Thrum

I wake in the dark. The light has turned off, though the room isn’t totally black. There’s a viewscreen on the far side of the room, glowing. I didn’t notice it before, or maybe it wasn’t turned on. It shows the void of space, dotted with pinpricks of light, and a brighter red glow that might be a planet or a red giant.

A slow trickle of unease crawls up my spine. My body feels weightless and untethered in this half-sleep, as if in pushing back my blankets, I’ll drift up and out, through the viewscreen, into the abyss.

I look quickly away from the stars.

And I see it there — a towering black shape in the corner. Watching me. His eyes catch the false starlight and glint like ghostly orbs. Dorian.

I sit up, adrenaline streaking through my veins. The light flickers on at my movement, and I blink in the brightness. He’s gone.

I glance around to find the room empty, except for my labored breaths and the pothos, and my knapsack on the floor.

In that soft orange light, I feel silly.

“You’re fine, Ami,” I say aloud, but the tone is unconvincing, my voice thick and quavering. I swallow. “It was a shadow. A sleep paralysis demon, at worst.”

My nervous system believes otherwise.

I can’t try to sleep again; I don’t want to see another shadow in the corner. With a grunt, I drag my knapsack up onto the bed, methodically removing its contents. I lay them out before me on the blanket: a set of tools, a handheld comm unit, a fresh change of clothes, a half dozen nutrient bars, a liter of water, a basic survival kit, a first aid kit, and a battered copy of Contact. The essentials.

One by one, I check my tools, the kits, and my comm unit. They’re all intact, just as I packed them. I flip through the book — why, I don’t know, only that it comforts me, and seeing the words laid out exactly as they should be, exactly as I’ve read them countless times before, slows the racing of my pulse.

It’s supposed to be life-changing, I remind myself. This meeting. This first contact. It’s what I’m here for, what I’ve dreamed of for so, so long. It’s what humanity has dreamed of. I’m living it.

I unwrap one of the nutrient bars and eat it slowly. My gut complains. I realize I haven’t eaten since before stasis sleep. I haven’t eaten in years. I would kill for the hot bitter taste of coffee, but my adrenaline has done a fine job of waking me.

When I finish the nutrient bar, I pull on my boots. There’s no way I’m calling for Dorian right now; I don’t want him to see what a jumpy neurotic I’m becoming. But there’s even less of a chance that I’ll stay in this room like I’m some kind of prisoner. I’m beginning to worry in a paranoid, anxious way that that’s exactly what I am — a mouse in a cage, about to be let loose in some deep-space maze.

Approaching the door, a lance of fear cuts through me. This is the moment of truth. Will it open, or am I trapped? For a moment, nothing happens. And then as I inch closer to the door, there’s a soft click, and it swings open. Relief floods me.

But a breath later, my shoulders tighten, and I hesitate. This might be another trick, an illusion. Nothing I see here is true. Dorian said it himself.

On some desperate, lonely impulse, I go back and grab the pothos, holding it in my arms like a blessed relic.

And then I step into the corridor.

I half expect Dorian to appear out of thin air, his umbral eyes boring into me. But I’m alone, and the vast corridor sweeps out to either side. I pick a direction and begin to walk. I’ve only gone a dozen paces or so when I come upon a door. It’s just like the one to my room. My pulse speeds. Anything could be in there. Something I’m not meant to see, a secret of this illusory ship. I move to the door, and when I’m close enough, there’s a click, and it swings open.

I nearly drop the pothos.

It is my room. There’s my knapsack, on the bed. My book, my things laid out.

“What the fuck,” I breathe. I know I didn’t walk in a circle. I know it, but here I am, back in my room.

Glancing up and down the corridor with rising unease, I clutch the pothos to my chest. If I walked in a straight line, I should be able to see the door I came out of. But I can’t. There’s nothing but a blank expanse of corridor, unmarked by windows or doors.

Fine. Okay. I must have turned around then, addled by lack of sleep and adrenaline.

Footsteps startle me from this frozen reverie, and I turn to see Dorian, inches from me. He hadn’t been there a moment before. Had he? I blink, trying to remember. I was alone. I would have heard him coming. Despite my still-spiking fear, I’m struck by Dorian’s appearance: his heavy-lidded eyes, gorgeous lips, that sculpted jaw. Not nearly as terrifying as the vision in the dark of my room, then. The shadows and my half-sleep had made him a monster, a towering specter in my mind. Right now he just looks like a man, a hair away from humanity.

His brows raise in polite concern.

I remember what he said when we met: I promise, this form will be far less distressing than my true one. But I don’t find him distressing at all anymore, not like that. In the back of my mind I think I should be careful, keep my distance, but… the louder part of me says he’s safe. He’s good. I can see it in his eyes.

“Can I assist you with something?” he asks, like I’m a confused passenger on a commercial space flight.

“Sorry for disturbing you,” I say, feeling sheepish for apologizing. But my gaze falls on the duplicate room, and a bead of fear trickles down my back. “I couldn’t sleep. I tried to stretch my legs and take a walk, but… I looped back here again.”

He glances at the door to my room, then back to me. I can’t read his expression. His skin is milky white like the moon. “The ship is trying to help you,” he explains. “So that you don’t get lost.”

I scowl in confusion. “What?”

“The ship brought you back here, to your room. So you wouldn’t get lost.”

As if this explains everything. “How?”

He makes a face that’s strangely disarming, almost boyishly impatient. “Do you want me to explain the physics of the process?”

“Yes.” I’m being stubborn. I wouldn’t understand the physics of the process if he wrote it out in the simplest of terms, but he doesn’t have to know that.

He narrows his eyes and I almost suspect he’s trying not to smile. “You’re being stubborn.”

My sharp intake of breath makes one of the pothos leaves shiver toward me, brushing my lip where I’m holding it close. “Are you reading my mind?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m reading your body language. You want to be righteously angry with me because you’re afraid of my ship.” He crosses his arms, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

I’m speechless for a second, my eyes locked on his, my every emotion on full broadcast. He sees everything. “Right, okay,” I admit. “But you should know that I saw…” I almost say I saw you, but I don’t want him to think I’m completely off my rocker. The mission protocols come to me: Maintain peaceful and professional communication at all costs. Never antagonize. Never present yourself as a threat. “I saw something in my room, in the dark.”

His black gaze holds me, and for a moment I feel that I am a prisoner here, suspended in this endless corridor, a man who is not a man seeing into my soul, my organs, seeing and seeing until I am torn apart, atom by atom.

“You need more sleep,” he says. “Real sleep, not stasis-sleep. Without a regular REM cycle, the human mind begins to fracture, blurring the line between reality and unreality. And my ship is… beyond your understanding. I told you that.”

He did tell me that. I don’t know what I expected. An admission? Yes, I was lurking in your room, watching you sleep. Sorry.

His face softens. “I won’t hurt you, Ami. I told you that, too.”

I want to feel safe here. I want this pulsating terror, the wash of paranoia in my veins, to stop. I want it so badly. But fight or flight has always been second nature to me. I spent my life trying not to fear the ones who were supposed to love me. I thought I’d left all that behind on Earth.

“Can I believe you?” The question is halting, vulnerable.

If Dorian is offended, he doesn’t show it. “That’s up to you.”

“I want to. But your ship is…” I wrestle with myself, unsure how to put it without offending him, “really, um. Unsettling. No offense, but it feels kind of like a living nightmare.”

I’m relieved when he laughs, a halting sound, as if he’s never laughed before. “It’s a side effect of the frequency,” he says. “It’s unsettling, your brain essentially lying to you. Eventually, when you’re settled, you may be able to see the ship as it is. But I promise you, anything that seems strange, or unreal… it is only the ship attempting to protect you.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” I say sullenly. But I relax despite myself. His laughter, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, soothe me, even though I hate to admit it. He feels painfully human in this moment, and I am drawn to him, I need that connection. When did I last touch another person? When was I last embraced? It’s been years.

I remember my brother sending me on my way, his face twisted as he wept, gripping me tightly and telling me he loved me. It was the first time he’d ever said it. My mother didn’t bother to say goodbye. I don’t think she cared that I was leaving forever. Maybe she was glad, relieved to be rid of the rebellious child, the daughter who made everything more difficult than it had to be. The daughter who should’ve been more like her brother: studious, patient, and contrite.

And I remember Lily, stroking my hair as I cried the night before we put ourselves in stasis, knowing we’d never see our families again. I didn’t tell her that I wouldn’t miss mine, other than Henry. It was Earth I was going to miss.

And I remember Mahdi, shaking everyone’s hands as a farewell salute, a See you on the other side. And Vasilissa, rolling her eyes at him.

The last time I ever saw my crew alive.

“What is it you need?” Dorian asks.

My distress must be written across my face. I don’t know where the urge comes from, but it’s suddenly the most important thing in the world to me: “My crew,” I say in a strangled voice. “They’re still on Pioneer. I… I should hold a ceremony for them. A funeral, I guess.”

“A funeral,” echoes Dorian. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I just—”

“You don’t have to lie,” he says, and it’s a kindness.

My chin trembles. “They were my friends. They should be here with me. I just want to say a few words. It’s Earth custom to honor the dead.” Little good it will do them.

“I read your welcome package,” he says softly. “I understand.”

We return to the docking bay. The walk isn’t as strange or unending as it felt earlier. I realize I have no idea what time it is, and then I realize I don’t care. We’re in space. There’s no sun to rise each morning, no moon drifting blue around us, no rising tide or cooling sands. Only darkness.

You need more sleep. Real sleep. Dorian’s words curdle in my brain. How did he know I’d only just come out of stasis? Did he study the readouts on Pioneer while I was asleep in my room? Are his senses so sharp, so advanced, that he can tell how rested someone is just by looking at them? I pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes closed for a second. Or maybe I already told him and forgot.

My anxious thoughts flee when we come to the docking bay, and I see Pioneer again. She’s exactly as I remember, solid, an anchor. I would hug her if I could, wet her hull with desperate tears. Instead, I take a long, deep breath.

“How would you like to proceed?” Dorian asks, laying a shockingly warm hand on my shoulder. “Earth spacefaring tradition states we should—”

“Eject the bodies into space,” I finish, trying not to lean into his touch. “I can’t do that. I mean…” I struggle for the words. I’m not ready to let them go. I need them, and I need to find out what happened to them, so it doesn’t happen to me when I return home… if I ever do. And I need them here. I don’t want to be alone. “Not yet. I don’t want to do that yet.”

Dorian nods, squeezes my shoulder once, then lets his hand drop.

I feel bereft without his touch.

Shivering, I realize I’m supposed to be leading this memorial, this goodbye, whatever it is. But I don’t know how. I feel it would be right to board Pioneer and see them again, to properly say farewell, but I don’t want to. The ship has become their tomb. And while I’m deeply unsettled by Dorian’s ship, the idea of crawling back inside Pioneer, closed inside her narrow vertical passages, makes me want to scream.

“I’ll say it here.” I crouch to set the pothos on the floor. This plant might be as close to Earth as I’ll ever be again, illusion or not. Running my fingers over the leaves, I sigh. “I’m sorry, Mahdi. Lily. Vasilissa. I’m sorry you didn’t make it. I wish…” No, wishing is for me, a selfish act. Instead, I recite the only poem I know by heart, a short verse by Gerard Manley Hopkins. “I have desired to go,” I begin shakily, “where springs not fail, to fields where flies no sharp and sided hail… and a few lilies blow.”

My throat burns, and I can’t stop the tears from coming. I don’t remember the rest of the poem, and I’m seconds away from crying uncontrollably. I take a few unsteady breaths, then stand, brushing away the stray wetness on my cheeks.

“May you rest peacefully,” I choke out, holding back a sob.

I remember a funeral I attended once as a child. We sang “Amazing Grace,” and dropped flowers onto the casket as it was lowered into the earth. Everyone was crying except for me. My pregnant mother clutched my arm with steely fingers, a silent flow of tears down her cheeks. I sometimes wonder if they were real, or if she had practiced crying for the occasion. Henry hadn’t been born yet. He was lucky, not to know our dad. I remember that funeral as one of the best days of my life.

But I can’t remember the words to “Amazing Grace.”

My crew’s souls will find the way home, I think. God, if he exists, is with them now. God won’t abandon his children, no matter how far we stray from home.

I think I almost believe it.

I start crying at last. Sobs wrack my body, wild and uncontrolled like the wails of a desperate infant. I reach for the pothos as if its false leaves will grant me solace. And then hands are hooking under my armpits, pulling me up to my feet. Arms wrap around me, pulling me into a tight embrace. My face presses to Dorian’s chest. He’s warm, and I can feel his heartbeat. He smells like sweat and skin. Human.

I let him hold me while I cry, and for a moment, I pretend I’m not alone.