by J. J. Green
She positioned the hypodermic syringe above the spot and hesitated. The tiniest flicker of sense at the back of her mind told her that what she was doing was wrong. But she pushed the thought away as she simultaneously plunged the needle into her skin.
The agony as she pressed the plunger home caused her to cry out, but the sound died on her lips as the drug took effect.
***
Jas was floating free, unchained from her pain, and it was bliss. Now that she’d returned there, she remembered the Void as clearly as if she’d never left. Its otherness was impossible to put into the language of the physical plane, but she was aware of infinite distance, light, and color.
She was also infinite and without form. She reached out to the vast ends of the Void, then contracted smaller than an electron. She reveled in the endless space, where nothing and everything had happened and time did not exist. Carl had not died. They were together and apart, and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. She would stay in the Void forever.
After she had drifted for always and for no time at all, something told Jas that she wasn’t alone. Presences were approaching her consciousness. Unease rippled through her as a vague memory of something unpleasant about the Void surfaced. There were some beings there who trapped people—who had trapped her. She recalled fighting and an escape back to the other place.
But her senses told her these were not those beings. Her tension eased. These were the ones who had fought for her. These beings had come through to the physical plane to help her and others. She found it hard to remember where she’d come from. Consciousness of the other side was slippery in her mind. That place felt unreal. Here was reality and truth.
The beings of the Void spoke. “We know you,” they said. “You came to us in the other place. You saved us when we were weak and helpless.”
“Did I?” Jas’ unspoken words echoed inside her. “I don’t remember.”
“You have been here with us before.”
“Yes, and now I’ve come back, and I’m staying.”
“You cannot remain. Your kind can never remain. You always go back.”
“I’m not going back.” Dark gray ripples of disquiet left Jas and spread out around her.
“You will.”
Jas twisted and turned, trying to escape the beings, but they were everywhere that she was, around her and within her. She rejected their message. Why wouldn’t they let her mind return to floating free and careless?
“Many of the Others are gone,” the beings said, “destroyed on the physical plane. We are sad that they harmed so many of you, but we are grateful that their existence has been reduced and they no longer trouble us.”
The beings’ words were sparking painful recollections in Jas mind. She wished they would stop. “Please, leave me.”
“We will depart if our presence disturbs you, but we came to tell you that the one you mourn is here.”
The words reverberated through Jas’ perception. The one I mourn?
“...What?”
“The one whose loss you grieve is here, but he cannot exist in the Void. He is fading.”
“What?” Jas’ unspoken voice was tiny.
“You ache. You have suffered a loss. We can sense this. The one you have lost is here.”
Struggling hard against the mind-numbing effects of being in the Void, Jas said without words, “Carl’s here?”
“If that is how you identify him using language, that one is here. We can sense him in you, but he is here too.”
“Where? Take me to him.”
“He is here as you are, but you cannot sense him.”
“Can he sense me?”
“No.”
Despair nibbled the numbed edges of Jas’ consciousness. Even in the Void there was no escape from it. Her escape was no escape after all.
“Should we return him to your universe?” the beings asked. “He may not survive the transition, but he also cannot survive here.”
“You can send him back? I don’t understand. If he’s here, it must be because the Shadows captured him in a trap. If you send him back, won’t he come back as a Shadow?”
“We have the remaining Others under control. They do not have the one you lost. We can use their mechanism to push him through at the place where you found us. But the Others used their process to insert their personas into the newly created copy of the one they stole. We will eschew this part. We will not insert a persona.”
“No persona?” Jas couldn’t grasp their meaning. Carl wouldn’t be Carl? Just his body? She struggled to comprehend, but her thoughts were slippery and ephemeral. “Can you explain?”
“The Others recreated only the form of the creatures from the physical plane. They animated the copies they made with their own selves. If we return the one you lost, his self will be buried.”
Jas still couldn’t really understand. It sounded like whatever they pushed through would have Carl’s brain with all its knowledge and memories, but somehow his personality wouldn’t show. She couldn’t imagine what Carl would be like if the beings did as they proposed. But just to have him back would be something.
“What should we do?” the beings asked.
“Send him back. Please, send him back.”
“We will return him to the place where you found us.”
***
Jas opened her eyes. She was lying naked in her bunk, a hypodermic needle hanging painfully from her upper thigh. She sat up and carefully pulled out the needle. The syringe was empty. As she remembered what she’d done and why, the weight of her entire existence settled heavily over her.
So it had all come to this? All her years of fighting. Everything she’d endured. All the friends that she’d dragged into the fight, only to have them die. And she’d ended up like the man she’d despised—Loba, a myth addict, living only for the next run.
The hypodermic syringe in her hand fell from her fingers to the floor. Let it lie there. Let them see it. What did she care? Her mind returned to the airlock and its alluring escape.
Jas rose out of her bunk and went into the shower. Maybe she could wash away some of the disgust she felt for herself. As the hot water started up, she was reminded of the shower she took the morning that she saw Carl for the last time.
She groaned. She rested her forearm on the shower wall and her forehead on her arm while the water cascaded over her. She would never be able to clean herself of what she’d done. She’d never be free of her all-pervading grief. Everywhere she went and everything she did reminded her of him.
Sometime later—she didn’t know how long—she turned off the water and got out of the shower. Her efforts to divert her mind from thoughts of Carl were useless, and something about him was nagging away at her like a toothache. A background annoyance that she couldn’t bring to the front of her mind.
She put on some clothes and sat on her bunk, slumped forward. Checking the time, she was surprised to see that only around two or three hours had passed since she’d injected the myth. As she understood it, she should have been out for at least five or six hours. She rubbed the inner corners of her eyes with her fingertips.
Carl. There was something important she had to remember about Carl. Something about... She squeezed her eyes shut and forced her foggy mind to clear. Snippets of her myth run flashed into her inner vision. The benevolent beings—the Paths—had been there, and there was something else, something to do with Carl. The Paths had told her...what was it?
Jas gasped. Her hands gripped her bunk.
The Paths had told her that Carl was in the Void and that they were going to send him back.
Chapter Thirty
Jas hammered on Kennewell’s door. Then she remembered about door chimes and pressed that too. Before the pilot had any time to answer, she pressed again.
“Kennewell,” she called through the door, “wake up. I want you to take me planetside. Now. Kennewell.”
Jas didn’t let up until the pilot’s door opened and
the tousled-haired young woman appeared, staring at her with sleepy eyes.
“Commander?” she said, covering a yawn with the back of her hand.
“I need you to take me planetside in the shuttle immediately. I have the coordinates.”
“But, I, er...Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Kennewell’s returning memory that Jas had been relieved of her duties was evident in her expression.
“Yes, I’m sure. But if I told you why, you wouldn’t believe me. You’ll have to trust me. It’s about Carl Lingiari, one of the lost pilots. I think I might have a chance of finding him.”
“Oh.” Kennewell’s face turned sad and sympathetic. It was clear she thought Jas was so grief-stricken, she was delusional. Her face brightened as something occurred to her. “Okay, ma’am. Sure. I just need to ask the admiral for permission first.”
“No, you can’t.” Jas took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She had to convince Kennewell to take her down to K.67092d. She’d known the pilot for years. She was almost a friend. “Look, I know how it looks. You think I’m crazy. I was. I was out of my mind with grief. But I’m not now. And I really, really need you to do this for me. Please. As a favor. I was a good commander, wasn’t I? I was fair? Not like Pacheco?”
“Actually, you and he are pretty alike.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Kennewell sighed. “I’m probably going to regret this, but the war’s over and I’m going home soon, so what the hell. Okay. I’ll take you down. Just let me get dressed.” The door closed.
Jas waited impatiently for Kennewell to emerge, and when she did, she hurried the pilot toward the launch bay.
“You’ve cleared this, right?” Kennewell asked as they went along. “It’s not like I can just take a shuttle and fly it wherever I want.”
Krat. “No, I haven’t. What do you suggest?”
“Hmm...well, if Trimborn’s on duty, we should be okay. He might turn a blind eye and let me go.”
“Really? How come?” Jas was surprised to hear that her first officer would act so unprofessionally.
“We, er, we have a thing going on.”
“You do? Well, that’s great. I hope it’s him.” Jas also hoped that Pacheco was still asleep. If he found out what she was doing, he’d probably have her restrained. She was well aware that telling him about her myth run and what the Paths had told her would be useless. He would only think she was still insane with grief and guilt. Sayen might believe her, but she didn’t have time to convince anyone. The Paths had said that Carl was fading and that they would push him into her universe, but she didn’t know when.
Troops and defense units were in the process of destroying all the Shadow traps on the planet. If she didn’t get there soon, she might be too late.
The guards at the launch bay were nonplussed by Jas turning up in civilian clothes with Kennewell at her side. Jas put on her best serious commander face and nodded at them as she walked swiftly past. The guards fell for her bluff and didn’t challenge her.
It had taken Jas some serious digging to find the coordinates of the crash site of the Galathea, but she’d located them in the data files on K.67092d. The shuttle had a copilot’s seat, which Jas took. As she sat down next to her, Jas gave Kennewell the coordinates.
She let the pilot do the talking when it came to persuading Trimborn to okay the shuttle launch. Kennewell framed the request in terms of the commander’s receiving information about a lost pilot that she wanted to informally investigate. Trimborn didn’t sound like he believed her, but he allowed them to go.
Jas closed her eyes and tried to relax as Kennewell piloted the shuttle planetside. She doubted that the Paths truly understood time, coming from a place where it didn’t exist. Carl could have already come through into the Shadow trap and be wandering around a place that was just about to be destroyed.
But there wasn’t anything she could do to arrive faster. At her urging, Kennewell was already flying the shuttle at its maximum speed.
“Commander,” Kennewell said, “do you really think you can find this pilot? We did a thorough sweep.”
Jas opened her eyes. “We couldn’t sweep the place where he went. I think what happened was that after a dogfight or the explosion of the Shadow mother ship, he crash landed on the planet. Maybe he crashed right into a trap or got carried into one unconscious. I don’t know. There weren’t any Shadows on K.67092d when I was there, but that was a long time ago. However it happened, he was taken into the Void. Except there are so few Shadows there now, the benevolent beings who also live there have stopped them from returning as their victims. They’re sending Carl back minus a Shadow’s personality.”
“But how do you know? Who told you?”
“That’s a long story. I hope I have the chance to tell it to you one day.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Landing at the site of the Galathea’s crash gave Jas a weird, uncomfortable feeling. In spite of the passage of the years, the crash site was plain to see as they came down. A wide, deep trench was carved into the rocky soil, with a yawning hole at the end of it where the starship had slid to a halt and, later, the Shadows had begun to draw it down into their trap.
One thing was very different. A team of troops and defense units were walking away from the trap toward a military vehicle parked about a kilometer away. Jas knew this sight well. The troops were sweeping the planet for traps, and they were about to blow this one up.
Except that she wasn’t going to let them.
Before the shuttle had come to a stop, Jas was undoing her harness. She jumped out of her seat.
“Let me turn off the engines, for krat’s sake,” Kennewell said.
The air was hot with heat exhaust when the pilot finally opened the hatch and allowed Jas to leave the shuttle. Their arrival had had the effect she’d hoped it would. The troops and units had paused and were watching curiously as she ran toward them.
“You can’t blow this one up,” she shouted as soon as she was within hearing distance. “Someone’s inside.”
The corporal in charge of the soldiers put his hand on his hips at her words. He was a grizzled old soldier who would have been too far on in years to fight if they hadn’t been at war. Jas didn’t recognize him. He must have been drafted in for the work from another ship.
The man looked at Jas with narrowed eyes as she reached the group, panting. She was definitely out of shape.
“You mustn’t destroy this trap,” Jas gasped.
“Says who?” the corporal asked, looking her up and down.
Jas had been hoping to use her former authority to persuade the troops to obey her, but they were all strangers. To them, she was just a Martian in civvies.
“I’m Commander Harrington.”
Comprehension dawned in the older man’s eyes. “Oh, right.” He gave a smirk. He’d obviously heard of her fall from grace. “Sorry, ma’am. We’re just obeying orders. Now if you have something from the admiral...?”
Jas clenched her fists. “There’s no time for that. If you blow up that trap you’ll be killing a man. A pilot. He crashed here.” As she spoke the lie, Jas realized how crazy she had to sound. There was clearly no sign of a crashed fighter ship. Carl must have come down somewhere else. It was here that the Paths were returning him.
“Yeah, sure,” the corporal said, nodding and winking at his troops, who were barely controlling their smiles. “You should get back to your shuttle, ma’am, or you’ll be in the blast zone.”
“No,” Jas exclaimed. “Listen to me.”
But the corporal had signaled his troops and units to follow him. They turned their backs and began to walk away. Jas sized up the group. Five soldiers and three units. She could never take them all. She swung around to look for Kennewell, hoping that maybe the pilot had a weapon on her.
As she turned in the direction of the Shadow trap, she saw him.
Carl was emerging from the hexagonal entrance. His head was down, and he was stagger
ing, but it was him. He was alive.
“Carl,” Jas yelled as she sprinted over to him.
Her cry attracted the attention of the troops.
“It’s a Shadow,” one of them cried.
Jas glanced back, and with horror saw one of them lift his weapon to fire.
“No,” she shouted, and put herself between the soldier and Carl. “Don’t shoot. He isn’t a Shadow.”
“Out of the way, ma’am,” the corporal yelled. “Get out of the way.”
But Jas continued to run. The closer she got to Carl, she knew, the harder it would be for them to avoid hitting her if they fired.
Carl showed no recognition of her or what was happening. He walked on, taking small steps, almost shuffling.
“Carl,” Jas cried. A bolt flew past her, hitting the edge of the Shadow trap entrance.
Jas reached Carl and threw herself at him, pushing him to the ground. He lay beneath her, neither moving nor speaking. Jas looked back toward the soldiers. They were running over, the defense units bringing up the rear.
“Get away from it, ma’am,” the corporal said. “We’re under orders to kill all Shadows on sight.”
“He isn’t a Shadow,” Jas exclaimed. “I told you, he’s a pilot. He crashed into a trap.”
“If he crashed here, where’s his ship?”
“He didn’t crash here. He’s just come out here.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said the corporal. “Look, I’m sorry. I can see the man must have been important to you. But if he came out of a trap, he’s a Shadow. No question about it. Now please move away from him, ma’am. I don’t want to have to make you.”
Jas clung to Carl’s motionless body as if her life depended on it. Her life did depend on it.
The corporal sighed. “AX7, take a hold of that woman.”
“Which woman, Corporal Stormer?” the defense unit asked.