The Starkind
By Raymond Lefebvre
The clock was insane.
---------Still Ann understood mad, frantic behavior was an inherent aspect of its function.
---------In contrast another clock marked its time in a familiar steadiness: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick… And yet in its own fashion it was just as crazed.
---------It was a matter of perspective since both timepieces represented equally valid reality.
---------The first chronometer measured real-time—that in the greater universe beyond the protective nanofiber hull as it cleaved through a very thin medium of relic photons, cosmic radiation and disseminated supernova remnants.
---------In counterpoint its companion displayed relative time. For every moment the flight chronometer clicked off the real-time chronometer flashed one hour, ten minutes and forty-two seconds—a surreal and rather magical effect affirming the unarguable reality of crowding light at .9999c.
---------Like anyone else Ann experienced relative time directly, having no other choice. That was simply how the universe worked. Yet she also experienced real-time albeit in a partitioned manner, something for which she was distinctly suited. Her unique nature also allowed her to wrest meaning from a visually compressed universe where anyone else saw inexplicable distortion. So she had steadily for the past seventy-five days. Or the past fourteen and a half years depending on your perspective, and Ann perceived both. It would so continue until Ann affected otherwise of her own discretion or at the will of the ship master.
---------One of the multitude of routines she performed in-flight Ann had had the TPF instruments focused directly ahead for quite some time. Her nature meant she could see where others could not, thus constantly assessing the potential of pre-selected targets as well as ones newly acquired. And as they steadily approached their target the probabilities defined by preset search parameters mounted. The probabilities would dictate whether Ann would elect to ignore the target and modify their course accordingly towards the next objective
---------Yet the probabilities mounted. They had long passed the forty, fifty, sixty percentile. They neared ninety. That finalized the matter and left her with one option. Ann initiated standard approach.
---------She didn’t verbalize her intent—no one was present to acknowledge her. Her voice wouldn’t have carried anyway. Other than a scattering of telltale readouts the entire craft was cold, dark vacuum with the exception of the park with its live vegetation and fauna. Even the sleep cellar was dim although that was changing even now—she had initiated Stage One wakening. Within a few hours it would be determined whether or not to bring the rest of the ship to light and warmth, and Ann would no longer be alone.
---------Ann didn’t really mind being alone. She had something akin to eternal patience, another innate attribute of a ninth generation Artisen. In-flight she regularly oversaw the suspension systems, managed all scanners, tended the stardrive and guidance systems as well as tirelessly monitored the quantum signal network. She also supervised a variety of robotics for routine maintenance and diverse “housekeeping” tasks ship wide.
---------Their velocity began decreasing incrementally and correspondingly the real-time chronometer began to slow. It was a marginal change considering Ann had engaged deceleration that would swiftly intensify to a titanic ten thousand gees. If Engineering hadn’t now been in vacuum then the escalating hum of the NEI stardrive would have been distinctly noticeable below decks.
---------Slowing at ten thousand gees the disparate chronometers would reach a measure of near synchronicity within three days. Of course the flight clock remained unaffected: tick, tick, tick…
---------In the interim the Eagle hurtled on toward its next target star system.
1
“Why?” she asked.
---------Kev sought to keep his voice steady and meet his mother’s eyes. He could hear night birds offering him apparent encouragement through the open window. “I have to.” he replied.
---------Her head shook with a curt swing to one side. She uncrossed her arms to seat herself before pressing further. “You could study here. Anything and everything ever known can be had right here and without leaving home. There’s nothing you can’t do from here. And you don’t have to risk anything.”
---------Kev turned again from the window and the soft breeze and star lit sky beyond. “It’s not the same. From here it’s just images and dry information through machinery or at best someone else’s eyes. I have to see it myself. I have to touch it. It matters to be there. Here it’ll always be the same—breathing the same air, walking the same ground. The same two suns and three moons in the sky, same planets, same constellations… And there are others out there. I know it.”
---------He was winning. Nonetheless he could also feel her torment—the ache for him to be happy and complete against the hurt of letting him go. They were re-enacting a scene that had played out countless times through history likely since the first seafaring canoes.
---------She knew she had lost and long before this moment. She’d lost since he began watching the clear night sky evermore often. He didn’t just watch the sky—in his heart he lived there already. And perhaps for the truly first time she no longer saw the boy but the burgeoning man.
---------Still her long rehearsed words arose. “I’ll miss so much. And you won’t be back.”
---------Kev reached for he hand. “Sure I will. You know that.”
---------She smiled a bit ruefully. “Oh, you’ll visit every so often, every ten or twenty years maybe. But you’ll be like a ghost, hardly changing. Everything and everyone here will change so much. And you’ll feel out of place and apart because you’ll still be much the same as now. And soon enough we’ll all be gone.”
---------His voice tightened. “Aren’t you overstating it? You’re going to live another eighty years, easy. We’ll still have plenty of time.” he insisted.
---------She smiled indulgently and squeezed his hand. “God willing. But no, you’ll have a new home and that’s where you’ll really live. This will become just somewhere you’re from…”
---------Kev Sillinger opened his eyes to the soft light and calming hues of the sleep cellar. He licked his lips as he focused on his surroundings and his reminiscence began to fade. The cellar’s lighting approximated early morning daylight which matched the chronometer reading next to his couch: 0609 hours. Nice touch to coordinate wakening with the start of a new day, he reflected.
---------He lay back to ponder his dream for another moment. One could dream a great deal while hibernating yet little of it usually stayed with you after waking. His recurring dream was different because it was an actual memory, one he’d had for thirty years. Thirty years he could actually recall, but by calendar his recollection was more than two hundred years past. This was the consequence of the current take on life prolongation. Medical science had pushed average life expectancy up to a hundred and twenty years, and life slowing hibernation in hand with relativistic starflight took it from there. Effectively it meant you really couldn’t go home again. The past didn’t slip away from you like for anyone else who stayed planet bound. When you went into space you buried your past, reclaimed only fleetingly in periodic visits.
---------Sillinger sat up and rubbed his eyes. The clear sleep couch casing had retracted leaving him to breathe ship’s air for the past hour. He shivered for a second—more a mental reflex at sleeping in a fourteen Celsius atmosphere for ten weeks—and appreciated awakening to a comfortable twenty-one Celsius. His heart rate and respiration were also elevated back to normal and he took a deep breath. It was quite routine since he’d long been adapted for natural hibernation albeit artificially induced.
---------Ann’s attending autodocs had retreated earlier after removing the requisite sensors, tubes and catheters nearly an hour before he awoke. Extended starflight demanded comfort, so you went to sleep and awoke in normal fashion—the autodocs gently managed the rest and quietly watched over you.
---------Sillinger stood and unconsciously ran his hands down his naked sides. He touched the stubble on his face even as he referred to a small console nearby. There two chronometers marched in their differing ways. The flight chronometer read 337.03 DAYS. The velocity readout read 0.962c and continued to fall incrementally.
---------A final readout was more currently relevant.
--------- “Eighty-nine percent? That’s rather good, Ann.” he opined aloud.
---------The ship replied. “TPF evaluation suggests we’ll likely find a favorably complex system.”
--------- “And about time, too. This’ll be our fourth star system in almost a year. It would be nice to find something we can actually walk on.” He ran fingers through his crop of dark hair. “I need to clean up.” he said mostly to himself. “I’m hungry, too.”
---------Ann replied, “FlightCon will be fully on-line in twenty minutes.”
---------Sillinger nodded. As Command Flight Specialist he had to concur with her reasoning for Stage One wakening. Now Ann automatically initiated Stage Two and began warming the ship dependent upon required access. A handful of the two hundred and eight crew would now be revived.
---------Waking from a hibernating suspension could often induce heightened sensations in some. It soon faded, but for now Sillinger could feel a trace of air current on his skin. He was certain he caught the scent of fresh water, earth and vegetation. He could even just hear the singing of birds. To be sure he knew those things were actually there, transmitted throughout the ship, but usually they existed at a more subliminal level. Also the ship was very still now. Once more people began their routines the mere knowing of others about would be sufficient distraction.
---------A barely audible sigh caught Sillinger’s attention. At once he remembered the four other sleep casings in this compartment of the cellar. He turned to note who was rising from their assigned couch then quickly retrieved a pair of briefs. It wasn’t that he harbored any sense of false modesty, but it was prudent to at least partially veil any instinctive bodily response on his part. Heightened awareness could be awkward.
---------He slipped his briefs on even as he caught sight of a delicate back curving suggestively while she stretched her arms. Raven hair caressed the back of her neck and shoulders even as she rose and turned in his direction. Sillinger bit the inside of his lip and forced himself to meet her deep eyes rather than the inviting swell of her breasts and gentle curve of her belly. He swore at himself over his every thought being sexually flavored.
---------Prolonged hibernation had long been equated with something akin to near death experience—the mere idea that you were balanced a whisper from irreversible life cessation. On both a conscious and subconscious level that often elicited something of an irrepressible urge to affirm being alive. In a few people this manifested itself as a temporary eating binge. For quite a few others it stimulated heightened sexual arousal, also temporary…most of the time.
---------Sillinger held no romantic feelings for Chief Life Specialist Reham Ali yet she was a beautiful, vital woman and his body wasn’t much concerned with his emotions in his present state. She was graceful as a cat and he felt as if a retrieval cable were trying to drag him irresistibly towards her.
---------Something knowing in her eyes brought a soft smile to Ali’s lips. Nonetheless she retrieved and donned her own briefs and light blouse. She ran a finger up the front of the blouse triggering a nanoseam that closed the fabric. “Good morning, Captain.” she then added.
---------“Morning.” he grunted, trying not to dwell on how the fabric of her blouse embraced her and cursed himself for envying the damned fabric. A sharp impulse to tear it aware blazed in his mind.
---------He knew that over the next few days there would be excited pairings and otherwise among the crew. It was tolerated as commonplace so long as it didn’t interfere with responsibilities and ship’s operations. They were unashamedly human and it was healthier to acknowledge the reality. Earlier in his career he had also known such casual, and sometimes not so casual, physical intimacy. But as he rose in position and responsibility he became more circumspect, accepting authority couldn’t risk being seen or even suspected of abusing influence of position.
---------Sillinger grabbed his own shirt. “I’ll see you upside, Lieutenant.” he said then exited the compartment. In the corridor he growled aloud, “The water had better be ice, Ann.”
2
Two and a half days later they eased into Tau 1 Eridani at one tenth light having taken a half light year to brake from cruising.
TO BE CONTINUED…
By Raymond Lefebvre
The clock was insane.
---------Still Ann understood mad, frantic behavior was an inherent aspect of its function.
---------In contrast another clock marked its time in a familiar steadiness: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick… And yet in its own fashion it was just as crazed.
---------It was a matter of perspective since both timepieces represented equally valid reality.
---------The first chronometer measured real-time—that in the greater universe beyond the protective nanofiber hull as it cleaved through a very thin medium of relic photons, cosmic radiation and disseminated supernova remnants.
---------In counterpoint its companion displayed relative time. For every moment the flight chronometer clicked off the real-time chronometer flashed one hour, ten minutes and forty-two seconds—a surreal and rather magical effect affirming the unarguable reality of crowding light at .9999c.
---------Like anyone else Ann experienced relative time directly, having no other choice. That was simply how the universe worked. Yet she also experienced real-time albeit in a partitioned manner, something for which she was distinctly suited. Her unique nature also allowed her to wrest meaning from a visually compressed universe where anyone else saw inexplicable distortion. So she had steadily for the past seventy-five days. Or the past fourteen and a half years depending on your perspective, and Ann perceived both. It would so continue until Ann affected otherwise of her own discretion or at the will of the ship master.
---------One of the multitude of routines she performed in-flight Ann had had the TPF instruments focused directly ahead for quite some time. Her nature meant she could see where others could not, thus constantly assessing the potential of pre-selected targets as well as ones newly acquired. And as they steadily approached their target the probabilities defined by preset search parameters mounted. The probabilities would dictate whether Ann would elect to ignore the target and modify their course accordingly towards the next objective
---------Yet the probabilities mounted. They had long passed the forty, fifty, sixty percentile. They neared ninety. That finalized the matter and left her with one option. Ann initiated standard approach.
---------She didn’t verbalize her intent—no one was present to acknowledge her. Her voice wouldn’t have carried anyway. Other than a scattering of telltale readouts the entire craft was cold, dark vacuum with the exception of the park with its live vegetation and fauna. Even the sleep cellar was dim although that was changing even now—she had initiated Stage One wakening. Within a few hours it would be determined whether or not to bring the rest of the ship to light and warmth, and Ann would no longer be alone.
---------Ann didn’t really mind being alone. She had something akin to eternal patience, another innate attribute of a ninth generation Artisen. In-flight she regularly oversaw the suspension systems, managed all scanners, tended the stardrive and guidance systems as well as tirelessly monitored the quantum signal network. She also supervised a variety of robotics for routine maintenance and diverse “housekeeping” tasks ship wide.
---------Their velocity began decreasing incrementally and correspondingly the real-time chronometer began to slow. It was a marginal change considering Ann had engaged deceleration that would swiftly intensify to a titanic ten thousand gees. If Engineering hadn’t now been in vacuum then the escalating hum of the NEI stardrive would have been distinctly noticeable below decks.
---------Slowing at ten thousand gees the disparate chronometers would reach a measure of near synchronicity within three days. Of course the flight clock remained unaffected: tick, tick, tick…
---------In the interim the Eagle hurtled on toward its next target star system.
1
“Why?” she asked.
---------Kev sought to keep his voice steady and meet his mother’s eyes. He could hear night birds offering him apparent encouragement through the open window. “I have to.” he replied.
---------Her head shook with a curt swing to one side. She uncrossed her arms to seat herself before pressing further. “You could study here. Anything and everything ever known can be had right here and without leaving home. There’s nothing you can’t do from here. And you don’t have to risk anything.”
---------Kev turned again from the window and the soft breeze and star lit sky beyond. “It’s not the same. From here it’s just images and dry information through machinery or at best someone else’s eyes. I have to see it myself. I have to touch it. It matters to be there. Here it’ll always be the same—breathing the same air, walking the same ground. The same two suns and three moons in the sky, same planets, same constellations… And there are others out there. I know it.”
---------He was winning. Nonetheless he could also feel her torment—the ache for him to be happy and complete against the hurt of letting him go. They were re-enacting a scene that had played out countless times through history likely since the first seafaring canoes.
---------She knew she had lost and long before this moment. She’d lost since he began watching the clear night sky evermore often. He didn’t just watch the sky—in his heart he lived there already. And perhaps for the truly first time she no longer saw the boy but the burgeoning man.
---------Still her long rehearsed words arose. “I’ll miss so much. And you won’t be back.”
---------Kev reached for he hand. “Sure I will. You know that.”
---------She smiled a bit ruefully. “Oh, you’ll visit every so often, every ten or twenty years maybe. But you’ll be like a ghost, hardly changing. Everything and everyone here will change so much. And you’ll feel out of place and apart because you’ll still be much the same as now. And soon enough we’ll all be gone.”
---------His voice tightened. “Aren’t you overstating it? You’re going to live another eighty years, easy. We’ll still have plenty of time.” he insisted.
---------She smiled indulgently and squeezed his hand. “God willing. But no, you’ll have a new home and that’s where you’ll really live. This will become just somewhere you’re from…”
---------Kev Sillinger opened his eyes to the soft light and calming hues of the sleep cellar. He licked his lips as he focused on his surroundings and his reminiscence began to fade. The cellar’s lighting approximated early morning daylight which matched the chronometer reading next to his couch: 0609 hours. Nice touch to coordinate wakening with the start of a new day, he reflected.
---------He lay back to ponder his dream for another moment. One could dream a great deal while hibernating yet little of it usually stayed with you after waking. His recurring dream was different because it was an actual memory, one he’d had for thirty years. Thirty years he could actually recall, but by calendar his recollection was more than two hundred years past. This was the consequence of the current take on life prolongation. Medical science had pushed average life expectancy up to a hundred and twenty years, and life slowing hibernation in hand with relativistic starflight took it from there. Effectively it meant you really couldn’t go home again. The past didn’t slip away from you like for anyone else who stayed planet bound. When you went into space you buried your past, reclaimed only fleetingly in periodic visits.
---------Sillinger sat up and rubbed his eyes. The clear sleep couch casing had retracted leaving him to breathe ship’s air for the past hour. He shivered for a second—more a mental reflex at sleeping in a fourteen Celsius atmosphere for ten weeks—and appreciated awakening to a comfortable twenty-one Celsius. His heart rate and respiration were also elevated back to normal and he took a deep breath. It was quite routine since he’d long been adapted for natural hibernation albeit artificially induced.
---------Ann’s attending autodocs had retreated earlier after removing the requisite sensors, tubes and catheters nearly an hour before he awoke. Extended starflight demanded comfort, so you went to sleep and awoke in normal fashion—the autodocs gently managed the rest and quietly watched over you.
---------Sillinger stood and unconsciously ran his hands down his naked sides. He touched the stubble on his face even as he referred to a small console nearby. There two chronometers marched in their differing ways. The flight chronometer read 337.03 DAYS. The velocity readout read 0.962c and continued to fall incrementally.
---------A final readout was more currently relevant.
--------- “Eighty-nine percent? That’s rather good, Ann.” he opined aloud.
---------The ship replied. “TPF evaluation suggests we’ll likely find a favorably complex system.”
--------- “And about time, too. This’ll be our fourth star system in almost a year. It would be nice to find something we can actually walk on.” He ran fingers through his crop of dark hair. “I need to clean up.” he said mostly to himself. “I’m hungry, too.”
---------Ann replied, “FlightCon will be fully on-line in twenty minutes.”
---------Sillinger nodded. As Command Flight Specialist he had to concur with her reasoning for Stage One wakening. Now Ann automatically initiated Stage Two and began warming the ship dependent upon required access. A handful of the two hundred and eight crew would now be revived.
---------Waking from a hibernating suspension could often induce heightened sensations in some. It soon faded, but for now Sillinger could feel a trace of air current on his skin. He was certain he caught the scent of fresh water, earth and vegetation. He could even just hear the singing of birds. To be sure he knew those things were actually there, transmitted throughout the ship, but usually they existed at a more subliminal level. Also the ship was very still now. Once more people began their routines the mere knowing of others about would be sufficient distraction.
---------A barely audible sigh caught Sillinger’s attention. At once he remembered the four other sleep casings in this compartment of the cellar. He turned to note who was rising from their assigned couch then quickly retrieved a pair of briefs. It wasn’t that he harbored any sense of false modesty, but it was prudent to at least partially veil any instinctive bodily response on his part. Heightened awareness could be awkward.
---------He slipped his briefs on even as he caught sight of a delicate back curving suggestively while she stretched her arms. Raven hair caressed the back of her neck and shoulders even as she rose and turned in his direction. Sillinger bit the inside of his lip and forced himself to meet her deep eyes rather than the inviting swell of her breasts and gentle curve of her belly. He swore at himself over his every thought being sexually flavored.
---------Prolonged hibernation had long been equated with something akin to near death experience—the mere idea that you were balanced a whisper from irreversible life cessation. On both a conscious and subconscious level that often elicited something of an irrepressible urge to affirm being alive. In a few people this manifested itself as a temporary eating binge. For quite a few others it stimulated heightened sexual arousal, also temporary…most of the time.
---------Sillinger held no romantic feelings for Chief Life Specialist Reham Ali yet she was a beautiful, vital woman and his body wasn’t much concerned with his emotions in his present state. She was graceful as a cat and he felt as if a retrieval cable were trying to drag him irresistibly towards her.
---------Something knowing in her eyes brought a soft smile to Ali’s lips. Nonetheless she retrieved and donned her own briefs and light blouse. She ran a finger up the front of the blouse triggering a nanoseam that closed the fabric. “Good morning, Captain.” she then added.
---------“Morning.” he grunted, trying not to dwell on how the fabric of her blouse embraced her and cursed himself for envying the damned fabric. A sharp impulse to tear it aware blazed in his mind.
---------He knew that over the next few days there would be excited pairings and otherwise among the crew. It was tolerated as commonplace so long as it didn’t interfere with responsibilities and ship’s operations. They were unashamedly human and it was healthier to acknowledge the reality. Earlier in his career he had also known such casual, and sometimes not so casual, physical intimacy. But as he rose in position and responsibility he became more circumspect, accepting authority couldn’t risk being seen or even suspected of abusing influence of position.
---------Sillinger grabbed his own shirt. “I’ll see you upside, Lieutenant.” he said then exited the compartment. In the corridor he growled aloud, “The water had better be ice, Ann.”
2
Two and a half days later they eased into Tau 1 Eridani at one tenth light having taken a half light year to brake from cruising.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Please continue it.
