Omega and Alpha by K.G. McAbee
Rest, My Brothers by Cynthia D. Witherspoon
Stories © copyright K.G. McAbee & Cynthia D. Witherspoon 2014
These stories appeared previously in the anthology Christmas in Outer Space published by Whortleberry Press
Cover art: NASA image in public domain
A note from the authors:
The Witchfinder Wars
Omega and Alpha
K.G. McAbee
I wiped the steam from the porthole with my right hand. Never the left hand, never again; it was in my pocket, and it was going to stay there, no matter what.
The thick, heavy syntho-glass fogged up again, almost at once. It didn’t matter. There was nothing to see outside the ship but black sprinkled with thick layers of stars, bleeding light like pale iridescent blood across the galaxy.
I heard myself make a tch tch sound. I think I probably shook my head, too. That porthole shouldn’t fog over, of course; not on my ship. But the atmosphere circulation system was flaky. Everything onboard the good ship Starbound was flaky, ever since we’d passed through the wormhole: drive, atmo, nav systems, even the microwave wouldn’t heat soup for hell, or else burned it to a thick crust on the bottom of the bowl. Onboard life support was managing to keep the three of us alive, though, so far. Three; we were all who’d survived the trip through that unexpected hole, that opening into nowhere which had sprouted out of more of the same, right in front of us, too quickly to dodge.
Three, out of a ship’s complement of fifty.
But with Doc’s help, I had managed to turn us around, reroute us. We were going to make it back home for Christmas. I’d promised Anne we would, and she was depending on me. I didn’t know about Doc, though. Doc never was one to depend on anybody, or anything, except pure mathematics.
I reached up and scraped my hand—the right one, just the right one, never again the left—across my cheek. I needed a shave. As I headed towards Anne’s cubicle, I tried to remember the last time I’d shaved. Then I tried to remember the last time I’d eaten. Both images got lost, as I did. I wandered around a little. Gleaming silver gray corridors all look alike, don’t they? Then I realized that the blocks of colors on the walls meant something. My mind wanders a bit, ever since the wormhole. Not as bad as Doc’s, though.
Red. Green. Colors on the walls, in squares. The arrangement; sure. I knew what it meant, as well as I knew my own name, or that Anne loved me, or that my left hand would never be any good again. I stopped and leaned against one of the silver walls as I worked out the meanings.
Got it. Down this way was Anne’s cabin.
Red. Green. Christmas colors. Anne wanted to be home for Christmas. We were going to make it, too. The Starbound had just got outside of Sol System before we’d had our little run-in with the wormhole; that meant we had plenty of time to make it back home before Christmas, even with the drive damaged, even poking along like a gleaming silver snail. I grinned, and saw a bearded scarecrow grin back at me from the shiny wall.
Shave. I should shave before I visited Anne, I thought. Then I thought, why? She can’t see me. She’s never going to see me, or anything, again.
But I’m going to get her home for Christmas. I made her a promise.
I got to her door at last, and peeked inside. What was left of her barely made a bump under the blanket, but she heard me and turned her head, so slow I had time to walk to her bunk before she’d got it halfway around.
“Hey, captain,” she whispered.
The blank holes where her eyes had been looked just like what was on the other side of the fogged porthole, I noticed. Except for the starlight, of course. All Anne’s starlight was hidden away inside her; not lost, just hidden.
“Are we home yet?” Her voice, once so rich and vibrant, sounded like dust and ashes and painful distant memories.
“Almost. It’s not Christmas yet. Five more days. Then we’ll be home.”
She smiled. A hand reached out, and with uncanny, unerring precision, she patted my sleeve. “I don’t doubt it at all. How’s Doc?”
I reached to the shelf above her head, grabbed the bottle with the straw sticking out the top, and guided it between her lips. She gave the metal straw a couple of weak but greedy sips.
“He’s discovered something, has old Doc,” I said, then realized it might be true. He’d called me down to the galley. That’s where I’d been heading, before the foggy porthole had distracted me. “Let me go see what.” I set the bottle down and then pulled the blanket up around her shoulders. “Be back soon with some lunch.”
She didn’t say anything until I reached the door, then: “Captain? Jamie?”
I turned around.
“You did good, Jamie, you hear me? Better than anyone could. Just remember that.”
I looked over the pitiful remnants in the bunk, all that was left of the woman I loved.
I didn’t see how I could agree with her.