by Matt Snee
Such vast distances. Captain had written about but never truly experienced them before. Earth suddenly felt so small. Everything had seemed so abstract. Now here he was, weightless. What did the future hold?
Or was this all a dream?
No. The dream of his life had ended. Now he was finally in reality, and it was stranger than he could have ever imagined.
And this … idea Jennifer had spoken of. Where would it come from? I'm falling, Captain thought. I just want to be down on the ground again. I'm going crazy, I can feel it.
He looked across at Plerrxx, who eyed him in a peculiar fashion. Had the cat-man read his thoughts? Were their minds open to this … cousin of humanity?
“Do you want to play?” Plerrxx asked him, obviously impatient.
“Yes,” Captain said. He would try to just enjoy the game.
“Now, the point of the game is to lose all of your cards until you have one left. When you only have one left, you win. It's simple.”
Captain nodded. “I'm listening.”
“You lose your cards by pairing them with similar cards. For instance, a three-dimensional triangle is paired up with a two-dimensional triangle and eliminated from play. As the game goes on, you and I exchange the cards we have left, hoping to find matching pairs.”
As Plerrxx described the game, Captain could see various shapes in his head, two-dimensional and three-dimensional. The Mmrowwr was transmitting shapes and colors along with his words. It made understanding the game easy, but at the same time it was unnerving.
“The card you end up with has varying degrees of value. This is what is difficult. You don't want to end up with just any card. You want a particular card to be left.”
“Which one?” Captain asked.
“That's up to you. Before the game begins you pick four candidates out of the cards you have. The goal is to keep these cards until the end of the game.”
“I think I understand,” Captain said.
“One final thing. The secret is matching your pairs. Different cards match in different ways. Some cards will match multiple cards. Some cards share colors, or shapes, or dimensions, or numbers. But you have to choose the right matches, which will lead you to your ultimate, final card.”
“Cool,” said Captain.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then look at your cards and make your initial matches, then choose your candidates.”
“What's this game called?” Captain asked.
“It is called 'One,'” Plerrxx replied. “And it is the oldest of the Mmrowwr's games.”
* * *
Time passed.
After the escape, it was difficult for Captain to adapt to a situation where he had nothing to do. He slept a lot; it was easy to strap himself to the wall and just close his eyes and let go. He ate a lot too, even though the food was a little weird. And of course he played games with Plerrxx. Sometimes he won. Most of the time he lost.
Jennifer, however, did not sleep, did not eat, and spent most of her time staring quietly out the windows. She was worried and felt helpless because she could take no action and could only wait until their arrival at the asteroid. She was impatient by nature, but this was almost as hard for her as the Mars adventure. Every minute was agonizing. She knew no peace.
Plerrxx did his best to entertain them, sharing what enjoyments the space-hopper contained, most of them being incomprehensible to the humans. Captain delighted in distraction; Jennifer was only annoyed by it.
One long hour while Jennifer lay strapped to the wall attempting to sleep, Captain and Plerrxx busied themselves with a game called “Refraction,” where they each controlled a snake of light bouncing between planes of holographic glass in pursuit of making the other player crash and lose the game. This they played for excited bursts of minutes while they swore and shouted and waved their arms.
Boys, Jennifer thought. She closed her eyes and willed the world away. No use. I just need to sleep. Captain was able to sleep, so I should be able to do it too. God, we're so close now. But this waiting … I can't take it.
Somehow she slept for maybe twenty minutes, or at least she was half-asleep. She floated in oblivion for the frailest of moments before she was yanked back to reality where Captain and Plerrxx continued to play their game. Goddammit, she thought.
In whatever action a man or woman takes with his or her body, speech, or mind, whether it is right or wrong, five things are always present: the physical body, the agent, the senses, behavior, and finally, divine providence. That was what is said in the Bhagavad Gita, sacred tome of Hindu thought. On this path, no effort is wasted.
Jennifer didn't know why she was thinking of these things now, but she did realize that sleep was useless. She unstrapped herself from the wall and floated toward the cockpit past Plerrxx and Captain, who did not notice her.
Once in the cockpit, she found quiet. She buckled herself into a seat, hoping for some semblance of normalcy.
Jennifer had read the Gita backward and forward as a child, a thousand times, because she just didn't get it. She read everything she could get her hands on, and she digested these things easily and permanently. But the Gita always eluded her intellectual senses, its deeper meanings always just beyond her grasp. She could never understand why it was necessary to fight a useless war against your own relatives, to kill for no reason and to die a death that was meaningless. There was a sort of triumphant fatalism about it. Jennifer had never been the type of person who would just shut up and play her part. She had been a defiant little girl, and now she was a stubborn, thirty-ish woman.
Her mother had read her copy of the Gita all the time, bending back the pages on whatever passage caught her eye that week. “Finally there will be true freedom,” Jennifer's mother had often told her daughter. “From which there will be no rebirth.”
These words had since haunted her. To be free from rebirth, one had to be free from death. This dream, of deathless eternity, transformed Jennifer. Was all this just some generous slice of eternity dangling from God's fingertips?
Jennifer stared out the windows at the wide, milky swath of stars and encroaching tract of asteroids with the only home she'd ever known cached safely in it. Then she started to cry quietly, wheezing as silently as she could, wiping away the salty tears from her eyes with her fists. It lasted only two or three minutes, but inside her heart it was seismic. Her bones throbbed and her blood pounded through her.
“Jennifer?” It was Captain. He had floated into the cockpit.
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Sure!” She turned and smiled, but she knew her face was red from crying and that he noticed. “I'm really tired. I can't sleep.”
“I know. You should at least try to eat.”
“I'm going to,” she lied. She exhaled deeply. “I just really want to go home.”
“It won't be long now.”
“Yeah. I just hate the waiting.”
“There's nothing you can do about it,” Captain said. “You should try to relax.”
“I can't,” she explained. “It's not in my nature.”
“How do you mean?”
“I just worry a lot—about everything. I just feel like electricity, zapping this way and that. I can't seem to slow down. It's very hard for me to be trapped inside this ship. I get very claustrophobic. I'm used to wide-open spaces.”
“Like the Devasthanam?”
“Yes. I cannot describe its size. It's at least a tenth of the size of Earth, floating up there amidst the waste of the fifth planet. It's the most wondrous place … but sad. It's filled with ghosts.”
“Ghosts?”
“Aliens,” she said. “Not like Plerrxx. We share DNA with Plerrxx, we come from the same seed, but I mean TRUE aliens, as distant and strange to us as we can imagine. They are the Old Ones; they were here long before our seed spread. They were dead before we were alive.”
“What are they like?”
Je
nnifer thought about it. “Cold. Wise. And sometimes kind.”
“What's going to happen once we get there?”
“I don't know. The aliens will examine your mind, I guess.”
“How're they going to do that?”
“You'll see. Don't worry. It will be fine.”
Captain nodded slowly.
Jennifer tried to smile in reassurance. “Things are going well, really.”
“I'm not worried,” Captain said.
“No?”
“I feel … resolved. I'm ready to die, or whatever it is that lies waiting for me in the future. I don't feel anxious anymore. I just kind of feel ready for anything.”
“I'm glad, I think,” Jennifer said. “I really am sorry I had to drag you into this.”
“It's not your fault,” Captain replied.
“I know,” Jennifer said. “But I still feel guilty about your mom and ruining your life.”
“Don't. It's a waste of time.” Captain rubbed his fingers into the stubble growing on his chin. “I'm not afraid,” he told her. “I will do whatever I have to, to help you.”
“Thank you.” This time her smile was real.
They were silent as they contemplated the nature of the No-Shape. Then Plerrxx asked them if they would like to listen to music.
“Yeah, that would be nice,” Captain said.
“Yes, it would,” Jennifer added.
Plerrxx nodded and pressed a few buttons on a console. Mmrowwrian music resonated in air. It sounded like human classical music, except the instruments were electric and rubbery, and there was an insistent drumming relegated to the background. It immediately filled Captain and Jennifer with a temporary peace. Music was a powerful thing. Still, both Captain and Jennifer were surprised by their reaction, and Plerrxx, sensing this, commented on it.
“The Mmrowwr have practiced the therapeutic effects of music for hundreds of thousands of years. Do not be afraid if the music makes you feel good, like a drug. It's supposed to do that.”
But despite the calming effect of the music, Jennifer felt violated. She hated to have her emotions and thoughts manipulated so.
She forced a smile for them and floated back toward the cockpit.
* * *
“Where do the Mmrowwr come from?” Captain asked Plerrxx, once Jennifer had gone.
“You do not know?” Plerrxx replied. “The Mmrowwr live on an artificial satellite deep past Neptune, in the far reaches of the solar system.”
Captain had so many questions for Plerrxx it was tough to begin. Finally he found a question he really wanted answered. “How are we all related? What does Jennifer mean when she says we come from the same seed?”
“We are all family,” Plerrxx explained. “All life comes from the same root elements, the same genetic spark. Where it comes from, we do not know, but it has spread all over the solar system.”
“How long has civilization existed?”
“We do not know for sure,” Plerrxx told him. “There are many theories, but the mysteries always remain. For instance, no one knows where the Mmrowwr really came from, but the theory is that we come from the future.”
“The future?”
“Yes.”
“You don't know where you're from?”
“No. Like you, we have no idea for sure when our history began. We don't have all the answers.”
Captain nodded, distant. “What is the Mmrowwr home like?”
“It is warm and bright,” Plerrxx answered. “But I haven't been there for some time, to be honest.”
“Why?”
“Because I am no longer welcome there.”
“Why is that, Plerrxx?”
“It is… complicated. I don't know how to explain in your language. I committed… a transgression.”
“Oh. What kind?”
“I would rather not talk about it right now,” Plerrxx sent, slightly upset.
Captain nodded, disappointed. He found Plerrxx fascinating and wanted to know everything about him. Now he had run into a secret of some sort.
“But let's not bore each other to death,” Plerrxx said. “Do you want to play a game?”
“Sure!” Captain said.
* * *
Meanwhile, up in the cockpit, Jennifer was biting her fingernails, which were already worn down to the fingertips. She watched as a large asteroid drifted lazily toward her. It was detected by the space-hopper's sensorial antennae and the ship's course was corrected. Every moment they inched closer to the Devasthanam, her heart beat faster and faster. I'm almost home! she thought. I never thought I'd make it. But I'm almost home! I succeeded!
Still, her skin felt sharp and electrical. This was only the beginning, and she knew it. There was hope to be found in this moment, but there was also much danger ahead. What would the Tiamatites ask of her now? She could not refuse anything.
She could still taste the Braconid's venom in her mouth, still feel the poison's ache in her bones. I didn't ask for this, she thought. Why did it have to be me? Captain—he enjoys this. All I want to do is be home and safe.
She could hear the Mmrowwian music floating up from the main cabin. It was pretty, no doubt, but also flippant, in a serious way. She knew that Captain was back there asking Plerrxx questions about the universe, about his past, and his people, and a myriad of other questions. She dreaded the moment when Captain would do the same to her, and she would have to try to explain her life to him. Would she be ashamed of her loneliness?
Jennifer gazed out the window at the stars and spinning space-rocks and worried about the past, the present, and the imminent future. Suddenly a thought hit her, and she floated back into the main cabin, where Captain and Plerrxx were playing some kind of game with soft lasers. Jennifer found her bag and pulled out her cigarettes.
“Is it okay if I smoke in here?” she thought in her mind.
“Yes,” Plerrxx replied, still playing the game with Captain.
So it was true that the Mmrowwr monitored their minds all the time. How much reached him? How much did he comprehend? She worried even more as she thought about this, knowing that he might be reading her mind at this very moment. To hell with it, she thought, lighting her cigarette.
Then she turned and watched Captain and Plerrxx play. There was such delight on their faces, despite the horror crowding the solar system. Jennifer wondered how they could bear it. They didn't feel responsible, she realized. Not like I do.
She exhaled blue smoke into the light of the cabin, creating a vast cloud around her. The smell was intoxicating. She smiled. Smoking was wonderful.
Jennifer quickly sucked down her cigarette, all her troubles fading, a new confidence unfurling down her spine. I'm crazy, she thought, as euphoria passed through her.
Captain and Plerrxx finished their game, with Plerrxx the obvious winner. “Damn,” Captain said. He turned and looked at Jennifer. “Hey!”
“Hey what?” she asked, glad.
“Do you want to play?”
She looked at her cigarette. It was hard to contemplate the future past it.
But somehow she managed.
“Yes,” she answered.
15. Climbing the Mountain
The concept of progress is an abstract, biological indulgence utterly devoid of meaning: clearly only degrees of change can be precisely measured.
Lewis Darby, “The Thinkbot's Conundrum”
“There it is!” Jennifer pointed out the main viewing glass of the cockpit. “Do you see it?”
“Yes,” said Captain.
“I do see it,” said Plerrxx.
It was a huge asteroid, by far the largest they had seen since entering the asteroid belt. It stretched far across their vision, thousands of miles wide, gray, barren.
“There's nothing there,” Plerrxx said. “The sensors pick up nothing of any sort.”
“It's a trick,” Jennifer explained. “To hide the aliens.”
“Is the Devasthanam inside the asteroid?” Plerrxx seemed
annoyed.
“No,” Jennifer said. “It's in Weird Space.”
“Weird Space? That's only a crazy theory.”
“It's not a theory,” Jennifer promised. “I'll show you.”
“What's Weird Space?” Captain asked.
“It's a lie,” Plerrxx was angry now.
Jennifer was angry too. She turned to Captain. “You have to think of the universe as moments that are like concentric bubbles that overlap and intersect and mold together. Now, there're gaps between those bubbles. That's Weird Space.”
“Rubbish!” said Plerrxx.
“I'm going to take you into Weird Space,” Jennifer said confidently. “That's where the Devasthanam is. Land, and I'll show you.”
“Where?” Plerrxx asked.
“Anywhere. It's all the same.” Jennifer was impatient again.
“Okay, I'll land,” Plerrxx said. “But my suspension of disbelief is being pushed to the limit here.” He started the landing procedure.
“And this is where you're from?” Captain asked her.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
The space-hopper lurched. “I suggest we strap in,” recommended Plerrxx.
They buckled up. A sudden, light gravity tugged at them, and they could feel the crystalline weight of the space-hopper spinning around them.
“Ugh,” groaned Captain.
Their bodies lifted and hovered as the space-hopper descended onto the asteroid. Then there was a loud clunk! as the space-hopper finally landed.
“We're here,” Plerrxx uttered into their minds. “Now what?”
“Now you're really going to think I am crazy,” Jennifer laughed.
“This isn't funny,” Plerrxx said.
“I know, I know. But you will just have to believe me.”
“What do we do now?” asked Captain.
“We go out there and sit in a circle,” Jennifer said.
“What?”
“And we have to do something else …” Jennifer reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like a copper coin. “Do you know what this is?” she asked Plerrxx. “No? They're not that rare. People just don't know how to use them.”
“Wait,” said Plerrxx. “I have seen one of those before. It's just a conductive metal tablet.”