Ten Directions
Page 38
The small red eye of Mars from the forward view portal looked down approvingly on the crumpled warrior who had fallen in battle.
Time passed.
The silhouette of a man wearing flowing robes entered the capsule and swam through the air towards him. Through blurred vision August saw a smile and then felt the careful brush of a hand across his brow.
“Illya?” He whispered, hopefully.
“Ah good. You are waking up now,” said an unfamiliar voice.
PATH TO GROUND
"Though primordially we are not separate,
not recognizing me, you experience me externally.”
~ Yeshe Tsogyal, 8th Century Tibet
Chapter 30 -Kalsang
Kalsang tasted the soup of ashes. As his mind dried out, the desire for each labored breath of depleted air had to be weighed against the ever-growing pain in his ribs and diaphragm. The decision to release his hold on life grew from this indifference as his mind fell into itself, a prolonged and monotonous descent.
Encircling the dying monk, the interior of the Garuda looked like an infestation of roundworms. Hoses, ducting, and optical cable dangled from the ceiling, flexor and tensors wriggled and arced out of the walls - all testament to the numberless repairs improvised to keep the cramped living space alive. The scene was imbued with an intentional incompleteness. Cables and webbing pulled out in economical lengths. Screws turned only deep enough to catch, and hose brackets clamped lightly. Every effort undertaken had been only just adequate with no energy squandered.
The Garuda was not a Terrapod. The interior walls were hard nanogem alloys, not tissue membranes exchanging heat and gases with a robust fellowship of living beings. In place of an organic self-regulating physiology were millions of electrical circuits, mechanical pumps, filters, and chemical plants with trillions of possible combinations for malfunction. The walls had buckled under pressures they were never designed to withstand, blessedly in reinforcing angles.
The outer skin of the vessel was pitted and burnt, blackened by the passage through the ochre vapors of Venus, which had been a necessary trajectory required to slow the ship down enough to be captured by the gravity of Mars. Metal fins and instrument booms extending over the edge of the heat shielding on the in drawn fulcrum had melted down to nubs. Blast shields had welded over the windows they protected.
The small dun shape of the Garuda was insignificant against the encompassing void. Whole planets were reduced to mere specks of reflected glory amidst the glare of the forever noonday Sun. And then, incomprehensible amidst such astronomical stillness, there was movement.
The movement, a punctuated flicker, suddenly emerged from the imperceptible and grew steadily bigger. Periodically it was surrounded by a burst of halo. Small rows of lights became discernible from one another, one of them urgently flashing red. A long sash of silver grew in its wake. Closer, thin spider arms adorned with dishes and prongs, extended towards the Garuda in greeting. The movement had become a ship. Prominently displayed across the ship’s bow appeared the name ‘Icarus MTP100X’.
Inside the ship was a living man.
Kalsang’s eyes opened. He turned his neck, somehow overcoming the inertia of lethargy. Bright lights twinkled in his neuroview. His pupils tracked the lights and squinted, bringing up a panel of messages and a static filled external view from one of the cameras that had somehow managed to survive the heat of Venus. A vessel was docking to the Garuda. The airlocks had coupled. Atmospheric cross-checks were positive. The new ship was under autohelm. Emergency protocols were activated. Authorization to open the door was requested.
The effort to focus his eyes and process this information exhausted Kalsang. His eyelids drooped. His diaphragm constricted, and a whiff of bottled oxygen dripping through his face mask to his lungs allowed his eyes to open again.
The airlocks hissed open. Air, pungent with oxygen, seeped into Kalsang’s carbon saturated lungs. His mind collapsed into a dizzy spiral, and he slept with deep, labored breaths. When hours later he awoke, his mind was invigorated by the newly arrived possibility of survival.
Kalsang’s sense of smell awakened with him, and the stench of putrid faeces made him gag. The reflex injected enough adrenaline into his muscles to bring him to his feet. Numb hands wrestled with the clasps in his pilot’s webbing, eventually releasing him to fall against a wall railing. Carefully, Kalsang walked himself down the rail to the open airlock. He breathed through his mouth to avoid his sense of smell.
Faded shadows of d'Song and others motioned for him to follow. With measured exertions Kalsang pulled himself after them, through the airlock into the foreign ship. He looked around the sewerage stained chamber and saw them clustered around something, d'Song’s face full of concern. They parted before him as he approached.
The man was laying naked, nail marks gouging any skin within reach of his twitching hands. He floated in a cloud of his own shit. Kalsang's heart nearly burst, not only at the wretched sight of suffering, but at how grateful he felt to see another living person. A spontaneous prayer arose in his mind.
Oh, my brother my brother my brother
So long we have travelled
too long we have travelled
Time beyond memory
Inconceivable winds of fate
Blowing through vast space
Have cast you upon the shores of my gaze once again
Oh, my brother
The recognition is instant
This face you wear is my own
The taste of your tears is not different
The suffering cut into your bones a perfect match
Oh, my brother
I have missed you so
As my heart touches yours
No longer alone
To see you is a perfect refuge
From my long exile
I return home
Impelled by a surge of compassion, Kalsang pushed off through the air to the man's side, and began to brush long tendrils of slimy, matted hair from a translucent brow. The man groaned and called out, and then fell unconscious again before Kalsang could summon the strength to answer. Aware of the futility of his efforts at cleaning the man, Kalsang looked around to locate a better tool, and spotting a vacuum hose tucked under the galley, pulled the hose out to the man. Kalsang noticed an open container of vitabars. He paused from his task to eat one.
Warmth spread from his shrunken belly as he chewed down the bar. A heavy feeling overcame him, and he swooned. As he slumped back his eyes rolled past the man and he noticed the man was crying.
The man’s body shuddered, sobs forced out through utter exhaustion, like an abandoned baby fighting off sleep. Kalsang struggled to keep his eyes open as his gaze floated past the man. Such a pitiful state. Resolve strengthened within him to do something to help. Anything. He vomited.
Kalsang pulled his way along the wall back to the vitabars and sucked on one, taking care this time to extract the necessary nutrition from it without overwhelming his shrunken stomach. He sat and watched the man sleep and, after some time, when his body had gathered enough strength, Kalsang pushed off from the wall towing the vacuum hose through the air behind him. With deliberate motions, Kalsang vacuumed the shit cloud away, and wiped the man’s festering skin with his robes before rubbing in a nanoid disinfectant that he had scavenged from a first aid kit.
Shuttling between sustenance, sleep and his project, Kalsang’s vitality slowly returned. As he rested against the galley wall, chewing another Vitabar, Kalsang studied the man. The man’s features were bold, and symmetrical, and oddly familiar. Long aristocratic fingers. The hair was a mad tangle, curling out at uneven angles like the tentacles of an octopus. He must have a strong constitution to survive the horrific ordeal he had been through. Strong blood. It felt good to see him clean, some dignity restored.
“Melded One, who is he?” asked d'Song.
“His face is familiar, isn’t it? Yes, I have seen this before many times, but I cannot reme
mber where.”
Kalsang drifted into sleep and awoke to find the man had gone. He floated to the middle of the room and looked around. Few hiding places were available. Doors to all galley stores, closets, and observation cupolas had been pulled roughly out from their hinges. Crawl space vents were barricaded - wedged behind bulky cargo containers. Passenger webbing cut off from the floors had been strung across the airlock Kalsang had somehow managed to push his way through. How fortunate it had not held.
For the first time Kalsang noticed the desperate chaos in the cabin. What demons the man must have battled. Eliminating the monsters’ hiding places had not been enough to diffuse them. The man had fought them. Partially healed savage rips scarred the Terrapod wall membranes, spilling out fungi, plant roots and disorientated invertebrates. Hydroponic fluid oozed out into buoyant spheres. Frantic fingernail scratches clawed at instrument panels. Ominously Kalsang noticed a stash of weapons, improvised missiles and spears, wrapped in webbing and tied to a handhold.
The Garuda was the only place the man could be. Kalsang headed back to find him. There was no telling what this wild man might do to all his careful repairs. Even though the man’s ship was well stocked for a crew of one, the resources of both ships would be needed to see them safely home.
Swimming through the airlock passage, Kalsang visualized the man’s face. Certainly, he had seen him before, but where? The Garuda was a dark cave full of dangling shadows. Kalsang had turned out the lights at least a month before to save the energy. How long ago had it been?
As Kalsang entered the cave, a hand grabbed him roughly from above, rotating him up off his feet. Something sharp jabbed into his throat.
“Do you know who I am?” demanded a hushed voice.
It was a rather odd thing to ask, the logical question would be to ask Kalsang for his identity. But, he did know this man, he remembered.
“Yes,” Kalsang responded haltingly, “you are the man in my dream.”
The spike in his throat pulled back for a second. “Don’t lie. You don’t know who I am? Then why are you here?” The force behind the spike returned.
“I am not sure.”
“Bastard. I told you to leave me alone. You don’t exist, understand? You don’t exist. Why don’t you listen? WHY?” A bubble of blood formed and drifted off from Kalsang’s neck.
“I am bleeding.”
“Shut up. Shut Up. You? Bleed? I’d have killed you a hundred times already if you could bleed, wouldn't I? You're such an asshole Illya. I killed you myself so many years ago – how could you bleed?” The spike plunged deeper and turned and Kalsang fainted.
As he regained consciousness, Kalsang felt the man hugging him tightly, wet cheeks pressed against his and weeping. As he pulled himself back the man cried out in delight, before pulling abruptly back into the shadows of the airlock.
“You aren’t dead?” The man tentatively asked after a while.
“No.” Although Kalsang realised in saying that that he wasn’t quite sure.
“You aren’t my father?”
“No. Certainly not.” The question would have struck Kalsang as funny, if not for the weary menace in the voice.
The man advanced warily out from his corner. “And you bleed?” He said this looking at the red stains on his hands as if they might disappear if he took his eyes off them.
“Yes. Isn’t it?” Kalsang touched his neck and held forth a blood-wet finger and traced a red line in the man's open palm.
“Oh.” The man groaned, holding Kalsang's hand to keep his balance.
“You need water?” Kalsang asked.
“It all tastes like piss. Oh. Yes, that would be good.” The man's answer had the tone of someone comfortable with receiving service, an important man. Kalsang hauled himself up on emaciated arms, and crawled towards the airlock, but his advance stalled at the entrance. He gasped for breath. “Sorry my friend, you need to help me get it for you.”
The man looked up from his hands with a blank expression.
“I would get your water, but too little body power,” Kalsang pointed to his bony legs, hanging out from his robes like loose pieces of string.
The man rubbed his hair, and then looked at his hand again. “You cleaned me?”
“Yes. Isn't it?”
“I see.” The man looked up from his hands, and his red eyes searched into Kalsang’s. Tear tracks through residual grime crossed his checks, and feelings of loss and distress reflected in Kalsang’s heart. The man shook his head dejectedly. “You, you need my help?”
“Thank you.”
The man wiped the tendrils of hair out of his eyes and swam, pushing Kalsang before him, back through the airlock. The man lowered him delicately down into a passenger webbing. Securing the tethers too firmly, the man headed to the galley to take a long drink. He pulled the hose out almost to its full length so Kalsang could have one also. Then he left the hose dangling as his attention turned to fitting a neurovisor onto his head.
“We must be almost back to Earth. Not so bad, eh? And what happened to you my little friend? Lunar overshoot? They must have used autopilot to join us up before collection. Now I must get us on a new course before Gudanko can. Wait a second.” The man’s eyes twitched with disbelief. “That can’t be right.” He looked to Kalsang for confirmation. “Where in Hell are we?”
“Perhaps. Ah. Almost to Mars, isn’t it?”
Suspicion returned to the man’s eyes before they twitched back to his neurovisor. “No. It can’t be.” Kalsang could see the man’s eyes scanning some virtual hole in the bulkhead that apparently moved as the man turned his head. The man sprang about madly, looking wildly around the 360-degree view relayed to him by the cams embedded in his ship’s hull. “The Earth. Where is it?” he asked accusingly, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at Kalsang. “Where in hell? Wait. I see something. A planet? We’re on a course towards it. But it’s not blue, it’s red. It’s red.” The man ran his fingers through his hair and his body slumped away. He said nothing a long while. “It is Mars?”
“Isn't it?”
Collecting himself the man dragged over a box of vitabars. They shared the meal in silence - exhaustion had rendered words a luxury. And then they slept.
When he awoke, apart from d'Song sleeping in a corner, Kalsang was alone again.
He sat in his webbing and said some prayers, waiting for the man to return from the Garuda. In his weakened state there was little else he could do.
His webbing began to pull taut and loose items spiralled down out of free fall to the floor. Shortly thereafter, the man stepped lightly through the airlock gantry, with a satisfied look on his face. He had dressed himself.
“Your fulcrum’s big enough to give us some gravity.” He said, bouncing his boot slowly off the floor.
“And your ship there,” He pointed back down the airlock, “it is a Mirtopik craft. So, what is it you haven't told me my friend?”
The man lay down on his webbing and stretched into it. The contrast between the self-composed person before him and the pitiful wreck that Kalsang had first encountered was heartening.
“My name is Kalsang.”
“Glad to meet you. I’m, you say you don’t know me?” The man again ran his fingers through his limp hair. Kalsang did know this man, even outside his dream. Yes. He was very familiar, as if he had seen him every day, only he didn’t know him. So strange.
“I have seen you before, and in my dream.”
“So you said. And what I need to know is, who sent you?” The menacing tone slipped back into the edges of the man’s voice.
“Ah. I am not sent by anyone. Just like you, I am trying to get back home. To Earth.”
“Why should I believe you? Mars isn’t a stroll to the corner shop. You would need to match my trajectory exactly for us to meet."
d'Song danced behind the man, making silly faces while Kalsang was trying to focus.
“What are you looking at? Why are you smiling?”
She poked out ten tongues at him and disappeared.
"Nothing. I am from Tibet."
"No, I want to know who you work for.”
"I work for Mirtopik Com and my monastery. I am coming from Triton, from the Neptune array."
The man studied Kalsang and then shook his head and laughed with disbelief. “The monk. You’re the goddamn missing monk. That's too, it’s too incredible, unbelievable, impossible.”
Something changed in the man’s face, as if he were quietly relieved of some burden. Kalsang sat up in his webbing and smiled weakly. "It is just like that."
Kalsang felt a spaciousness that expanded out around them in every direction, an endlessly stretching dark balloon. Kalsang closed his eyes and felt the great expanse of emptiness emanate in all directions from the combined beating of their hearts. This void was not the same as the one that had, over the past months, consumed him with its absence of dimension, a gray noise with no source. Now it pinched inward and unfolded outward from a new central coordinate, a new center of meaning, the impossible reality that now he was one of two.
"Are you okay?" the man asked with concern.
"Thank you." Kalsang answered. Thank you for being here with me.
"You really don't know who I am?"
Kalsang opened his eyes and met the man's stare. "I'm surprised you don't, but, I realise I haven't exactly looked myself lately." The man ran a towel through his hair, fluffing it. He pulled the towel off with a flourish and smiled like a politician.