life seemed to have spilled there upon the floor between him and me. Gushed and splashed across the six feet or so that separated us, to drench him.
He sat there for a time and then calmly said, "Of course."
Slowly the ship spiraled in front of us, looking like nothing more than a snowflake spinning down in a light winter breeze. It had not responded to our queries. It showed no sign of life, no apparent power at all. The captain had decided to send a scout over to do a visual inspection. That scout happened to be me.
"Brakow, Comm. check." Crackle but audible.
"Brakow here, read you clear Pel." A little white lie but harmless enough. I breathed slowly and evenly, calming myself for the leap into the void between the two vessels. We had secured ourselves to the other ship in the first hours of contact, but several hundred meters still separated us from the dancing white spectacle. It was larger than we were and could have been crewed by fifty or more people, but our sensors could not penetrate the hull and a visual inspection showed refractions of the stars behind. It was impossible to see into the interior. The effect was staggering.
I pressed my space suited hand against the airlock release valve and with a silent, bone feeling churn the doorway opened in front of me. Beyond, framed by our spotlights, she sat, floating.
"I'm leaving the door." My space walking experience volunteered me for this duty (I had logged twice as many hours floating free, as any one else on the ship). The key was to relax and to focus on your goal (a tether and a little hand jet helped a lot ).
I looked at the center of the big sparkle in front of me and pushed my body towards it, jumping no faster than I wished my impact to be. Just right.
"Walking"
"Roger, Ten meters."
We had located an opening, it was in the center of the flake, like a mouth for an octopus. I had chosen it as my target and leapt as accurately as I could towards its maw. We weren't sure if the hole was a door or something caused by an explosion but there was no atmosphere present and our spectrograph showed only traces of oxygen or nitrogen, very few elements at all besides carbon. The ship seemed to be made out of a compressed carbon, a constructed ship of diamond, fabricated by someone of impressive technology. The value in materials alone was staggering.
"Hundred meters"
Halfway.
My legs trailed behind me, useless in this environment. My hands cautiously at my side, each holding a small jet gun, with short lanyards attached to my wrists so they wouldn't float away when I dropped them.
I could start to see details now. The hole in its side seemed to be regular and even, much as a hatch would, not jagged or uneven as I would expect an explosion or impact.
"One hundred fifty"
Near perfect, I would land just to the right of the door by a few feet. I dropped one of the guns and brought the other one out in front of me, centering it as well as I could to minimize any spin it might generate.
"One eighty"
"Ninety"
I pulled the trigger, meters from the other ship. Just one small spit from the gun and I stopped near dead, close enough to put my hand out to steady the slight rotation caused by the spurt.
"Pel, I have contact. It's fantastic, like your a fly on a ring. It doesn't look real. All smooth."
The fingertips of my gloves had a slight sticky substance that allowed me the slightest purchase on the smooth surface of the ship. Slowly, I made my way over to the opening. It was clear now to be what we thought, an entrance , but there was no hatch cover present, some time in the past it had disappeared.
"No sign of a door."
I dropped the other gun and pulled the flashlight from its' place on my thigh. There were a minimum of tools attached to my suit within easy reach: a bag, a flashlight, a screwdriver (carefully holstered to prevent any puncturing) and, of course, a hammer. My suit had its' own headlights, but another light always seemed to brighten up whatever I was inspecting.
Around the corner of the door I went.
"Entering the ship"
"Roger that."
Around the edge of the door I peered and saw an intricately designed carpet on one of the walls. Reorienting my vision I realized it was the floor and I was looking into the vessel from the side. I looked behind me now and saw the fine tendril that was my tether extending back towards my ship, a small trail of breadcrumbs leading to the moth-blind brightness of our spotlights. I could make out little in the glare and when I returned my attention back to the ship of glass, my eyes danced with color and false images. I pulled myself in, twisted and...fell to the floor with a thump.
"Brakow, what happened. We've lost your video link and there appears to be a problem with your breathing, are you O.K.?"
"Yeah Pel, I'm O.K." I sputtered out between a cough, "I just landed on my ass and got the wind knocked out of me."
"Can you repeat that lieutenant??" I could here his confusion.
"Pegasus, I have encountered what is apparently artificial gravity." I could here a quickening of the discussion in the background, three or four voices talking at once. Then Pel came back on clearer and very calm, "Continue your inspection Brakow."
"Roger."
I stood.
The walls were adorned with paintings and intricate molding lined the corners of ceiling and wall. I looked down the length of the hallway to a wood door. There was no airlock structure, the one missing hatch seemed to be the only barrier between any occupants and the vacuum. I began to walk down the carpeted path, my spacesuited feet silently shuffling along the rug, cautiously I placed my feet down for each barely believing step. I wasn't expecting to recognize any of the artwork displayed on the walls, but several of the dozens there looked vaguely familiar as I passed by them. The pictures were masterpieces, even to the untrained eye. Some reminded me of works from my homeworld, some were beyond description. Still they entranced me.
Soon I found myself in front of the door.
"I'm in front of a door."
"Is there any keypad or switch." The voice in my helmet asked matter of factly.
"You don't understand, I'm in front of a wood door with a beautiful brass handle on it."
Again the voices arguing with each other like bees between my ears.
A new voice, "Brakow, this is the Captain, proceed through the door. At the slightest sign of danger we'll yank you out of there." Probably not as easy as he thinks. I didn't relish being pulled back along the corridor on my back for thirty or forty yards and then flung towards a metal ship to fast for my own good. It sounded a little painful, but at least I would be out.
"O.K. I'm opening the door."
The cold of the handle through my gloves was imagined, but I still felt the brass chill my palm as I grasped it. Turning it, the door seemed to swing open almost of its' own accord. Lights came on, no flicker, just a slow growing warmth from darkness to light in two or three seconds. "The lights just came on."
"Roger, we read a slight power use now, but no localized source."
Inside, the room opened up ten or eleven meters high, thirty or so across. Along one wall were floor to ceiling windows showing the stars and galaxies framed by the blackness around them. There was no fuzziness of a screen or deterioration of signal, just glistening perfection, the heavens shown in their full diamond clarity. Beneath the wall of space spread a comfortable sitting room. No controls, no screens, no flight seats, nor anything utilitarian in the entire room, just several comfortable looking chairs and a table, whose top was strewn with books and papers. The room looked more like someone's home than a starship.
Then I noticed a hand poking itself from behind the edge of chair back. It's wizened, crackled appearance limply dangling over the edge of the arm.
"I see someone." Just static in return.
"I'm approaching the chair...." no response, I didn't move.
"Pegasus...does anybody read me?"
Nothing.
"Pegasus, if you can read me, I can no longer hear you." Fuzzy hiss.
My heart rate increased from its' already elevated heights. I had thought I was prepared for this, but in reality, all my defenses left me and I found myself still rooted to the spot, trying to listen for directions, for someone else to make the decision. My tongue was dry, my breathing loud and raspy inside my helmet. "Pegasus, I am approaching the chair," I said again, "No movement from the arm." I took a step, "It appears to be humanoid, four fingers and a thumb." I took a second step, his hand was now just four or five feet from me. It was nothing but dried skin holding the frame of bones together, stretched around and over as if poorly made paper mache.
I took another step and his legs came into view. They were covered in a smooth sheen shining cloth, preserving the illusion of a body. I forced another step and saw the rest of the arm was covered with the same material. Quickly now I took two more steps and came around the front of the chair.
He sat there smiling slightly, crookedly, wrapped in blue pajama's of a silk like material, barefoot and relaxed. His face was dried, cracked and stretched just like his hand. The lips dried back from the mouth exposing the teeth, his eyes closed and sunken. There obviously had not been a rapid decompression, more of a perfect freeze drying process. He was a mummy.
Lying on his chest was the other hand, clasping a piece of paper. Without thinking, my hand began to lift of its' own accord, and I heard myself say, "Sorry," so quietly. I leaned towards him and my fingers caressed the edge of the paper carefully, fearfully, not wanting to damage the frail brittleness of its' age. Closing on the sheet with my thumb and forefinger I gently pulled against his grasp. His fingers fell apart to dust, releasing, at last, the paper they had held for unknowable years. I lifted and let my hand follow the path that its' minimal mass led me, striving to put as little strain on its' fibers as possible. It came to rest before my eyes.
I could read it!
It was written in plain language that anyone could understand.
It said.
"Whoever finds this letter, let Maurel know that I found the answer to his question and it was not at all what I expected. I've gone along ahead for there is so much that I can teach them all. Tell him also that I'm sorry for not being able to come back and let him know what the answer was myself, I know it's what he most dearly wanted. But you see, I'm not allowed to tell.
"I can tell you all that it is more than imaginable."
It was unsigned.
Millions by Greg O'Byrne
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