And the horrible fact was that I felt good about killing him. In my guts I knew he deserved to die by my hand, and it was just. I’d liked it too much.
The stars out there were hard points of unblinking light, like accusing eyes. I stared back.
At 0845, something anomalous appeared two kilometers away from the ship.
Janning ordered Red Alert.
Whatever the hell it was, it was big, the size of a major asteroid, more than 10 k’s across.
But it was made of God knows what… Sensor information wasn’t helpful. I imagined the sensors frowning, trying to figure it out.
It was made of a peculiar light, and there were things moving, angles forming, shapes opening and closing.
The whole thing was changing shape as we watched, as if it didn’t want you to see what it really was. Was it another ship? Was it — an unwelcome thought here — some kind of creature? What other possibilities were there? Was it alive? Was it a machine?
I imagined Mr. Grantleigh being fascinated, and listening to him pondering the “ontological difficulty” of it all.
Janning’s voice came over ShipMind, “We have the power plant back up. We’re leaving!”
I felt the walls thrum before I heard the rumble of the plant.
Then one of the Battle Group ships disappeared, just like the Fourth Fleet: gone without trace. No wreckage, no emissions, nothing.
Eclipse was moving — towards the object. In my belly I could feel the power plant cranking up. It made little difference.
Another ship from the Battle Group vanished behind us. And then another, the Nelson.
Vessel status showed us passing through the one-kilometer mark. The object filled the sky with its geometric lunacy; its frightening light was like nothing I had ever seen.
Distracted by the looming object, I had not noticed our other Battle Group ships winking out of this reality, one at a time. Queen Helen, apparently, was the last besides us to go.
I thought I couldn’t possibly have any more fear left. I had to be all scared out after this night. But I was wrong.
I got up from the bed as Janning said that his attempts to contact whatever that thing was had gone unanswered. “Therefore,” he said, “it is time to abandon ship.”
Standing there, panicking good and proper now, I wrestled with the Paper, tearing it, trying to bring up the phone interface. “Mr. Janning!” I babbled when I finally got it running.
Half a kilometer.
“James? Is that you? I thought you…”
“Sir, what’s my designated lifeboat? I had to dump my headware!”
“Look — just get yourself to Hangar Two, Deck E, remember. Got that? We’ll sort something out then. Sorry, I can’t talk.”
He was gone.
I left, sprinting along the passageways, heading for the nearest lift I could find. And ran into another officer—
Ferguson!
He was standing right there in my path, watching me and scratching one of his ears. “Do watch where you’re going, Mr. Dunne.”
I almost fell over. I had never been so shocked in my life.
My heart was in my throat. Gasping, babbling, “No, no … Mr. Ferg — no! Couldn’t … it…” I wanted to turn and run.
“Where do you think you’re going, hmm?” he said, taking a step towards me.
“Who — who the hell are you?” I was fumbling my way backwards.
Ferguson scowled down at me. “You’ll meet them soon enough, boy.”
Thinking, thinking real hard. And then realizing, filled with blinding panic. “You mean, you’re … out…” Pointing, I indicated the object outside. The object that was reeling in this whole ship like a caught fish, even as I felt the floor tremble with the power plant running at more than its full capacity to get us out of here.
The Ferguson-thing grinned. Just like the real Ferguson, that grin. I bolted.
And ran straight into his chest; I bounced off, stunned, and I made an embarrassing squawk of fright. Staring up at that face, that stupid moustache I’d always hated.
“When you’re quite finished, boy, I’d like a quiet word.”
“What’s going on?”
“What’s going on? You stepped on our toes, you might say. And we really can’t have that.”
“Oh shit!” I shot away again, running in the opposite direction, I was sure of it — and again ran into his chest.
Wearily, it said, “You really must stop doing that, boy.”
I could hardly breathe. “I’ve got to get to a lifeboat…”
“Don’t you worry your poor little head. You’ll get to your bloody lifeboat.”
“Then…” Trying to breathe, I stared, baffled. “What’s…?”
“This vessel was involved in a very nasty bit of business a short while ago. You killed an entire race of sentient beings.”
Gulping, feeling dizzy. My bladder wanted to let go.
“That wasn’t my … I didn’t do … God, that sounds lame, doesn’t it?”
“I am aware, Mr. Dunne, that you were not a wholehearted supporter of the operation. That’s why you are still here.”
“Okay. I think I see. What about, what about the … others?”
“Don’t think about them.”
I fell against the wall. “God… Oh my God…” I whispered, feeling fresh tears.
“The chaps who constructed me out of the rancid muck in your brain so that we could share this awkward moment, they were, er, cultivating the beings you bastards killed. I see you understand the idea of gardening. Well, those beings, they were like a plant about to mature and flower, if you’ll excuse the metaphor.” He looked annoyed, anxious to hurry things along.
I was holding my face, unable to think of anything to say. Nothing could excuse what we did, or make up for it.
And then I remembered. The alien ship we encountered, all that time ago. It had a drive section of a completely different design style and composition from the main body of the craft. It was as if there had been two cultures at work.
“It was you … you…” I couldn’t finish the thought.
He nodded.
“B-But what about the other ships, why didn’t you just wipe us out…?”
“How to put this?” it said, more irritated now. “This vessel is to be a trophy.”
A trophy. I couldn’t begin to understand this. The only thing going through my mind now was the inadequacy of my oceanic sorrow. “I am so sorry.” Crying now. “I am so … bloody sorry.” I don’t know how many times I said it. But when I looked up, wiping my eyes, he was gone.
The ship was empty.
I hurried to the boat hangars. Vessel status showed that Eclipse had crossed the object’s shifting outer boundary, moving more slowly now.
Hangar Two rang with my footsteps. It was cold. There were a dozen lifeboats here, each rated for ten passengers. Each boat was still clamped down. I found a manual control board near the entrance, wiped a thin layer of frost off it, and powered it up. My breath plumed. Breathing hard, I could feel the cold air burning in my lungs. Hurrying. Things hummed and clunked. Red lights came on in boat number one. Scrambling over to it, I climbed in and sealed the door shut. God, it was cold.
I tried not to think about all the Eclipse crew members who were not here, who were not climbing aboard these things, who weren’t leaving, and whose bodies were not lying around. Critchlow, Riordan, and Janning: they had been my only friends in the end. I imagined they had been sucked away to wherever the other ships in the Battle Group went.
I punched the big autolaunch pad on the flightdeck. Space doors began to slide open. Atmosphere blasted out, crystallizing, turning to fog, and blew away.
That light drenched the hangar.
It was too bright to resolve details or structures. It felt like a punishment just to see that light.
I launched. Automated functions got the boat clear, and dodged us away from the object. Or rather, the object let me go. Why was it letting me go? I didn’t understand. And what the hell was that thing, anyway? Was it a ship? It had to be some kind of ship, but now that I’ve had time to think about it, that view is probably too limited. Maybe it was like those glass sphere things we found: many things at once, not an either/or thing like humans made.
I never thought I would be so glad to see the dark of empty space.
About three hours later, I felt my pulse return to something like normal. I could think again.
I was wondering: how far would these — what should I call them? I settled on calling them “Gardeners” — how far would they take their retribution against us?
Sipping lukewarm fab coffee, I had the horrible thought that instant annihilation might have been the more merciful way to go. These guys, whoever they were, they might be much more subtle in their punishment than mere humans could imagine.
Meanwhile, I kept coming back to this other troubling thought, as I drifted away into unexplored space: What if there’s nobody left to rescue me?
Ah, but there was somebody…
Epilogue
Sometime after day 153 since escaping Eclipse
My sorrow for the annihilated aliens surprises them. “Why do you care?” they ask.
Petrified, I say, knowing this matters, “We were absolutely wrong to do that, and I’m sorry.”
They leave me alone a long time, after I say that. Later they return, and say, “Come with us.”
They dissolve me into their consciousness, like a grain of salt into hot water.
We go to human space.
I see it all as if I am flying through space on my own, without vessel or life-support. This is how things are inside their vehicle: there is no sense of being inside anything. They travel like a flock of birds, except they cross light-years with a thought. It’s terrifying, exhilarating, wonderful. I once dreamed of walking among the stars, but not like this.
Sorcha would have loved it.
Human space has changed. I had feared they would wipe out humanity, scour it from the universe. They are, as I feared, more subtle. They have stationed one of their platforms in every system occupied by humans, orbiting local stars. Investigating ships disappear.
The Service is gone. The Home System Community and much of the Home System population, regardless of affiliation, have dispersed, fleeing in terror. Even the Unity’s colony on Mars is dwindling. Nobody has dared claim those worlds.
The Gardeners tell me they have created a small, sealed universe for all the disappeared ships and crews, including Eclipse’s crew; they say it’s stocked with human-habitable worlds. The Gardeners plan to watch it and wait. They tell me they want to see if anything interesting grows.
“Why didn’t you just kill them?” I ask.
“Life is too valuable, James. It’s all we have to push against the darkness.”
I say, “Even humans?”
They tell me, “Even humans.”
“What about me, then? Why didn’t you put me in your pocket universe thing?”
They say, after a long pause, “We’re growing you. You show promise.”
“But I killed a man.”
“We know. We understand how you feel. We have plans.”
I think about this, confused, full of something resembling terror, but lacking the visceral, physical component. It’s unsettling. They say they are growing me, but it seems to me that I am already grown. “And then?” I say. “When I’ve done this growing? What will you do with me then?”
They only say, “We will see. We will see.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my wife Michelle and my parents for putting up with me and the ups and downs of the scribbling life; and my friends, particularly Martin Chapman, Michael Tan, and Lee and Lyn Battersby, good eggs all, who help me more than they know; and, of course, the top folks at EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing.
Eclipse
Copyright © 2005 by K. A. Bedford
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by
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and Fantasy Publishing
An Imprint of
HADES PUBLICATIONS, INC.
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In House Editing by Adam Volk
Cover Illustration by Geoff Taylor
e Book ISBN: 978-1-894063-78-4
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