“Just a nightmare. Now lie down,” she said. She flipped him onto his stomach, crawled on top of him, breathed hot breath down his neck, then lower.
“It was so real,” Mick said.
“As real as this?” she said. He looked down. Her hair fell over her face, then disappeared.
80
A UCA heavy-class set down on a landscape of crumbling rock, sending gusts of shrapnel wind in each direction. Two weathered droids approached the ship. A binary star tortured the surface of Cnaf-2391, a fringe world in Bessel’s innermost asteroid belt. It had only one inhabited stretch of land, a web of tiny tungsten silos insulated from the extreme heat.
“We’re tracking a black hull light-class stolen from a UCA facility. This is a standard search, nothing to worry about.”
“I wasn’t worried,” said one of the droids.
“Can you take us on a quick tour of the facility?” asked one of the officers.
“Of course, officer,” replied the droid.
The two droids led the officers, each holding a UCA military scanner, over a rust-flaked terrain toward one of the silver silos.
“What exactly do you produce here?” asked the officer.
“A number of composites, all very profitable.”
“I’m sure. All ore?”
“That’s right.”
They entered one of the silos. A thousand containers lined the walls in neat, stacked rows. Each one was filled with a powder of the same color.
“Mine a lot of the stuff, don’t you?”
“Like we said, very profitable.”
“We’ll need to see your communication and docking logs.”
“No problem. Do you mind telling us who, or what, you’re looking for?”
The officer looked at his comrades and chuckled. “Fucking droids,” one of them muttered.
“Don’t you watch the UCA Media Channel?”
“No,” the droids said simultaneously.
“They have to push that regulation through faster,” said the leading officer. “Pretty soon, the channel will be patched in through your plant. That way, you won’t be left out anymore.”
“I don’t much like the thought of having UCA news pumped into my mind without my consent,” replied the older of the two droids.
“Well, that’s the shame in hanging onto dead traditions. You get left in the dark, and you’re afraid of new technology,” said the lead officer.
The droids looked at one another, wondering if they might comment upon human irony. Neither did, but they kept the UCA officials moving. Soon they stopped at a computer terminal and the officers went to work scouring through its database.
“What the hell’s this?” asked one of them. The old droid rolled over to see. There on the screen was a gap in arrivals. A blank spot. A missing transaction of some kind.
“Oh, an error in our system. She’s getting old.”
“Error in the system?”
“Yea, corrupt data.”
If a droid could express nervousness, the old robot did not do it then. It stared directly into the eyes of its interrogator until the other droid joined:
“It’s been happening a lot lately,” it said.
“I don’t like it. It’s in direct violation of UCA code. We could have you shut down immediately for one gap like this—do you know that? Is there anything else you trade in? Any other kind of service you offer on this world?” the UCA official asked, his pistol drawn in a weak show of intimidation.
The orange droid, a newer model, watched the gun as it spoke, “Absolutely nothing sir.”
“And you’ve heard nothing of FOD? The Q-bomb?”
“As we said, we don’t watch UCA news,” the old droid replied, mimicking human agitation.
“Boss, let’s get the hell out of here,” said another. “Looks good on this side of the server. Nothing here.”
The UCA officers filed out, trailed closely by the droids.
“You know why we came out here?” the UCA leader asked as they boarded the light-class.
“Routine check, sir?” the orange droid replied.
“Rumors about some reverse time travel bullshit. Something UCA scientists say is impossible. Yet here we are, on a bumble fuck detail, checking the toilets of the cosmos. Crazy, isn’t it? All because of something they think they may have scrambled in one of FOD’s transmissions.”
“But wouldn’t that be impossible, sir? To go back in time? Time is simply a property of motion.”
The officer laughed again, much louder.
“It would be. God knows why—these higher ups. The FOD is dead. Everyone knows it. Of course, General Sirma is a paranoid son-of-a-bitch.”
The others laughed with him, then departed, their heavy-class cruiser rising into the gloaming sky.
“Think he suspected anything?” the orange droid said to the older one.
“Not a thing.”
“Think it really worked?”
“Hell—it was FOD who built it? I wouldn’t know what to say the odds favored—wouldn’t know what…”
81
“Name’s Nelson, you?” asked a scrawny, pimple-ridden boy of a man. He struggled to wield his suitcases, which he quickly plopped on the bunk bed in front of him.
“Mickey.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m in for engineering, you?”
“Was shooting for FRINGE, but I’m undeclared. I’m reconsidering things.”
“Well, FRINGE is about as hard as it gets. Don’t hurt to think about some other options.”
“Yea, you’re right. Here, let me give you a hand.”
“Thanks a lot. Hey, there’s going to be a welcome dance tonight. You thinking about going?”
“In a few years,” Mick said.
“What?”
“In a few years I’ll go.”
82
“That signal, the M-82 signal I was telling you about?” said physicist Darian Harper.
“Yea, it’s an anomaly. What of it?”
“Not anymore it’s not,” Harper said. “Sit down Bill.”
“What do you mean not anymore? What the hell are you talking about?”
Despite Bill Doss’s normal skepticism of the brash young genius, Darian Harper, who’d just come through Harvard’s doctoral program, having started his work at CERN the previous summer, he sat down. The office window revealed a starlit night over a Hawaiian tide. Mauna Kea was littered with white domes, powerful telescopes aimed at space, the bastion of his pioneering research.
“Well? What is it?” said Bill.
“I’m going to need you to run some really tight images for me, but it’s already been confirmed by Gemeni South in Cerro Pachon and Yunnan in Lijiang.”
Anticipation started to roll through Bill’s veins, and he put down his mug of tea. His eyes widened, and the distinct foreshadowing of a breakthrough pulsed through the phone at him.
“It’s a black hole, Bill.”
“Like hell it is.”
“I know, it sounds crazy.”
“Moving at four times the speed of light?”
“It’s inconceivable, but it’s mathematically sound. We just have to get your confirmation and we can publish and present at Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.”
“Darian, do you know what that would mean?”
“I know, it’s terrifying. But, even if this proves correct by your images, and the others, which it is, it is correct Bill—it won’t reach us for—”
“Don’t tell me. I’ll figure it out. Send the image coordinates you need.”
Bill hung up the phone.
He worked all night, got the exact images Darian needed, and Darian called him two days later to confirm his hypothesis. The directional aspect of the M-82 anomaly’s velocity had been misinterpreted, skewed by a powerful swell of dark matter; in reality, Darian Harper had discovered that the anomaly was expanding out equally in all directions, at four times the speed of light. His math had proved true.
Bill stepped ou
tside of the kitchen, saw the lapping blue waves roll onto the white sand beach, a concentration of nature’s beauty. He knelt to pick up the morning paper.
PACIFIC BUSINESS NEWS – July 12th, 2034
His eyes lowered.
That was fast. He read his own name and the rest of the headline.
HUMAN RACE IS ON BORROWED TIME CONFIRMS HAWAII’S WILLIAM DOSS
A subheading ran: What do we choose as our purpose?
“Spin anything for a buck. Hacks,” he grunted, then went back inside.
83
Baroque chamber music filled a pillared hall of white. A woman clad in a waterfall of tight gold silk pushed her way toward a broad-shouldered man in black. Dark handsome eyes turned to receive the luminous form. Her lips curled with awkward excitement—sprightly eyes wove a net about the man’s past. He was no longer alone.
“Dance?” she asked.
“I had hoped we would,” he replied.
She held out her hand, he took it.
That is your voice. Somewhere, a long time ago, I forgot it. Never again.
Violins caressed his neck and arm. Foreign movement confounded them both, and the heat of the hall increased. Gentle gold upon a smooth black suit—her hair eased out, flew about, the cosmos intact therein. The wild scent of flowers twined with the musk of man.
A sigh. My luck cannot get better. A planetside desk job with time off during the summer for travel and adventure. Her tonight and hereafter. His heart engorged, flooded with gratitude. The gratitude formed three smiling faces—two robotic, and one nearly as beautiful as that which looked at him presently. They smiled and vanished.
“From what time and place do you come?” he asked, smiling.
They twirled about in strange harmony, spirits that seemed to know one another already: his arm explored, his fingers vagabonds. She breathed a hot secret into his ear:
“Here I am,” she said.
She’d said that. And what had it meant?
The night wore on between dance and wine and concertos. A separation began, spirits departing, leaving one another to rejoin their solitary dreams.
“Will we meet again?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll find you later.”
“There is no later,” she smiled. “Just now.”
“Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade.”
She looked at him, wondering at his strangeness.
Mick pulled her into his chest. Kissed her. Strange old flavor. The bravado of now, roused by her, swept over him and took control. Enough to show I understand?
“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
She departed into the alien night, her fingers the last to slip away. Blue eyes under dark brows went, with them the heat of unending desire.
84
With black finality, the cosmos collapsed in upon itself. A million starts fired at the same time, and a million universes released. One ended and an infinite more began. Each magnitude relative to the next, voiced a mantra, though inaudible it was, for it had never met an intelligence capable of listening to it: it was a note, however, which one species of life had nearly heard.
Epilogue
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
–From Endymion, by John Keats 1818
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Thanks for reading Black Hull. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this episode, and will keep reading each new episode that comes out. It would mean a great deal to me if you reviewed this story. Reviews are the most important way indie authors like myself find readers. I deeply appreciate you as a reader. I promise to make each episode as good as it can be, and would love to hear your input about story direction on my author page on Facebook. If you would like to personally email me about storyline suggestions, contact me at [email protected].
AUTHOR BIO
I grew up and still live in New Jersey. I started writing and drawing at a young age. Growing up, I often daydreamed that I was A) Luke Skywalker, B) A hobbit, or C) Goku/Bruce Lee, depending upon what day it was. Today, I love to craft my own worlds and stories, fill them with characters, and paint their stories.
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