Ages In Oblivion Thrown
The Sleep Trilogy
Kate Gray
Dedication
To D, for still putting up with all of this.
Acknowledgements
Song lyrics quoted from Wayfaring Stranger, public domain, mid 19th c.
Kate Gray
Copyright 2014
The sky was no longer simply the sky when you lived in space. It was a cold progenitor. Wrapped in its embrace, it was easy to fall in love and forget planetary life. It could also bring on madness, to which those not used to the unfaltering darkness were prey. It was the unknowable begetter of life, as well as its end.
At the center of the vast portrait lay a sun, a class G2V star, provider of light and chaos. It was a seething mask of eternity, veiling the impermanence that humankind loathed so much. There was no way to escape space on the Nimitz, however, as that behemoth structure drifted between the Martian asteroid belt and Jupiter. It housed nearly seventy thousand people, fifty-five thousand of which were military personnel. Since the days when age restrictions on military entry had been altered, ranks swelled accordingly with fourteen-year old privates and sixteen-year old ensigns.
The primary distinctions between those two were education and its frequent companion, wealth. Not that one could purchase a commission at this late date, not outright, at any rate. Those who could afford it paid to have their children sent to military academies that would turn their pre-teens into officers and gentlefolk. The Nimitz and its formerly empty cargo spaces had, in the last seven years, been slowly filling with these youthful troops.
These wide-eyed adolescents weren't allowed to marry until having turned twenty, nor were they allowed to bring any other family with them. Because of this, the Nimitz tended to boast a lively and rambunctious atmosphere. It was a self-contained base, a fortress city drifting otherwise serenely through its orbit. There were civilian sections; as with most other military posts, an economy and need for diversion dictated such things.
The commander of this base, Colonel Jorge “Tark” Tarkington, leaned against a bulkhead while staring out a portside window, lost in thought. As much as he’d been initially unsure of the posting after his billet had been announced, the Nimitz had become both his home and beloved child. The bridge was currently on night shift, nearly empty, and blessedly hushed.
Substantial solar storms had dropped travel coming and going from Earth to the station, as well as from many other neighboring systems, whose inhabitants had adopted a somewhat irritating human-like trait of superstition about the flaming eruptions. After years of lag during these times, the so-called government of Earth had decided to follow the nonterrestrial lead and had declared the storm periods to be perennial holidays. Tark regularly sent away a good twenty thousand of his people to regular liberty, put another ten on base liberty and tried to make the best of it with the remaining personnel.
The crew that stayed behind usually had a trying task in filling their days usefully. There were some creative minds, but Tark noted that there was a definitive rise in pranks, alcohol consumption, and general tomfoolery going on. The one person who consistently opted to stay with him sat across the bridge from him at her station. Tark turned his head, arms still folded, and contemplated Sa’andreniaeu, or as she preferred, “Sa’andy”, Madoc. She was not human. All the Colonel's personnel were aware of a relationship between the two, a fact that prompted both of them to maintain high standards of decorum in public.
During this downtime she had volunteered to analyze the Terran system for her own people, with an in-depth survey of the planets, and all their satellites. This task was supposed to result in some suitable options for colonization and on-site research stations. It was a mind-numbing ordeal to his mind. Apparently it appealed to her perverse sense of entertainment. He decided to go chat with her and infuse some vitality into the otherwise dead atmosphere. Having made it halfway across the space, he found himself overwhelmed by an obnoxious aroma. He stopped dead, turned, and soon found himself glaring at the source of the smell.
“Lieutenant.” Tark stared down at the other man, trying to blink past the smell. The younger officer hunched over his daily communications reports, trying to look urgently busy. He ventured to peek over his shoulder, knowing full and well what was to come.
“Sir?” The lieutenant tried and failed to feign ignorance. Tark would have gone over to him, and placed a firm hand on his shoulder, but for the offending air.
“What exactly am I smelling? Don’t worry about making it sound interesting.”
“Uh...well, sir, the thing is, I’ve been doing research, and the cessation of laundering of socks is supposed to bring luck. You know, sir, because of the storms.” He whispered the last word, as though some vengeful spirit might come and punish him.
“I think, that if those things are not removed from your person, and destroyed by your next on-deck time, you’re going to need something more powerful than luck to preserve yourself.” Tark wished his XO was back. This was definitely not his department. Lieutenant O’Leary, visibly deflated, tried to maintain some degree of bearing and not look like a whipped puppy.
“Roger that, sir. I guess I was getting some dirty looks anyway.” He excused himself, hopefully to find something less redolent of death to wear. Tark barely held himself back from slapping a palm to his own forehead. What a weird kid. Good officer, but weird. Once removed from the polluted air, he took a deep breath of cleaner stuff, and finished his traverse over to Sa’andy.
Deeply engaged by whatever it was that she had found, she stared at what appeared to be a several views of the same image on her console. There was a certain thoughtfulness swirling in his mind as he approached, and a strong impulse made him halt his feet one more time, to peruse her. She had an intense look about her, which overtook her normally placid porcelain beauty.
Slender fingers selected a section of the display to magnify a certain area. Another light touch and the same area popped up into three-dimensional display. She manipulated the image until it skewed in the direction she wanted, like a gyroscope, and then she froze it, mid-spin. There she sat, chin upon fists, looking at the image as though she expected it to start conversing with her.
While he stood still, the lights changed to signal the start of the day shift. A subdued rustling denoted the changing of the guard, accompanied both by sighs of relief and resignation. For an instant, Sa’andy lifted her head to take note, and Tark felt his breath catch. The overhanging light enveloped her, until it transformed her face into a luminous oval of pale fire.
Completing the scene was the mass of her gleaming black hair, which flowed and coiled fluidly around her skull, down her back and over her shoulders. She seemed to expand into the air around her. It might have been hours before he finally became aware of the passage of time again. The art of her receded, until finally, he could move again. By that point, she had noticed him. Her smile was knowing, leaving Tark nothing more than to blush a lovely shade of plum. He stumbled to recover himself.
“Have you found anything? Otherwise I’ll feel terrible that you got stuck with this job.” He wanted nothing more than to place his hand on the back of her neck. Too many people standing around. She gleamed another tiny smile at him.
“You are fully aware of course, that I asked for this job.” Sa’andy hummed while she zeroed in on whatever it was that she’d been working on. Tark leaned forward, in a mood to be funny.
“Oh, I see. Does that mean you’ve discovered that Jupiter’s core consists of peanut butter? Or that Pluto is populated by dogs?” He grinned widely as Sa’andy responded w
ith a human gesture that she’d picked up. An indigo-tinged tongue flicked out at him. “Very nice.” He feigned a scowl. “Did you learn that in training?”
She smiled serenely, keeping her voice low. “If you would stop offering idiotic commentary, I would tell you what I actually have found.”
“Be my guest.” He swept his arm out to the image she’d been studying. She bowed her head, mock-deferentially, and pointed at it. A touch to the panel expanded the view, and it became evident that the image was that of a planet, or perhaps a moon. Tark frowned at the orb. “Which one is this?”
“Europa, mostly ice, iron core. Uninhabited and undeveloped as of yet, thanks to your government’s laws.” She slowly spun the image in lazy contemplation. Though he chided himself for not knowing, Tark already knew that it was because his military specialty had been intelligence. He didn’t concern himself with scientific details about the Terran system planets and moons unless they were being invaded. Running the Nimitz was detail heavy enough.
“So, what’s there? Someone finally buy enough lawmakers to put up a new luxury resort?” He was still transfixed by her, rather than by anything she might have to say. She held back a sigh. He could be so...what was that human word...silly, whenever he was talking to her.
“There appears to be some sort of hidden object. I mean, it’s disguised, intentionally, through some sort of non-naturally occurring signature on a thermal level.” She transferred the image onto a larger screen about ten feet in front of them. It became more apparent what Sa’andy was talking about then.
There was an area, about twenty by five meters, which was mimicking the temperature readings directly next to it. The “trick” would never have been apparent to the naked eye. A passive electrical signature had given it away. Once stripped of the frigid temperatures the moon gave off, a boxlike construct was visible. Whatever it was, Tark had an urge to see it. How strange, he thought, I feel like a little kid who’s just found a time capsule.
"What the hell is it?” He said it louder than he’d intended. The entire forward observation crew went silent, all eyes on the ghostly image, all ears waiting for an answer.
“From where we are, it’s impossible to know. We need to go and get it, don’t you think?” She looked at him seriously. “There should be nothing on this moon. Europa was set aside ages ago. Off-limits.” Her gut twisted as she recited what she’d been told to say.
“I agree fully with your assessment. Question is: whom do I send?” He mused aloud, almost instantly realizing his mistake. Too late now. The crew was silent a second longer, closing and opening a collective mouth like drowning fish. An eruption ensued, flooding the area with voices and pleas. Tark moaned inwardly, knowing that he’d offered too little sustenance to intellectually starved men and women. Blowing a sigh of frustration, he looked to Sa’andy for help.
It was terrible, but he knew he could rely on her to do her magic and save him. Actually, it was a good thing that she wasn’t an actual member of his crew, or under his command. That would have been trouble a long while ago. All they had to contend with was