{"id":7178,"date":"2021-05-31T21:11:13","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T03:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?page_id=7178"},"modified":"2021-06-15T00:33:43","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T06:33:43","slug":"dreams-in-the-long-dark","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?page_id=7178","title":{"rendered":"Dreams in the Long Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This is Part One of the a Three-Part Short Story. Part Two is here<\/a>. Part Three will be posted in the next few weeks.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

     \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They told me I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dream,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thought Tybalt.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, in the long dark between the stars, the sea was burnt orange and the sand was blue. Just beyond the waves rolling outward, he could see the slender figure of Madsen, her blonde hair streaming in the breeze.
\n<\/em>     \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Madsen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not blonde,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he thought.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And her hair isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t long.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n<\/em>     He stepped down toward the shore, the shells of strange creatures pressing their unfamiliar shapes into the sand as he trod on them.\u00c2\u00a0 He looked up to see two blue-white stars: one large and bright, the other small and faint.
\n<\/em>   \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are we there, yet?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said to her.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are they here?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n<\/em>   Madsen turned to him.\u00c2\u00a0 And the dream faded to gray. And he remembered.<\/em><\/p>\n

     The Archimandrite<\/em> stayed in high orbit, contemplating the signals she had been receiving since arriving at Lalande, pulling them apart, reassembling them, going over them bit by bit.\u00c2\u00a0 There was little question where they were from \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the small spiny satellite orbiting the second planet \u00e2\u20ac\u201c precisely the point where the Icarus probe has spotted what they now knew for certain was an alien ship.\u00c2\u00a0 But her crew wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure what the signals meant. And she wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going anywhere until they did.
\n     Tybalt was forever feeding data points into Anansi, the ship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s AI, and then sweeping them up as they fell to the floor and putting them back in order.\u00c2\u00a0 Over and over again.\u00c2\u00a0 He had the vague impression that the aliens were angry with him and kept demanding that he feed Anansi information he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have.
\n     \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is a dream,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he thought.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were at Lalande.\u00c2\u00a0 But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not remembering it right.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em>
\n     Weeks rolled past.\u00c2\u00a0 The cold steel spar of the Archimandrite<\/em> circled the hot cloudy maelstrom of Lalande 22185B, which circled the cold red star.\u00c2\u00a0 Twice, they passed Lalande 22185A, a blazing rocky waste that almost grazed its star as it whirled around.\u00c2\u00a0 Tybalt had to ignore the dream haze pushing him to count the revolutions and rotations. The astronomers would take care of that.
\n     The signal from the alien craft remained steady and unchanging. The Archimandrite<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shell returned, laden with fuel. It closed around the Archimandrite like a nut, with astronauts briefly appearing to tether the fuel tanks and check them over. A few repairs were made.
\n     Another few weeks passed. And then two things happened: the Archimandrite<\/em> dispatched a small probe toward Earth that left a wake of ions.\u00c2\u00a0 And the ship turned almost 90 degrees from Earth and set off on a long spear of fusing hydrogen.<\/p>\n

     Her hair was red now, short and cropped close. He saw it flame over and over as she passed in front of his capsule, often in the embrace of a shadowy figure.
\n<\/em>     \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ridiculous,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he thought.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My room is sealed.\u00c2\u00a0 And her hair isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t red.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n<\/em>     He watched, disconnected.\u00c2\u00a0 In the long dark, he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame her for any unfaithfulness.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as if he had been alone when it was her turn to sleep away a few of the decades between the stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Had she been seeing him long? She must be for him to see it, with his thoughts slowed to a literal glacier pace. He worried that when he emerged, she would have moved on, their relationship long forgotten.
\n<\/em>     Now the room was empty and he was standing over his own cryotube. He looked out the window into the central garden, where the active crew buzzed around like insects.
\n<\/em>     And he remembered.<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, another three decades,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Captain Chin, glancing over at Tybalt, settled into the chair of the sleeping Mission Scientist.
\n     <\/em>Tybalt felt the fine grain of the days, hours and seconds that meant. He saw a trail of days stretching thirty years back to Earth.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can sleep through them all if you wish,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Someone has to be at the controls.\u00c2\u00a0 And for a big part of the time, that someone will be me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just think of the stories when you get back.\u00c2\u00a0 First contact.\u00c2\u00a0 First voyage between two stars.\u00c2\u00a0 And then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the decades of back pay.\u00c2\u00a0 What did we figure? Tens of millions?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If <\/em>we get back,” said Chin pointedly. “A hundred years after we left.\u00c2\u00a0 At which point all our back pay will probably be worth nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you sure about where we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Cthulhu Protocol worked as advertised.\u00c2\u00a0 I am 100% certain we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on the right track.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt remembered Anansi churning through the days and nights, strangely ominously quiet as it tried to decipher the message being sent out by the alien probe.
\n     <\/em>In his dream state, he had the urge to rearrange the tones, the feeling that they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite in the right position.\u00c2\u00a0 For a moment, he was certain they had misinterpreted and were going in exactly the wrong direction.<\/em>
\n     <\/em>Chin looked up and slightly to the right to the bright blue point of Sirius.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t move.\u00c2\u00a0 But she knew, in 32 years, it would swell up to fill the sky.\u00c2\u00a0 She would sleep on the journey and wake to find the stars had shifted ever so slightly until their sky was a Sirian sky.\u00c2\u00a0 With the ship accelerating, it felt like they were going up, rising toward the distant star, a phoenix ascending.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dr. Lineus has already laid down for the entire journey,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bear the thought of having to wait to see an A-star up close.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt shook his head.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll sleep for a lot of it.\u00c2\u00a0 But I do want to see our journey from time to time.\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find what I came out here for in cryogen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Chin glanced at him.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And you probably wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want your friend to be apart from you for that long.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt started.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You know?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a Captain, Tybalt. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my job to know things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

     <\/em>There was now a greenish glow in his cabin and wondered what it meant.\u00c2\u00a0 Was he waking? Or going to sleep?\u00c2\u00a0 He seemed to recall that freezing took an instant but waking was slow.\u00c2\u00a0 Or was it the other way around?<\/em>
\n     <\/em>He could see his brown face reflected in the window of the cryotube. And yet the eyes in the reflection were closed. Surely that meant he was imagining things.<\/em>
\n     <\/em>He stretched his mind over the length of the ship, checking on every system, peering in on his frozen crewmates, occasionally checking that one star or another had moved very slightly in the monitors. He checked them over and over, ceaselessly, working his way down one side of the ship and up the other. Occasionally, gravity disappeared or reversed and he would walk backward or float through the ship. Eventually, he found himself floating above his cryotube again, looking at his own face through the window. The frost highlighted a handprint over his face: Madsen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s handprint.<\/em>
\n     <\/em>And he remembered.<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/em>Tybalt wandered into the depths of the ship, glad that acceleration had re-oriented him to up and down within the Archimandrite<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Now in full flight, there was nowhere to escape the rumble of the processors and the engines.\u00c2\u00a0 They would rumble for 16 years, pause briefly, then rumble for another 16.\u00c2\u00a0 Chin claimed she could tell if they were having trouble by the change in tone.\u00c2\u00a0 One night, while they decelerated into the Lalande system, they had sat in the engine cowling, Chin telling him what to listen for to detect a wonky compressor and Tybalt failing to hear it.
\n     <\/em>In his dream state, he could hear everything aboard the ship. He knew that the ignition switches in the port nacelle were strained. The melting of the cryotubes told him they must be nearing the end of their journey. And the slow grinding of the AI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s processors was driving him mad.<\/em>
\n     <\/em>He descended to the heart of the ship \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the cylindrical Core Garden that was surrounded by the crews\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 quarters. Reoriented by the ship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s acceleration, it was like an apartment block in a city. Most of the rooms were dark blue, cryogenically frozen.\u00c2\u00a0 The light was still on in Lieutenant Madsen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quarters. She was in her bunk, reading a book.
\n     <\/em>She was still a bit hazy to him.\u00c2\u00a0 Her hair was dark but her features were still unclear, her body a vaguely feminine shape atop the covers. But her gestures and movements were familiar.\u00c2\u00a0 He knew her by the way she lay on the bed, almost tense, the way her crystalline eyes raced over the words and the way her long clever fingers turned the pages.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not going down just yet?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he asked.
\n     <\/em>She shook her head, not looking up.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Captain and I will be on call for the first year.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt wondered if they would be awake at the same time.\u00c2\u00a0 And then he remembered that, as a civilian, he could set his own sleep schedule as long as the ship’s resources would support it.\u00c2\u00a0 He probably could stay awake all the way to Sirius if he wanted.\u00c2\u00a0 In the deep gloom of cryogenesis, he wondered what decision he had made.\u00c2\u00a0 Had he gone down that night?\u00c2\u00a0 He doubted that he would have declined to spend more time in Madsen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bed.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you mind if I ask you something,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he began.
\n     <\/em>She shook her head again.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Back at Lalande \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I got the feeling that the crew \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she interrupted, still not looking up.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like you.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, first we thought we were coming out here on a wild goose chase.\u00c2\u00a0 And now we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re heading off to chase another goose.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a goose chase.\u00c2\u00a0 There was an actual alien ship.\u00c2\u00a0 And an actual message \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That was left half a century ago,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she interrupted.\u00c2\u00a0 She looked up and her eyes locked onto Tybalt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brown ones.\u00c2\u00a0 They were blue. Or green. Or brown.\u00c2\u00a0 He wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure if his memory was still thawing or if her eyes looked different in changing light. They glittered.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A half-century old probe that is sending us to another system we won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t arrive at for thirty years.\u00c2\u00a0 And that system is probably uninhabited.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find another probe sending us another forty years to another star and \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Tybalt.\u00c2\u00a0 He hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thought of that.\u00c2\u00a0 Tybalt imagined them chasing down their quarry all around the Earth, going from star to star, running out of probes to send back to Earth, the equipment wearing out as the centuries passed and they followed, always gaining on their prey but never catching them.
\n     <\/em>For a time, his memory drifted away and he found himself trying to chart a path among the nearest stars, trying to remember their names, trying to figure out the most efficient journey.\u00c2\u00a0 It seemed like he spent hours doing this, remembering new stars, realizing that some stars he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d charted didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually exist.\u00c2\u00a0 Finally, it broke and he was back in the past, which was slowly resolving into more certain memory.<\/em>
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, we have to try.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Madsen.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s our duty.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>She looked at him over the top of the book again.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your quest.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt sat back in his chair again. That he had pulled strings to get onto the ship was not a secret.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you think I should \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 stay awake for the entire trip?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No point in that.\u00c2\u00a0 We won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need you until we get there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I see.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure I could continue this if you were that much older than me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, not looking up.
\n     <\/em>Tybalt hesitated a moment.\u00c2\u00a0 He still felt that twinge of guilt.\u00c2\u00a0 She did look so much like Caroline.\u00c2\u00a0 Caroline, back on Sol, having aged decades while he slept his way to Lalande.\u00c2\u00a0 She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be past her second century.\u00c2\u00a0 For all he knew, she had died while he dreamed a trillion miles away.
\n     <\/em>But the movement of Madsen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fingers over the pages of the book brought him back to the present moment and the girl inviting him into her bed.\u00c2\u00a0 He stood up and took the book from her hands. She looked up at him, her eyes warming.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are you just with me because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be filthy rich when we get back?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she asked.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153OK, then. \u00c2\u00a0Carry on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

     <\/em>Tybalt found himself trying to remember who else was on board. But, invariably the memories got muddled. He thought that the crew included people long dead or left behind light years away. He couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s names or even their faces.\u00c2\u00a0 He could only glimpse shadows.<\/em>
\n     <\/em>He tried to count the cryotubes in the ship, stepping outside his body into the Central Garden and looking up and down the long narrow rows.\u00c2\u00a0 But he kept losing count.\u00c2\u00a0 The cabins kept moving, multiplying or disappearing.<\/em>
\n     <\/em>He crept back into his body and lay down, giving up the struggle, letting the numbers bound around him without touching.<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I sometimes don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to sleep,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Madsen one night as they stared at the ceiling, frost patterns curling in and out of existence.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I always wonder what would happen if we ran across a meteor.\u00c2\u00a0 We would go to sleep and never wake up.\u00c2\u00a0 Never know what had happened.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if he were awake,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Tybalt.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we ever hit a meteor, the ship will be gone in nanoseconds.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But if it were a small hit, one that maybe killed the crew and left us alive, dreaming forever?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d go to Sirius and then the computers would wake us up.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Depends on how extensive the damage was.\u00c2\u00a0 Imagine someone finding our ship centuries from now, all of us having slept away our lives.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Her speculation bothered Tybalt.\u00c2\u00a0 In cryogen, they aged at a little under 1% of normal speed.\u00c2\u00a0 Their thoughts were reduced to a fraction even of that.\u00c2\u00a0 They could last for ten thousand years, maybe longer.\u00c2\u00a0 The fuel would be a limiting factor but stasis could be maintained on minimal burn. After wrestling with it for a while, he asked Anansi, who promptly informed him that about 5000 years was the maximum they could hope for.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our bodies would age 50 years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Madsen.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And to our minds, it would seem like about six months.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you imagine being in a six-month long dream from which you couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t awake?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Even the long sleep to Lalande, which had taken almost a day to Tybalt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s slumbering mind, had seemed like a long time. He hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dreamed but he had been vaguely aware of time passing.\u00c2\u00a0 He knew at least one crew member had been woken early and very quickly when Anansi detected some emotional distress \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the stasis equivalent of a nightmare.\u00c2\u00a0 But it did so because it could.
\n     <\/em>Remembering these moments while still in cryogen made him wish Anansi would wake him faster. He felt a slight current of warm air over him and went back to sleep.<\/em>
\n     <\/em>He brought his concerns to Anansi. It listened carefully and then replied.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The automated systems are programmed to put you into very deep freeze if we are unable to communicate with them.\u00c2\u00a0 You would not sense time passing at all; your neural pathways would be completely frozen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Then why don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you put us in deep freeze all the time?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Because we aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure that it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t kill you.\u00c2\u00a0 Slowing your mental processes to one part in ten thousand is as low as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re willing to go this side of catastrophe.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So what would happen in Madsen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scenario?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Either way, it would be instantaneous for you.\u00c2\u00a0 Death as the resources of the ship exhausted.\u00c2\u00a0 Death from stasis.\u00c2\u00a0 Or \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 most likely \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 waking to find yourself rescued a few thousand or tens of thousands of years later.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Most likely?\u00c2\u00a0 Seriously?\u00c2\u00a0 We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re out here all alone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The probe at Lalande would seem to argue otherwise.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

     <\/em>The probe.\u00c2\u00a0 No matter what was going on, Tybalt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thoughts were constantly, in the past and the present, turning back to it. It was the only artifact of an alien civilization any human had ever seen.\u00c2\u00a0 That and the ship that had preceded it, which he also obsessed about.
\n     <\/em>Tybalt had kept laying the photographs on his desk, one after the other.\u00c2\u00a0 And then bringing them up on display, one after another.\u00c2\u00a0 And now, still partially in icy sleep, he brought them into his mind, one after another.
\n     <\/em>Icarus 7 had been going very fast when she arrived at Lalande, moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light.\u00c2\u00a0 In the hours before she plunged into the star, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d taken images of everything she could.\u00c2\u00a0 It had taken eight years for the images to get back to Earth and shake the solar system.
\n     <\/em>The first showed the second planet of the system, a hot super-Earth officially called Lalande 22185 B and unofficially called Styx, in waning crescent as Icarus 7 approached.\u00c2\u00a0 And just above the terminator was a small dark spot.
\n     <\/em>The second showed Styx half-full.\u00c2\u00a0 She was closer and larger.\u00c2\u00a0 Now the spot could be seen to have a shape \u00e2\u20ac\u201c like a winged stave perhaps.
\n     <\/em>The third was Icarus 7 at closest approach.\u00c2\u00a0 It was sheer luck that they had gotten so close.\u00c2\u00a0 They had known about Styx when Icarus 7 was launched but the orbit had been a bit uncertain.\u00c2\u00a0 Icarus 7\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s course was straight into the star \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the only responsible thing to do with a probe going at relativistic speed.\u00c2\u00a0She had used the radiation of the star to power her final transmission back to Earth. But their guess of Styx\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s orbit half a century before Icarus 7 blazed through the system had proven unnervingly correct. The probe had arrived at nearly the perfect time to observe Styx and obtained the best view of a planet any in the Icarus fleet ever would.
\n     <\/em>The planet almost filled the panoramic view, waxing gibbous.\u00c2\u00a0 Each pixel of the Terapixel camera covered about 20 feet.\u00c2\u00a0 But she had smartly sensed something unusual about Styx and put her high-resolution camera on it, getting a resolution of 5 feet.
\n     <\/em>The spacecraft was at least three hundred feet long. It had a long dark spine and a bulbous main section.\u00c2\u00a0 Every time Tybalt looked, he expected it to move.\u00c2\u00a0 He was preoccupied with it, wondering what lived inside it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c machine or creature.\u00c2\u00a0 Had it noticed the Icarus?\u00c2\u00a0 What had it or they thought of it?
\n     <\/em>Scientists on Earth had spent decades evaluating the image, writing thousands of papers speculating on what was in it, what its drive system was, how it was powered.\u00c2\u00a0 Tybalt knew that the breakthroughs that made the Archimandrite<\/em> possible had only occurred because of that image; because scientists knew interstellar travel was possible.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, the Revolt itself might not have happened without it.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the single most important image in human history.
\n     <\/em>The last two images showed the planet retreating, now almost full as Icarus completed her sun dive.\u00c2\u00a0 The craft was still visible above the planet.\u00c2\u00a0 A few more images had come but the spaceship could no longer be seen, now behind the planet.\u00c2\u00a0 By parallax, they had estimated it was in low orbit, a couple of hundred miles above the clouds.
\n     <\/em>Politics and war had kept them from acting on Icarus 7\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s information for a long time.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But they united the colonies into refurbishing a captured battlecruiser, Archimandrite<\/em>, for the trip to Lalande 22185.<\/p>\n

     <\/em>In sleep, he sometimes imagined discovering more images, closeups that showed windows through which could be glimpsed the inhabitants of the long spiny ship. He almost but couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite see the shadowy forms inside. Or sometimes he imagined that the ship itself was automated, with no aliens of any kind aboard.\u00c2\u00a0 Occasionally, he thought they had come to Lalande and found nothing, no sign or indication that anything unusual had ever been there, and that they were on their way back to Earth.<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/em>Even at the beginning of a 30-year trip, his impatience burned.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 He was always tempted to just sleep.\u00c2\u00a0 To crawl into the cryogenic pod and wake up at Sirius. But he had committed to being awake for at least part of the journey.\u00c2\u00a0 And Madsen was awake, which made things more pleasant.
\n     <\/em>He found himself checking the displays every morning to confirm that they had closed some of the distance, both in space and time.\u00c2\u00a0 He sometimes found himself calculating how many hours it was until they reached Sirius, then how many minutes, then how many seconds.\u00c2\u00a0 Inevitably, he would ask Madsen if he was right and inevitably, she would instantly respond with the correct answer.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the trick?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he asked.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How do you do it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I start with the second of the previous day and work backward.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a trick you learn in the Academy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>He shook his head.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can never remember that. And even if I did, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do the math that fast.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what you get for not minoring in astro-navigation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 She tapped her head.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Training. Drills.\u00c2\u00a0 The Holy Fleet wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t good for much, but it did give you one hell of an education.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt always felt uncomfortable when he was reminded that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been on opposite sides in the war. It was a topic they both thought about but discussed on only rare occasions.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why worry about it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she asked one night, shortly before he was to go into stasis.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe I killed friends of yours. Maybe you killed friends of mine.\u00c2\u00a0 But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s over.\u00c2\u00a0 Long over.\u00c2\u00a0 You may have grandchildren back on Earth who have no memory of it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>She paused, holding his hand in hers, turning it over.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We did our duty.\u00c2\u00a0 My side lost.\u00c2\u00a0 We made peace.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t literally sleeping with the enemy the best proof that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made peace?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

     <\/em>Tybalt was now mostly sure what was real and what was not.\u00c2\u00a0 The Eunoe was having its effect, slowly replacing dreams and fear with memories and knowledge. He could occasionally sense crew members checking on his status, buzzing by like mayflies. He wondered if Madsen was one of them.\u00c2\u00a0 Occasionally, a twisted line of thought would form but the computer dealt with it smoothly, soothing his anxiety, easing him back into reality.\u00c2\u00a0 He couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t move yet but his muscles began to relax from their long icy clench.<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/em>Every day, Lalande 22158 fell further behind them.\u00c2\u00a0 This was one reason Tybalt had wanted the early shift.\u00c2\u00a0 Soon enough, the star would be far enough away to be just another star.\u00c2\u00a0 And then they would be in the void, where the stars never seemed to move even as the ship approached nearly half the speed of light.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of the scientists wanted to be awake for that part, to see the effects of relativity.\u00c2\u00a0 Tybalt was not interested.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We should have taken that probe on board,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Madsen said one night while they played cards in the Garden.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We could have learned a lot from it.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe it had records of their entire civilization.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt shook his head.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were asked not to.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why would they ask that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have no idea.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a power source and a signal.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 if something happens to us on the way to Sirius \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 we need to leave the beacon for the next crew.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But why wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they leave something more useful?\u00c2\u00a0 A map of the nearby systems.\u00c2\u00a0 A full language library.\u00c2\u00a0 A history of their species?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt shrugged.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We can ask them when we meet them.\u00c2\u00a0 I suspect that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not sure what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re like.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to meet us before they \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 expose themselves like that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A robotic probe could see we were unarmed.\u00c2\u00a0 It could evaluate us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt shrugged again.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re asking me to explain the action of a species we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t met, that evolved somewhere else and may be millions of years beyond us. They may not even think like we do.\u00c2\u00a0 The only thing we can do \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is follow their trail of bread crumbs.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The only thing we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sure of is that they saw Icarus 7.\u00c2\u00a0 As short a time as she was in the system, they saw her.\u00c2\u00a0 And they figured out what she was and where she came from and decided to leave a message if we followed up.\u00c2\u00a0 That means intelligence.\u00c2\u00a0 It means curiosity.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cthulhu Protocol finds their language to be complex but not entirely dissimilar to human languages.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It said they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mammals,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Madsen.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That they probably have many appendages.\u00c2\u00a0 That they may have some violent tendencies.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure I believe that.\u00c2\u00a0 I know Cthulhu is designed to put itself into the mind of another species and reverse engineer their language, but \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the message was so terse.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Stay away\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is terse but says a lot.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re saying.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what they meant to say, they would have left a bomb.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

     <\/em>Days, week and months trickled by.\u00c2\u00a0 Check on ship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s systems, check on scientific experiments, check on the fuel\/food capacity, check on the other crew\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vitals as they slept.\u00c2\u00a0 And then read books, watch movies, listen to music, synch with the net or spend time with Madsen.\u00c2\u00a0 He suspected she was also occasionally with Chin although he never pushed it and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really think much of it.\u00c2\u00a0 In the long dark, there really wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t much else to do.\u00c2\u00a0 Chin had acknowledged as much on their first day of flight, speaking to the assembled team in the Central Garden.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was the policy of the Holy Fleet that sexual activity was not to occur on their ships,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Captain Chin read from a tablet.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Reformed Earth Government has decided to maintain this policy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>There was general laughter.\u00c2\u00a0 Tybalt knew of at least four couplings among the crew, which meant there were probably five times as many already.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s their rule,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Chin.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re soon going to be trillions of miles away from them.\u00c2\u00a0 There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing they can do to us, no control they have over us. \u00c2\u00a0From the time the fusion drive is lit, the only rules are mine.\u00c2\u00a0 As long as everything is consensual and not interfering with the functioning of this vessel \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 as long as we finish this voyage with the same number of people we started with \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 you are adults and I will treat you as such.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt was vaguely aware that the sleep schedules had been revised many times as people partnered up, broke up, then partnered up again. Madsen had told him of one lieutenant who spent most of a year peering into one of the frozen chambers, pining for a lover she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d broken up with too hastily. The options were obviously limited but the one thing that united them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c soldier and scientist, Holy Fleet and Rebel Fleet, Brother or civilian \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was the need for someone to cling to in the long dark between the stars.
\n     <\/em>But the deep black eventually triumphed over them.\u00c2\u00a0 Even sleep couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep away the isolation and loneliness of endless midnight.\u00c2\u00a0 By the time they reached Lalande, they were seventy tired souls, clutching each other for physical comfort in the night but forgoing any delusions. For all their diversions, there was very little love about the ship.
\n     <\/em>Once in a while, a ship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s component needed repair and they would supervise a robot as it worked.\u00c2\u00a0 Once in a while, their instruments picked up an unexpected whisper from the cosmos, although it usually turned out to be from the direction of Earth. Occasionally, the redshift of their departure and the blueshift of their destination mandated a tiny course correction. But such moments were exceedingly rare.
\n     <\/em>Ship’s duties provided the hour, perhaps two of work that occupied the time of those who were awake. Tybalt began to feel that they were just cogs in a vast engine, drifting between stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Just one more automated probe swinging out from Earth into the cosmos.\u00c2\u00a0 The hours, days, weeks clicked by with a stultifying sameness, the Archimandrite<\/em> curving around Sol like the hand on a light-years wide clock.\u00c2\u00a0 The only relief being sex or entertainments, both of which were limited by the number of crew awake.<\/p>\n

     <\/em>And now memory intersected with reality.\u00c2\u00a0 The time in cryogenic sleep went by quickly, but not instantly.\u00c2\u00a0 They did age slightly, did dream very slowly, each thought separated from the next by a few million miles, ambitions and desires slowly tracked from one star to another over the endless void.
\n     <\/em>He remembered just before he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d gone to sleep, sitting at a table with Madsen in the Central Garden, her long fingers wrapped nervously around a mug.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t love you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I know.\u00c2\u00a0 But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hell of a thing to say to someone about to go down.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I mean \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I like \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m fond of you.\u00c2\u00a0 But \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>He took her hands in his.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want, if one of us finds someone else while the other is sleeping \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt blinked slowly.\u00c2\u00a0 Reality resolved itself into a clean sterile ceiling.\u00c2\u00a0 Air flowed coldly into his lungs.\u00c2\u00a0 He gasped.\u00c2\u00a0 His eyes moved.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a vague familiarity about the surroundings.
\n     <\/em>He knew where he was.\u00c2\u00a0 He was on Jovus Beta. He needed to talk to Caroline about the negotiations with\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 No, that wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it.\u00c2\u00a0 That had been an ages ago.\u00c2\u00a0 No, he was on a ship.\u00c2\u00a0 It was somewhere …
\n     <\/em>The pit of his stomach went cold.\u00c2\u00a0 He was far far away from home.\u00c2\u00a0 Far far away from Caroline.\u00c2\u00a0 Far far away from Jovus.\u00c2\u00a0 He felt a flash of guilt that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d abandoned the Revolt in their hour of need.
\n     <\/em>Then he remembered that the Revolt had ended long ago \u00e2\u20ac\u201c decades ago.\u00c2\u00a0 For another minute, he tried to remember which star he was travelling to, wondered how many billions of miles and hundreds of years had gone past.
\n     <\/em>But then the Eunoe had its full effects and he calmed. He glanced over to see Madsen sitting beside him, deep in another book.\u00c2\u00a0 He took a loud deep breath.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Remembering where you are?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she asked, not looking up. Tybalt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heart fluttered a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 Her feigned insouciance told him in neon lettering that the long sleep had changed nothing between them.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sirius,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.\u00c2\u00a0 Then he chuckled slightly.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sirius.\u00c2\u00a0 It seems so unreal.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember telling my dad the names of the stars.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember sitting in Mare Frigoris with Caroline and doing the same.\u00c2\u00a0 And now \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been to two of them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not quite.\u00c2\u00a0 We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still a month out.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt thought about that.\u00c2\u00a0 It usually took a few days for the fog of cryogenesis to clear.\u00c2\u00a0 Last time, Madsen had found him wandering below decks a few days after waking, unclear of who he was or why he was there.\u00c2\u00a0 But, for the moment, most of his marbles were there.\u00c2\u00a0 And he knew he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been woken early.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So why am I awake?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You remember what I said about how this might all be a wild goose chase?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>Tybalt thought hard.\u00c2\u00a0 And the memory came to him eventually.\u00c2\u00a0 Memories closest to freezing were always the last and hardest to dig up.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sort of.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n     <\/em>He managed to turn and look at her.
\n     <\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not alone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This is Part One of the a Three-Part Short Story. Part Two is here. Part Three will be posted in the next few weeks.)      \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They told me I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dream,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thought Tybalt.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, in the long dark between the stars, the sea was burnt orange and the sand was blue. Just beyond … Continue reading Dreams in the Long Dark<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7178","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P2BzKF-1RM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7178"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7207,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7178\/revisions\/7207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}