Titans

The Stelliferous Era [208:00]

Location: The Hermes Starship

I wake, as always, to the dark. An alarm clock by my bed declares loudly that it’s 8am. Unsteadily, I sit up.

After hitting my head during the rough take-off – and after a night of zero sleep – everything in me was begging for bed. Four hours later, and not much has changed. My head pounds with a vicious head ache, and my muscles feel sore and tired.

I hate feeling so weak.

Forcing myself to my feet, I find I can only just walk in a straight line. Everything feels as though it’s tipping and swaying, and a subtle vibration runs through the soles of my feet.

Down a few hallways, round a few corners, through a couple rooms, and I come to the galley where Atara sits eating something brown and gloopy out of a bowl. It’s all we’ve been eating since we got here – small packages filled with dehydrated food that, once heated, turn into mush.

Without saying a word, I pull out a package that has been marked BREAKFAST and stick it in the food warmer. Still feeling dizzy, I take a seat at the bench. I try not to look at Atara – just the sight of her fills me with an odd mixture of guilt, unease and anger. Mostly anger.

It’s hard to say where these emotions come from.

I look up, and suddenly its as if I’m back in my bed, back in the dark. Atara looks as white as the night I saw her hovering in my doorway, like a spectral being, haunting those who did her wrong. The image is suddenly so strong in my mind, I think it can’t have been a dream. It feels real.

My food beeps. I pull it out, put it in a bowl and return to the bench. It tastes nothing like breakfast.

After swallowing a spoonful of slop, I ask, “How have you been sleeping?”

Atara’s eyes flick towards me with a certain, chilling deadness. I think, she knows. Then the blue orbs come alive again, resurrecting from their momentary death.

Now she looks surprised at being talked to. “Not well,” she admits. “I have dreams.”

Nightmares, she means. I don’t correct her. “What about the night before last?”

Her dark blonde brows draw together in a frown. “Same as always, I suppose.” Except her voice rises in pitch at the end of her sentence, turning it into a question. Why are you asking me this? her tone says.

“You didn’t get up in the middle of the night at all? Didn’t go for a wander about the ship?”

She puts down her spoon. It clangs against the bowl with a sense of finality. “No. I didn’t.”

Atara stands up, washes off her bowl, and without another word, leaves the room.

I finish my own meal in silence, my mind running over her final words. I hear the pause before her answer, the gulp hidden behind the noise of her spoon, the shake of her hand as she lifted it away, and know that she lied.

From there, it’s not hard to take the logical next step. With dead certainty, I realise:

Atara has something to hide.