A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence)

by Robert Taylor

  “Give me a hand, would you.” Hamilton asked Johnson. He pulled the throttles back to a position that would allow them to leave their seats and move around, then stood up.

  After the exertion of the space walk, his muscles had cramped up somewhat. It took him a few moments to shake the tight feeling off. Then he and Johnson, who seemed to have less issues with stiffening up, dragged Lewis down to the nearest crew cabin and put her on one of the beds.

  “She looks dreadful.” Johnson observed.

  Hamilton nodded. “Psi testing is pretty invasive and horrible.”

  “Why would they do that? I know she’s not the most likeable of people, but still…”

  Hamilton shrugged. “It’s not her, per se. It’s the normal procedure for anyone showing active talent.”

  “But why be so…brutal … about it?”

  “Psions are seen as dangerous. A long time back, there was one that basically came close to causing a civil war. Set himself up as a warlord and had a lot of backing. Backing that he had gained with his particular talent, which was manipulating other people’s minds. Planting ideas in their heads, making them like him etc. The Empire stomped on him, of course. But the damage he’d caused with his manipulation continued. The people he’d affected continued to support him, even though he’d been killed. Saw him as some sort of martyr. Continued the fight without him, as it were. It took a long time to shake all the monkeys out of that particular tree.”

  Johnson frowned. “So, because you find one bad apple, the entire crop is assumed to be rotten?”

  “That’s the basic thinking.” Hamilton agreed. “Psi testing is performed at an early age. There’s a simple test, or scan, that determines whether you have the talent, latent or not. If your shown as latent, all is well and good, but the test is mandatorily repeated throughout your lifetime. If you’re shown as active by the test….” He gestured at Lewis. “This is what you can expect.”

  “Seems barbaric.” She muttered. “What does this even accomplish?”

  “As far as I know, it measures the level of activity and type. Basically they find out what she can do and how dangerous she’s likely to be.”

  “And if they had deemed her to be a danger?”

  He shrugged. “No one knows. There are so many rumors. One says abandonment on an uninhabited world. Another says solitary imprisonment. Another says lobotomy or “corrective surgery” as they call it. Some say they just put a bullet in your head, or you get spirited off to some secret lab to be a guinea pig. But all of the rumors are uniformly not favorable to the victim.”

  “It just seems so horrible.” She wrapped her arms about herself.

  He nodded. “Welcome to the future!”

  “Is there anything we can do for her?”

  “Let her sleep, is the best course. They probably pumped her full of all sorts of drugs anyway. I don’t want to give her anything until those have had a chance to work through her system.” He replied.

  She nodded. Back towards the bridge, a beeping began to sound out, growing slowly louder.

  “We’re coming up on the jump point.” Hamilton stated, moving past her and heading forward. She cast another look at Lewis, then followed him.

  Hamilton had resumed his pilot’s position and was throttling back the engines to idle. The Morebaeus, of course, continued to hurtle through space at its current velocity.

  “Ready?” He asked Johnson.

  She nodded, clambering into her seat. “Let’s get out of here.”

  As the freighter passed through the coordinates they had preplanned the jump from, the automated systems took over, activating the hyperdrive and causing the stars to vanish ahead of them, replaced by the gray-green murk of hyperspace. There was no fuss or drama during the transit. The Ulysses’ tech boys had done their job well.

  Hamilton started to lean over Johnson again to look at the nav console but stopped himself. She looked at him with a certain amount of amusement.

  “Could you take a look at the nav screen and see how long it’ll take us to get to the rendezvous.” He asked.

  She glanced over to her left. “Hmmm. I don’t know. There are a lot of numbers here. I’m not sure I know what I’m looking at.”

  Hamilton frowned. “It should be clearly marked.” He started to lean again and stopped himself.

  “Oh! I see it.” She said. “No, wait. That’s the time. Hmm…nope, I’m not seeing it.”

  “Oh for!” Hamilton leaned over and read the data he wanted straight away.

  She was desperately trying not to laugh.

  “Oh hah ha!” He muttered, sitting back.

  “I’m sorry.” She burst out. “I couldn’t resist it!”

  “You’re not funny!”

  She laughed. “No, but you are!”

  “Well, Miss Laughalot. I’m sure you also saw how long we’re going to be in hyperspace as well. Nine days.”

  She nodded, grinning still. “Nine whole days. What can we get up to in order pass the time, I wonder?”

  Hamilton stared, not certain if he was hearing what he thought he was hearing. “I…”

  She shook her head sadly and climbed out of her chair. “Is the makeshift camp we built when we first came aboard still there?”

  “I guess so.” He answered. “They’d want to keep everything intact for the investigation.”

  “Well then,” She smiled impishly. “I’m going to make use of that shower unit we set up, if it still works. I suggest that, once you’ve put the ship on auto-pilot, or whatever it is you have to do, that you also take a shower on account of the fact that you stink!”

  “Gee thanks for the compliment!” Hamilton murmured.

  As she walked aft, she added. “Depending on how long you take up here, I may, or may not still be in the shower when you get there!”

  It was a moment before that last comment registered, intent as he was on flipping switches and making the ship’s systems safe. When it did register, he turned to look after her, but she had already disappeared from view.

  He turned back to the controls and sat, frowning for a moment.

  The he was flipping switches and hitting buttons as fast as he could manage. In record time, the ship was made safe for its journey through hyperspace.

  Then he was running down the corridor as fast as he could manage.

  *****

  Sometime later, he and Johnson lay snuggled up in the bed that he had used five years ago when they had all come aboard the Morebaeus.

  The makeshift camp in the cargo module was utilitarian. Beds, partition dividers to give a little privacy, and some storage for personal items. They had set up some portable toilets at one end, and a shower unit that was part of a portable chemical decontamination facility. The cargo modules had provided for all their needs, even if some items had to be repurposed a little.

  The pair of them had made use of the shower units endlessly recycled water and stayed inside for a considerable time, exploring each other. Finally they had moved to his bed, where the explorations had continued for even longer.

  She was plucking at the hair on his chest idly now, whilst he ran his fingers up and down her back. They had spent their pent up energy and frustrations and now, with everything they had been through, both were close to exhaustion. It wouldn’t be long before they were asleep.

  “How come we didn’t do this before?” He asked.

  She shrugged. “Too many people around. Plus you always seemed so busy.”

  “I suppose.” He agreed. “But we were here for the best part of three months fixing this boat up to get us home. How come we didn’t find time in all that?”

  “There’s a time and a place for everything.” She told him. “Then just wasn’t the time.”

  He chuckled. “I’m glad we did find the right time and place.”

  She smiled up at him. “It was a hell of an effort! You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this! In the end I had to stand naked and wet in front of you to get you
here!”

  He laughed. “Actually, it was the suggestion of you being naked and wet that finally did it! My imagination was more than up to the task of visualizing that.”

  She grinned.

  “Although,” He continued. “I have to say the reality was much more satisfying!”

  She squeezed him tightly. “That was the right thing to say.”

  He snorted. “Make the most of it. I usually say all the wrong things!”

  “You’re doing fine at the moment.”

  “Why me, though?” He frowned.

  “I might as well ask you the same question about me.”

  “You’re…interesting.” He said.

  She smiled. “Interesting as in…interesting? Or interesting as in ‘May you live in interesting times’, interesting?”

  “Definitely, interesting, interesting.” He said. “I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”

  “You mean, someone from the past?”

  He nodded. “It makes you unique. You haven’t been brought up amid all this crap that I take for granted. It’s all fresh and new to you.”

  She looked thoughtful. “I suppose so. I do feel out of my depth most of the time. I don’t feel like I’ve contributed much to our efforts to date.”

  He chuckled. “Like you said, there’s a time and a place for everything. So come on! Why me?”

  “None of the others are my type. Too highly strung, or too muscley, or too loud. You seemed to be the most approachable. Plus, I kind of scare people off because of when I’m from.”

  He frowned. “Really?”

  She nodded. “It’s like a phobia of some sort, I guess. People are happy to get to know me, right up until I spit out that little detail about when I’m from. Then they make their excuses and leave.”

  “You just must have not met the right people.” He said.

  “Maybe.” She allowed. “But since they thawed me out every guy I ever got interested in dropped me like a hot potato when he found out I’m from the past. Even people who knew me on a casual basis were distant, kept me at arm’s length.”

  There was a bitterness in her voice as she spoke, an anger at those who had pre-judged her.

  “I guess you’d have pegged me for one of those, too. If I hadn’t come down to the shower.”

  She shrugged. “At least I’d have known not to waste my time on you anymore.”

  “I guess I should feel honored you wanted to waste your time on me at all!” He smiled gently.

  “Well, like I said, you were interesting.”

  He grinned. “If only I’d known all I had to do to get a girl interested in me was pinch her ass painfully…”

  She laughed. “It wasn’t that. You talked to me. On the Hope’s Breath. About things other than the mission. About me. Even after you knew I was a … a rebreather. You were still interested.” The term ‘rebreather’ was distasteful to her, from her tone.

  “I’ve never let things like looks or where someone is from, or when, sway my judgment. I learned a long time ago to make my own assessment of people, based on getting to know them. I am judgmental, but I don’t pre-judge.”

  She looked up at him, suddenly vulnerable. “What happens next?”

  He was silent for a moment. She wasn’t talking about the bigger picture. “What do you want to happen?”

  “I don’t know. I’m long out of practice at this stuff. Not that I was ever any good at it anyway.” She said.

  “Well, that makes two of us.” He said.

  A silence fell between them, awkward and unwelcome.

  Hamilton knew that it was unwise to even think of getting into any kind of personal situation with anyone, but despite his cautious thoughts his mouth had other ideas.

  “I mean, I’d like to get to know you better. Just because we seem to be in constant danger of death doesn’t mean we can’t see where this all leads.”

  It was not his most erudite of speeches, but it seemed to do something right. Johnson’s eyes filled with unshed tears.

  “I’d like that too.” She said. “I…. I’ve been alone for so long that… So alone!”

  The tears spilled over to run down her face. Hamilton took her head in his hands and kissed her tenderly.

  They lay holding one another for a long time before they fell asleep.

  *****

  Their journey through hyperspace was mostly uneventful. There was little to do aboard the Morebaeus. The automated systems kept the ship on course and monitored the hyperspace field, ship’s environment, life support and all the other essentials. During their earlier stay aboard the Morebaeus, when they had repaired the ship sufficiently so that it could get them home, they had explored all the nooks and crannies that the vessel had to offer, so there was little to explore.

  For Hamilton and Johnson that meant they could spend the time getting to know one another better.

  For Lewis, it was a week-long hell of boredom, punctuated only by amused comments at the new couple’s expense and bouts of self-induced unconsciousness due to sedative abuse.

  To be fair to her, Lewis wasn’t being too hard on the pair. Hamilton and Johnson both knew how nasty she could be if she put her mind to it. She seemed to find the pair’s finding of one another to be hilarious but for the most part her jibes and quips were not mean-spirited. Mostly she seemed self-occupied with her own condition.

  The psi-testing had left her weakened and nervous. That first day, she had slept for thirty six hours straight once they had put her in the cabin. When she woke she ate what seemed like equivalent of four meals and then went back and slept for another seven hours.

  Over the course of a week she regained her strength and mobility, but the gold ports that had been inserted in her head itched abominably, leading to her ransacking the medical supplies for antihistamine cream. The itch was worse when she tried to sleep, which caused her to add sedatives to her self-prescribed medications. Mostly she kept to herself, though and left the other two alone.

  Hamilton and Johnson were fine with that. The more time they spent with each other the better, as far as they were concerned.

  Privately, Hamilton still had doubts about the wisdom of embarking on any kind of relationship. The situation they were all in made it likely that they’d end up imprisoned, or dead, before too very long. On the other hand, such a danger of imminent death made it all the more imperative to enjoy whatever time they did have available to them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Nine days later, all three of them crowded into the small bridge area of the Morebaeus as the nav console counted down the minutes to their emergence from hyperspace. All the systems told them that everything had gone smoothly and that they’d emerge right where they expected to. Even so, they still crowded around, Hamilton and Lewis fussing over the instruments, checking and re-checking needlessly.

  As the count reached zero and the grey-green murk of hyperspace dissolved into stars they let out a collective sigh of relief.

  “We made it!” Johnson grinned.

  “Let’s just hope we’re where we think we are.” Lewis muttered, turning to the nav console to check their location. She had taken to wearing a scarf tied over her head to hide the golden additions to her scalp.

  With their emergence from hyperspace, their initial entry velocity was restored. Since they had been hurtling along when they entered hyperspace, they were now hurtling along having exited it.

  Hamilton had never understood that particular quirk of physics. Ironically, it was Johnson herself, the physicist from the past, who had tried to explain it to him using simple terms he understood, such as conservation of momentum and the like. Despite her best efforts at simplification, she quickly lost him with the theory. He nodded politely and told her he sort of got it, but he didn’t really. Nor did he really need to know the details. All he really needed to know was that whatever velocity you had going in, you retained on coming out.

  Having assured himself that they weren’t speeding towards an
ything remotely solid, he re-activated the main engines and began to slow the Morebaeus down gently.

  “Well, we’re at the right co-ordinates.” Lewis stated, turning back from the nav console. “The edge of an uninhabited system beyond the Rim Territories, designation C-137.”

  Hamilton frowned at the sensor panel. “No sign of the Ulysses.”

  “We couldn’t have got here first, could we?” Johnson asked.

  Lewis shook her head. “Not a chance. The hyperdrive on this bucket is just about as old a design as you can get. What took us nine days probably took them less than four.”

  Hamilton frowned and flipped the comms broadcast switch. “Ulysses, Ulysses, this is Morebaeus, respond, over.”

  Static greeted his call. He frowned and leaned closer to the console to check the comms settings. All seemed in order. He was just about to call again when the reply came through.

  “Morebaeus, this is Ulysses. Glad you could finally join us!” It was Jones’ voice.

  Hamilton drew a relieved breath. “Yeah well, tortoise and the hare, and all that. Looks like we caught you napping.”

  “Nah. We saw you arrive. Waited for your comms call, that’s all, to make sure it was you. What the hell is a tortoise and a hare, anyway?”

  Hamilton looked round at Johnson, who rolled her eyes. “Never mind. Just glad to see you guys made it. Where are you, anyway?”

  Jones sounded puzzled. “You can’t see us? Oh no, wait! We’ve been on sneak mode since we got here. You’ll see us in a bit.”

  “Sneak mode?”

  “Sure. Apparently the Ulysses is sometimes called upon to lurk in one place, waiting for bad guys to show up. So it has a lot of stealth properties when it’s just drifting.”

  “Makes sense.” Hamilton said. “Plus, the Morebaeus doesn’t have the most sophisticated sensor suite, anyway.”

  As if on cue, the sensors emitted a beep as they located a new object. The Ulysses.

  There was a pause, then. “I’m being told to tell you to maintain your heading and deceleration curve. We’ll come to you. The captain wants a conference.”