Titans

The Stelliferous Era [314:44]

Location: The Hermes Starship, Aion Universe

The strangest thing is watching it happen.

Not because the destruction of the planet is violent and cosmic and terrifyingly beautiful. Not because it’s astonishing and impossible and a wonder of space. Not because I feel estranged from body as I watch it from a hallway in the back of the starship, hands gripping the window-ledge, as though my mind was born a couple weeks ago when I woke but my body is older, more alien, a different person entirely. Not for any of these reasons, even though they’re all true.

No. It’s the strangest thing because it’s silent.

An entire world, gone in a few minutes. And you don’t hear a thing.

Later, Cal comes over to tell me the news. We were hit by space debris in the escape and have suffered severe damage to the water storage and treatment facility on board. We’ll be rationing what’s left for the next few days until we reach the portal.

The portal.

Emotions, once lost to the void beneath my ribs, start to stir. It’s like my heart can feel home growing closer and has regained an inkling of memory, an itch to remember. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to know which parts of me I’ve destroyed since waking up here – and I certainly don’t want to know which characteristics I’ve had all along.

Atara joins us. Her blonde hair is dark with dirt and pulled back into a messy ponytail. She stares at us with eyes coloured by nervousness and exhaustion.

When Cal pulls out the folder of documents to show us the plan, Atara’s eyes freeze on the top page. She reaches over and withdraws it. I don’t know what it says but it sure has her attention.

“Atara?” Cal asks.

“That name,” she says, frowning. “I know that name.”

“Which name?”

“This one.” She holds up the page and points.

Cal squints at it. “Dr. Carrie Brown,” he reads. “She comes up quite a lot throughout these. Well, the earlier ones at least. There’s no mention of her past a decade ago.”

“Who is she?” Atara asks, eyes wide and pleading. It strikes me that I find it annoying – the puppy dog routine that everyone on the ship seems to bow down to. When she gives them that look, the boys act as though they’d do anything for her. If I were to do a similar thing, I’d probably be told to shove it.

Cal ruffles through the pages, speaking as he does. “She worked for USO, went on a few early missions through the space-time rift. Ahh,” he says, finding the document he was looking for, “yes, missions POR6 and POR8. She didn’t enter the rift in POR6, but POR8 was the first to make it safely through and back. She was kind of a big deal. She gave a great deal to the program.”

He starts looking through the file again. I make use of the opportunity. “Two questions,” I say. “First, what the hell is USO? Second, you said this Carrie person was the first to make it safely through and back? What does that mean?”

Cal stops to answer. “USO stands for United Space Organisation. Pretty self-explanatory. As for your second question, the first missions into the rift never returned, or some did but no one ever survived.”

“Huh,” I say.

Atara looks shocked. “And they kept sending people through?!”

“They did what they had to do,” Cal replies, though he looks less than happy about it himself. “Everyone knew what they were getting into. They simply decided it was worth the risk.”

“Does this mean there’s a chance we won’t make it back?”

Cal sets his eyes on her. “We’ll be fine, I assure you. Since those early missions, there have been hundreds of successful trips. The Hermes starship has been properly modified to get us through safely.”

I look away, unable to bear it. There’s something not right about Atara and everyone is acting like she’s a saint in need of protecting. All I see when I look at her are secrets and fear, mystery and something dreadfully off. Maybe it’s just the lingering effect of seeing her in my dream that one night, hovering in the doorway like a ghost seeking revenge.

Or maybe it’s the unshakable feeling that it wasn’t, in fact, a dream at all.

After a short conversation about Carrie Brown (a conversation I don’t bother to partake in), Cal heads off to fill Merc in on the plan.

“You say her name sounded familiar to you,” I say after a few minutes of watching the distant exploding stars.

Atara nods. “It does.”

“So you remember things then. It’s coming back.”

Now she shakes her head. “No, of course not. I don’t know. It was just an instinct. Muscle-memory for the brain.”

“That’s good.” I turn to lean on my side against the window. I know it makes her uncomfortable, having my gaze directed so totally at her. “Because if you were in fact remembering things, and you weren’t telling us about them…” I trail off, letting her imagination do the work for me.

She stares at me, her eyes displaying a mix of betrayal and fear and…is that guilt?

She swallows. “I’m going to find Merc.”

I follow her with my eyes as she strides, somewhat angrily, down the hall and around the corner.

A little later, as I’m watching the universe out the window, I start feeling light-headed. It comes out of nowhere, hitting me like a cosmic shockwave. There’s no seating in this area and I end up collapsing to the floor, half sitting, half lying down with my back against the wall. It’s the equivalent of being drugged. I can barely move as the world slips and slides above and around me.

Strangely enough, I get the sensation of being watched. I turn my head sluggishly to one side but there’s no one there.

The feeling doesn’t go away for another half-hour and even then, when I’m getting to my feet and leaving the hall, I can still feel it inside me, almost like I’ve been touched by something alien and unnatural, the left-over poison still running through my veins.