A. C. Ellis Science Fiction Mini-Collection #1

Three Short Science Fiction Stories

by

A. C. Ellis

More Kindle eBooks by A. C. Ellis

A. C. Ellis Science Fiction Mini-Collection #1

Copyright 2012 by A. C. Ellis

This edition published for the Kindle by A. C. Ellis

For Janet

Contents

Holes — 3,600 words — first published in Vertex Magazine, Volume 3 Number 3, July 1975

Bronson had his duty, and he also had a desire to remain sane. This was fine, until the two came into conflict.

Happy Three Hundredth — 1,280 words — first published in The Periodical Lungfish, #7, Summer 1985

Patrick O'Brien was certainly old enough. He just wasn't sure he could handle the reality of it.

Termination Orbit — 1,500 words — first published in Vertex Magazine, Volume 3 Number 2, June 1975

To Rayne, communication was life, his only link with reality, and he knew that without it he would die.

***

Welcome!

This mini-collection contains three short science fiction stories from my collection of sf and mystery/suspense shorts, Spaceships & Brass Knuckles. More short stories can be found in that publication, and my novels are listed at the end of this publication.

Enjoy!

Holes

Edward Bronson stood on the bank of a too perfect stream, allowing the pine-scented breeze to caress his tanned and naked body and permitting it to play through his long black hair. His arms slipped around Gwen's waist, and she stepped closer. Her nude side pressed lightly against his, sending a flush of pleasure coursing through him.

Paradise was beautiful.

The air was clean and clear, its crystal purity allowing everything to stand out sharp and separate. The edges of leaves and individual blades of grass, even the soft curves of the distant mountains were defined with unbelievable clarity. Each element of the scene before Bronson was totally of itself. Together, they formed a landscape of graceful symmetry.

The colors were calm yet vigorous: the azure sky, the brown earth, the green forest, the violet mountains. No color was harsh. Nothing drew attention because of its color or hue. Yet every element in the scene commanded attention.

Bronson gazed into the stream, watching several large trout swim lazily against the current. The world was fresh and clean around him. It filled him with a mysterious emotion, a primeval love. It felt good.

Gwen led Bronson to the large oak in the center of the clearing. A crude bow and quiver of arrows leaned against the trunk beside a primitive fishing pole. Nearby a fire-pit smoldered, its thin tongue of smoke licking at the sky.

Bronson stretched out in the grass, pulled Gwen down, kissed her. Her small breasts pressed lightly against his chest, their nipples hard and erect with anticipation.

He placed his lips to her ear, breathed in the mild but intoxicating woman-smell of her. "I love you," he whispered.

"And I love you." Gwen raised herself slightly, flipped brown hair out of her eyes with a toss of her head. She ran her fingers through the coarse hair on Bronson's chest, tracing invisible patterns.

I wonder how long we will have this time? Bronson thought. Not long enough. Never long enough.

He knew this was paradise only because it was his concept of what paradise should be. It was what he wanted. It could just as easily have been a crowded metropolis or a luxury-filled palace. Bronson did not want those things.

One thing that could never change, as long as this was his paradise, was Gwen. For someone else, Gwen would not exist. She would be different for each individual in Bronson's place. He was sure in some instances she would not even be female. But there would always be someone like her—someone to insure the caretaker made the checks.

Bronson programmed Gwen from minute to minute with his every action, word and thought. If he wanted a hunting companion she became a skilled tracker and expert marksman. If he felt dominant she was meek and pliable. If he wished to make love, as he did now, she was eager and versatile.

But always she was Gwen. That—more than anything else—was what Bronson wanted, what he needed.

An insistent buzzing filled his head. He looked up into Gwen's eyes, imagined hurt and disappointment in their blue depths.

"Damn! There it is. I won't answer it this time." He clutched her tighter to him.

"You must," Gwen said over the buzz. Her voice pleaded softly. "You know you must."

"Yes, I know. The training. But what would happen if I didn't go?"

"Maybe nothing, but you can't take that chance. I won't let you."

Gwen pulled away as the buzzing suddenly became louder. Fear widened her eyes, tightening her face muscles. Her lower lip began to quiver and she bit it hard.

"Yes," Bronson said, "I'm coming." He sat up and shook his head forcefully.

* * *

A sudden puff of antiseptic air assaulted Bronson, fogging his mind. The rich earth-smells were gone. In their place were artificial chemical scents. He was strapped securely into a contoured chair, facing a computer console. With a violent thrust of his hand he slapped the alarm off. Then he sat and watched the flashing lights, the changing numbers, trying to clear his head.

The light pressure of his clothing made him uneasy and his thoughts drifted to Gwen—his Gwen, his wife—so many years ago. Quiet nights on the beach making love on the sand beneath the stars, making plans to journey together to those same stars.

They volunteered for the colonization program.

Then pain. Gwen in the hospital, dying slowly from the insideof a hyatidiform mole, a tumor of the placenta. To Bronson she was being devoured by a child who would never be born. And her last constricted words: "Please, remember me as I was, strong and healthy."

Bronson pushed the thought from his mind and unstrapped himself with shaking hands. He removed the feeder tube from the plastic vein shunt at his wrist—a tube that not only supplied nutrients to his body, but also special chemicals to prevent tissue atrophy during his periods in paradise.

He ran a hand down his pain-lined face. The checks always hurt. They tore him away from Gwen in paradise, brought memories of the real Gwen he could not face.

But he knew the checks had to be made.

He got up unsteadily, walked to the basin on the far side of the cabin, splashed cold water over his face. He tired to will himself to want to make the checks, but he could not. He dreaded them.

Leaving the cabin, Bronson stumbled down the short corridor toward the vault. He thought again of Gwen as he worked the hatch open. Her long slender form, her clear blue eyes. The clean earthy smell of her always waiting when he returned, but always insisting he go—making him face a reality that continually tore at him from inside his skull.

A chill sliced through Bronson's light clothing as he swung the heavy hatch back and entered the vault. Goosebumps rose on his skin. But the chill was more than a purely physical sensation. This place was a tomb.

Row upon row of steel coffins stood on end in their racks, each labeled with the name of its frozen occupant, each studded with dials and gauges. Three hundred twenty in all. Near the top of every coffin was a small glass window. Faces peered out in blank stares.

The faces were grotesque nightmares—too white and immobile, lacking emotion. They reminded Bronson of Gwen's face, in the hospital on Earth, blank with drugs ineffective against the pain. They brought back the unwanted memories. Again Gwen whispered her choked plea.

These colonists could not talk. They were incapable of caring. Every molecule of water in their bodies was gone, replaced with a liquid fluorocarbon. They were cold, frozen—4.2 degrees above absolute zero—xenon hydrate protecting against freezing damage.

For Bronson, they were dead.

Sometimes he imagined himself as Charon, eternally ferrying the dead across the black river Cocytus. His situation was similar. More often he cast himself in the role of Aeneas, descending on a regular schedule into the infernal regions. But he was denied his Sibyl.

Bronson knew he should care about the colonists. They could not care, so someone had to. But he could not. The only reason he made the checks was because of the training—and Gwen.

He checked the dials methodically, made changes where necessary. The training was still effective, hours of computer regulated hypnosis. But when he came to the livestock vault, he gave its instruments only a cursory glance. Everything seemed all right there, so everything was all right. He had to get back to Gwen.

Bronson returned to the cabin and sat in his chair. He strapped himself in, reconnected the feeder tube. Closing his eyes, he felt the mental snap as the micro-circuit embedded in his brain clicked closed.

Depression fell away.

* * *

Gwen sat beneath the oak, her back to Bronson, her knees drawn up to her chin. Bronson sat down beside her. The cool grass felt good beneath his buttocks. But there was a slight chill in the breeze as it blew off the mountains, and it was stronger than usual, gustier.

He put an arm around Gwen's shoulders. She stiffened under his touch, and her skin felt cold and waxy.

"What's wrong, kitten?"

She turned toward him, a pouting, brooding expression shadowing her features. Her eyes were a dull blue-gray, lacking their usual brightness. "You know what's wrong," she said.

"No, I don't. Not unless you tell me."

"The livestock vault." She turned away.

"Christ, Gwen. They're just animals."

"Just animals!" she snapped. "How can you say that? They are important animals. They could mean the lives of those people after the ship lands. People, Ed. Real flesh-and-blood people."

Bronson cupped her chin in his hand, turned her face toward him. "What is this?" he asked, noticing that still more color had bleached from her eyes. "Just what are you trying to do?"

"It isn't what I am doing. It's what you are doing. Look." She pointed toward the mountains, where a small black spot hung in the sky. It was scarcely visible, yet its irregular shape filled Bronson with fear. It looked threateningly out of place in its surroundings. Bronson had never seen anything like it in paradise—or anywhere else.

"What is it?"

"It's what you just did. It's your lack of caring." Gwen brought her arms down and hugged her knees tighter against the chill. "It's your training beginning to break down."

"But what is it?" Bronson asked again.

"A hole." She stared out at the black spot above the mountains.

"A hole," Bronson repeated. "I did that?" Gwen nodded without looking at him. "Can it be fixed? Can I repair it?"

"Go back and check the livestock vault thoroughly." Gwen's voice, too, held a chill.

"That will fix it?"

"Yes, this time. But I'd like to know it won't happen again. Can I be sure of that?"

"You know I can't answer that." Bronson shook his head violently.

* * *

And woke in the cabin. He unstrapped and disconnected, stumbled out of the cabin. He entered the vault and the iciness hit him like a fist, sending shivers up his back. He marched past the coffins, to the livestock vault. Carefully, he checked it, double checked each gauge reading and dial setting. Everything was in order.

"Damn!" he said aloud, en route back to the cabin. A dream had told him what to do. But that dream meant everything to him. He had been living the dream for five years—and would continue to live it for another thirty-three years, until the ship landed. That other world was now more real to him than the steel and electro-fluidics of the ship.

The circuit in his head, that was what had warned the computer. Not only did it make Gwen and his life in paradise possible, it also gave the computer complete access to his conscious thoughts. In effect, Gwen had read his mind. From another world, from paradise.

The term paradise had originated as a joke among the technicians on Earth, something to humorously describe the electro-fluidic mind tricks they were attempting to create. But after its first test the name lost its humorous connotation. The ingenious computer program did, in fact, create an individual paradise—a highly addictive one. The name stuck.

After Gwen's death, Bronson was still in the colonization program. The program director came to him and asked him to volunteer for the caretaker position. They explained he needed the position and the program needed him in it.

Bronson took the job. He had no one waiting at the end of the journey, and nothing to remain on Earth for.

And now, he again had Gwen.

He reached the cabin, strapped himself in, inserted the feeder tube. Then he closed his eyes and felt the snap.

* * *

The chill was gone from the air, the black spot no longer in the sky. He thought he saw a slight discoloring above the mountains where the hole had been. Or was he imagining it, seeing what he expected to see?

Gwen stood and smiled as he approached her.

"I checked it. Everything was fine there. And here?"

"Fine now." She nestled into his arms, kissed him. Her eyes were bright again, but not quite as bright as they had been before. Somehow, he knew they would never regain all their luster.

"Will it happen again, Ed?"

"No."

"Are you sure?" She looked into his eyes, searching for truth. "Can you fight the memories?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I can't go through that again. I love you too much."

"Good. I have a surprise for you."

Bronson looked down at her, puzzled.

"I thought I'd wait until it showed, but I can't. Not now."

"You're pregnant?" There was the hint of horror in Bronson's voice. The image of Gwen, pale and thin in a hospital bed, flashed through his mind.

Gwen nodded, smiled. "It's all right, Ed. Nothing bad can happen. Not here. I promise you."

"But...."

"You just start thinking of a name, I'll do the rest."

Bronson hugged her tighter to him so she could not see his face. It was a tortured mask of pain. "When?"

"Not for some time yet. My program is based on reality."

"This is positive reinforcement, isn't it? A reward for going back to check the vault."

He felt Gwen's nod against his shoulder and cheek. "That's part of it. Do you mind?"

"No," he said in a steady voice, "not at all."

His stomach was tied in knots of fear.

* * *

Twelve months passed in paradise. Bronson watched in dread as Gwen became large with child and her breasts heavy with milk. Apprehensive, he helped her through morning sickness and labor pains. Gwen was programmed to be soothed by his small attentions, and gradually his fear dissipated. Often, Bronson placed his hand against her stomach, felt the child kicking. And finally he helped with delivery.

They named their son Jason.

Bronson was careful to assure his shipboard duties did not suffer during the year. He checked everything more methodically than ever, and did not complain when the ship called. He feared upsetting Gwen during her pregnancy, and he could not shatter their immense joy after the birth.

The memories and depression did not return. He blocked them from his mind with thoughts of Gwen and Jason in paradise while making the checks. And paradise itself acted as a block while he was there.

But a few months after Jason's birth, Bronson began again to resent the call of the ship. The ship seemed to always call at the most enjoyable times—those intimate moments a family should share. He went back to his old hurried checks. They were thorough, but he took shortcuts whenever possible. The memories returned despite his efforts to block them.

* * *

Bronson stretched out on his back in the grass, his hands behind his head, looking up into the fleecy cloud-patterns. He moved as little as possible; his son was curled up on his chest, asleep.

He raised his head slightly, looked at Gwen. She sat beside him, her back against the trunk of the oak, watching them.

"Isn't it about time you got us some dinner?"

"Not until after you feed Jason."

"You enjoy watching that, don't you?"

"Yes," Bronson said.

"I'll feed him now, if you like. Were you going hunting this afternoon?"

"No," he said, lifting the child and handing him to Gwen. Jason came awake in his arms and began crying softly. "I don't want to go far. I'll catch a few trout from the stream."

Suddenly, the buzz started in his ears.

"Damn!" Bronson pounded the earth with his fist.

"Please, Ed, don't start that. You know it has to be done. So much depends on it."

"I know. But why now?"

Gwen took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "No matter when the ship calls, it will interrupt something. You have to learn to live with that."

Bronson got slowly to his feet.

"It's the memories—they're back, aren't they?"

"Yes, they're back. But I can handle them."

"You're sure?"

"I said I could."

"Ed, Jason can wait until you get back." Gwen's eyes pleaded softly, tears forming a wet outline around them.

"No," Bronson said over the buzz, almost a scream. "Go ahead and feed him."

* * *

Bronson made the checks quickly.  And again the memories crep into his mind, weaving their web of depression.

He fought them, tried to push them aside with thoughts of Gwen and Jason waiting in paradise. But it did no good. The mental picture of the real Gwen's pale, pain-ddistorted face superimpose itself on the window of each cryogenic coffin. The child they never had blossomed in his mind, like a fungoid growth, a deformed caricature of Jason. The memories and nightmare fantasies became harsher, clearer. They branded themselves deep into his mind.

He returned to the cabin, weak and shaking. Sitting before the computer console, he watched the lights and dials, the steadily changing numerals—hating them and the reality they represented. He knew it would happen again. During the most beautiful moments in paradise, he would be called back to this. For what? To insure delivery of a cargo of flash-frozen protoplasm to a distant ball of dust.

There was a way to stop the ship from calling him. His training, so many years ago, had included the fluidic circuitry in case repair became necessary. He could easily disconnect the alarm. But Gwen would never forgive him.

But if she did not know—if he could somehow keep it from her.... She could read his mind, but if he could keep it out of his conscious thoughts....

Don't think it, he told himself. Drive it from your mind. Do it but don't think.... Think of Gwen, think of Jason. Make them so real, so vivid, that nothing else can exist in your mind.

Bronson bent to the tool cabinet below the console. He slid the door back, reached in and withdrew a screwdriver. Gwen, naked in the grass... Gwen, soft curves, warm lips.... He stood, began unfastening screws on the front panel of the console.

Gwen, beautifully gross with child... New life kicking inside her body—struggling desperately to be born, without knowing why.... He lifted the cover, set it aside, scanned the interior. Schematics, fluidics, circuits, relays.... No! Don't think it. Do it.

Jason, wet and sticky with bloody after-birth... Jason, hairless yet beautiful.... He reached into the tangle of fluidic connectors, pulled out a small plastic chip: the circuit that controlled the flow to the alarm. Jason at Gwen's breast, sucking hungrily... His hand rolled into a tight little fist, resting on her other breast....

He threw the chip to the floor, ground it beneath his heel. A slight crunching sound.

Finished, he thought. I'm finally free of.... No! I can't think it. Gwen and Jason, mother and child... Life nourishing life... Both becoming a mystic one, and merging with the earth....

He sat in his chair, strapped himself in without thought, inserted the feeder tube. He closed his eyes. Gwen and Jason...

* * *

In paradise....

Tears and gashes filled the sky from horizon to horizon, large rents filled with a blackness that sucked at Bronson's mind. White knifes of lightning sliced through the air around him, accompanied by earth shaking claps of thunder. The wind blew from the forest in hard, cold gusts that threatened to knock him from his feet. It carried the strong, sweet odor of decay. The grass beneath his feet was brown and dry—dead.

He stood beside a bend in the stream. Its flow was almost still. Foamy patches of scum floated on the surface, the water beneath was brackish. Trout lay on the banks, their bodies bloated in death, their eyes bulging milky-white.

"Gwen!" he called, running to the oak. "Gwen, where are you?" There was no answer. Only the harsh cry of the wind.

The oak was dead, leafless, eaten through as if by insects. His bow, arrows and fishing pole lay in the dirt, shattered. He walked around the tree, calling for Gwen and Jason. On the far side of the oak he found them.

Gwen sat with her back against the rotting bole, her skin a sick gray-white pulled tight over protruding facial bones. Her hair stood out in matted patches among wet, infected sores. And her eyes! They were like dull, pitted globes of steel—no whites, no iris, no pupil. Bronson felt their cold metallic stare.

She nursed a misshapen Jason.

Gwen smiled a death's-head grin, then coughed violently. A thick mixture of blood and mucus flowed from her mouth and nose, ran down her chin, splashed over the grotesque child at her breast. The child paid no attention. He continued to feed—savagely, uncaring. He tore with long nails, bit, until blood covered both mother and child.

"Please, Ed," Gwen whispered, her voice a hoarse parody of its former softness. "Remember us as we were."

He tried to push the nightmare image from his mind, to reprogram the computer with his will and bring Gwen and Jason back as they had been before. But there was only one world possible now—a hell that filled him with hate and fear.

With shaking hands he wiped tears from his eyes. He shook his head. The circuit in his brain snapped him back to reality with merciful and brutal finality.

Happy Three Hundredth

— Hot Sands of Passion —

Thrill to a Moon-lit Night on a deserted beach with the Most Beautiful Woman in the World! Feel her Warm Flesh and Soft Caresses! Experience her Animal Savageness and enjoy the overwhelming Titillation as you live a night of Pure Sexual Ecstasy under the stars!

The sign flashed in Patrick's mind in screaming red letters as he approached the cerebral stimulation device's brightly painted cabinet. Within seconds the garish advertisement was replaced by the more subdued thought/words of a legal notice:

— ATTENTION —

This cybernetic device rated X.

No person under thirteen will be permitted to operate this device without written permission of parent or guardian, validated by retinal print. (Violators will be prosecuted.)

—the management

* * *

That notice certainly doesn't apply to me, he thought. He was older than thirteen. In fact, today he was exactly two hundred eighty-seven years older than thirteen. Legally, he had absolutely nothing to fear.

He fumbled in his pockets for his ident card, and another notice entered his thoughts: PLEASE KEEP DESIRED FETISH FIXED FIRMLY IN MIND. Stepping to the machine's pellicle door, he reached up, attempting to place his card in the appropriate slot beside the softly glowing membrane. But his three-foot-six-inch stature made that an impossible feat.

His breath caught in his lungs, and he gasped for air. The device had sat on the corner of Fifteenth and Emerson for almost a year. Today was the first time he had worked up the nerve to visit it.

Unbidden, a series of memories invaded his thoughts. He remembered Margaret—the joy they had shared when they were both young, and the pain he had experienced when she died. He remembered how her copper hair had shined in the sun, how her green eyes sparkled when she laughed.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered a moon-lit night on the beach....

"Hey, kid," came a voice from behind. "What you think you're doin'?" The voice contained a heavy electronic twang.

"What the hell does it look like I'm doing?" Patrick said, sniffing back the tears. Again he stretched for the slot, still not quite reaching it.

"Don't get smart. You make a habit of ignorin' legal notices?" Something in the other's voice told Patrick he had better turn around.

Before him stood a cybernetic cop, its black seven-foot-tall metal body shining in the sunlight.

"No, officer," he said, "I didn't ignore the notice. I am old enough to use the device. I'm a rejuve."

"A rejuve, huh? Let's see that card."

Without protest, Patrick placed his ident card in the cop's outstretched mechanical hand. The cyborg inserted it in a slot in its chest and waited unmoving while it communed silently with the city's coordinating computer far beneath their feet. After several seconds, animation returned to its machine body.

"Mr. O'Brien!" the cop said, surprise somehow evident in its electronic voice. "I didn't recognize you."

"Obviously I should know you, officer," Patrick said, "but..."

"It's me, Mike Shannon."

"Mike? Is that really you?"

"In the flesh, so to speak." Patrick was not sure, but he thought he detected a chuckle in the cyborg's voice.

"How long has it been? Ten years?"

"About that." The cybernetic process was involved; it took that long to do a good job. A cyborg’s entire past must be reconstructed, giving it back its memories. Still, a cyborg lost much. The cop shook its bullet-shaped head.

Of course, Patrick knew it wasn't really Mike Shannon. Shannon was dead. Still, he asked, "How have you been?"

"All things considered, I guess I'm doin' fine. But I really didn't recognize you. You really got set back this time, Mr. O'Brien!"

"Yes, I guess I did. It was my birthday present to myself. I was way over due."

Should I ask? Patrick wondered. Was it proper to ask? Unlike rejuviantion, the cybernetic process was relatively new; proper protocol had not yet been established.

"How did it happen?" he finally asked.

"Two thugs tried to knock over the bank on twelfth street," the cop said without emotion. "They were carrying automatic weapons. When I went in to stop it I caught forty-seven slugs."

Patrick grunted in response. He suddenly remembered seeing the story ten years ago on the televid.

"At least the computer let me keep my old beat," the cop said. After death, the computer determined how the dead might best serve society in their afterlife. It measured aptitudes and assessed abilities, then made impartial assignments. Obviously, Mike Shannon was best suited to be a cop. He was one of the luckiest Patrick had ever heard about.

"And as a cyborg," the cop continued, "I'm as immortal as you." It thumped its metal chest with an equally metal hand, and it rang like a gong.

Patrick nodded. The cyborg was immortal, but was it actually alive? It had been dead once, and now it was again animated. But did that animation, coupled with the reconstitution of memories and beliefs, mean real human life?

"How's your wife?" he asked the cop. "Glor, wasn't it? You two still under contract?"

"Yeah," the cop said, "she's doin' fine. You should see her latest rejuve. Not as far back as yours, but still pretty young. Our contract's up for renewal this year, and I'm not sure she wants another ten years. Not with me, anyway. Can't say I blame her."

After a couple seconds of silence, the cop said, "Say, why don't you and the wife drop over for dinner some night. I may not be able to put away the food any more, but that hasn't dulled my table wit."

Patrick shuffled his feet nervously. "Fine," he said. He couldn't bring himself to tell the cop.

There followed several seconds of awkward silence. Finally, the cyborg broke it:

"I've really gotta run, Mr. O'Brien. Take care." It placed Patrick's ident card in the slot beside the pellicle door. "Give my best to your wife. And congratulations on your birthday." It turned and hurried off down the sidewalk.

Patrick stepped through the device's pellicle door, and the membrane gave, parted, then resealed behind him. Again the notice flashed in his thoughts: PLEASE KEEP DESIRED FETISH FIXED FIRMLY IN MIND.

He climbed into the over-sized padded chair, brought the headpiece down from above and adjusted it over his temples. It was not a very good fit—the headpiece was designed to accommodate a head the size and shape of an adult's—but he was sure the device would function. In only a few seconds his senses were awakened to the decive's too-real dream.

He lay on his back beneath a profusion of stars. Cool salt air blew off the surf, seeming to enter through his body's every pore, filling his mind with memories of youth. The grit of sand scratched at his back, and he gazed into the sparkling green eyes of the girl above him as she straddled his naked body just below the waist, sitting back on him and bucking madly, laughing. Her copper hair shined in the moonlight and her laughter was like music—light and lilting, mixing pleasantly with the soft shush of the waves as they lapped at the nearby beach.

He called her name, "Margarett," then cringed inside, waiting for the answer he dreaded. She had been with so many men in the past year. So many men.

But the girl did not respond. She continued to buck against his loins, continued to laugh, and Patrick breathed a sigh of relief.

Thank God! he thought. She was not alive. She was....

Suddenly, Margarett's soft thought seeped through the flood of erotic imagery: Happy three hundredth, Patrick, dear.

Termination Orbit

Subspace—000:00:000

Grayness. But not grayness. Non-color—not white, not black. A total dun negation of shadow and light.

No shape. An infinite, tedious expanse of featureless nothing. Absolutely no sensory stimuli.

No time. No thought.

Breakthrough—000:00:001

A fire-burst of stars.

Awakening—000:01:231

Slowly, memories crept around the edges of his mind. He felt them building just outside his perception, waiting to enter his consciousness, to initiate thought. They came in flashes and, sometimes, staccato bursts. Some floated in like soft, billowing clouds. Others entered with the cutting edge of surgical knives.

NAME: RAYNE, JOSEPH C.

RANK: COMMANDER, DEEP SPACE SURVEY UNIT

SERVICE DESIGNATION: XDSP 26

The memory was painful. It contained some soft elements, yet the basic tone was hard and cold, and the computer information overshadowed the more human quality of his identity. The memory forced its way in and filed itself; Rayne had absolutely nothing to do with the process.

Joseph Rayne was designated XDSP 26. Equipped with space/subspace interface circuits and highly sophisticated survey and analysis lobes, he was the twenty-sixth number in the latest series of experimental deep space probes. And he was entirely a creature of deep space.

Rayne’s was a sleek cylinder of ultra-strong alloy, perfectly shaped to gather, process and transmit back to Earth data on the physics of space. His heart was a small nuclear reactor. His senses were high-resolution television cameras, infrared scanners, x-ray and neutrino counters, multi-band radio receivers and a myriad of other electro-chemical detectors. The sensory stimuli by which he perceived the universe were the ejected refuse of a billion billion stars—some ancient beyond time, others in the womb-throes of fiery birth.

But these were not the elements for which he longed. He wished to be on a planet almost ten kiloparsecs distant, a world from which he was eternally banned. Never again would he feel Earth's cool breeze on his face, taste her salty sea spray. Forever gone were the silent nights on the beach, the orange and yellow sunrises.

Another memory slashed into his mind:

OPERATIONAL ORDERS: XDSP 26 CONFIDENTIAL TELE COMM BROADCAST

SECURITY: TIGHT BEAM ALPHA PRIORITY

TRANSMISSION TIME: 060301Z FEB 2123

FROM: COMMDR IN CHIEF, DEEP SPACE SURVEY FLEET

TO: XDSP 26

1. DEPART LUNAR ORBIT B-43 080015Z FEB 2123. CHECK OUT ALL SURVEY AND ANALYSIS SYSTEMS AND PROCEED VIA VECTOR 594 TO ARRIVE INTERFACE STAGING AREA 3 APPROX 100015Z FEB. 2123

2. UPON ARRIVAL STAGING AREA 3, CONDUCT SPACE/SUBSPACE INTERFACE TRANSIT. TIGHT BEAM ALPHA TELE©COMM BROADCAST TO SUBSPACE NAVIGATIONAL COMPUTER WILL FOLLOW THIS TRANSMISSION.

3. UPON SUBSPACE/SPACE INTERFACE TRANSIT, CONDUCT SURVEY OF X-RAY SOURCE CYGNUS X-3. INITIATE PSI-COMM LINK NO LATER THAN 5 SECONDS EARTH STANDARD AFTER INTERFACE TRANSIT. REMAIN IN OPERATIONAL VICINITY CYGNUS X-3 APPROX 5 HOURS EARTH STANDARD.

4. UPON ELAPSE OF OPERATIONAL TIME, ACTIVATE SUBSPACE NAVIGATIONAL COMPUTER AND CONDUCT SPACE/SUBSPACE INTERFACE TRANSIT.

5. UPON SUBSPACE/SPACE INTERFACE TRANSIT, DEPART INTERFACE STAGING AREA 3 VIA VECTOR 873 TO ARRIVE LUNAR ORBIT B-43.

6. AWAIT DOWN-SYSTEMS DEBRIEFING.

Observation—000:03:715

X-ray source Cygnus X-3. The Raster scan of Rayne's television eye raced across the synthetic synapse, projecting the image directly into his visual cortex. The binary star system loomed monstrous in his mind. The visible component of the pair was a blue supergiant, spectral class B0-Ib. Its mass was thirty times that of Earth's sun.

But it was the invisible companion, the dark sister, that interested the Survey Fleet and had brought Rayne so far from Earth. It could be detected only by its efforts on the gaseous star. A black hole, the object was the dominant component of the system, sucking the material of the visible star into a rotating disk of ionized plasma. The violence of transfer and the shredding action heated up the atoms being drawn out of the visible star until they emitted x-rays near the black hole. Thus had the black hole in Cygnus X-3 indirectly revealed its presence to Earth.

Rayne gave a short burst on his compressed CO2 jets, placing himself in orbit around the system. The orbit contained as small a decay factor as possible, but it was still high risk; the black hole's gravity well forced a gradual spiral inward. He would have to watch the rate of decay closely, correcting the orbit when necessary.

Information flooded into his mind from his sensors. Radio level: 0.131 flux units. X-ray count: 85,000 counts per second. System periodicity: 4.8 hours. Black hole mass: ten times solar. Black hole density: 1016 grams per cubic centimeter. Black hole diameter: 14.7 kilometers. The figures and parameters flowed endlessly.

Transmission—000:04:950

Rayne initiated psi-comm link. "Katherine," he thought.

"I am here, Joseph." The thought was like a whisper in his mind, like the rustle of dry leaves in the wind. "Ready to receive."

He began transmitting the information as fast as it entered his mind. This process, too, was automatic. It required no conscious thought.

memory

Nude, he climbed a low dune, turned and looked back the way he had come. To his left the ocean, its waves lapping gently at the beach, taking the white sand slowly back into itself. To his right nothing but sand, low dunes like the one on which he stood.

He slid down the dune to the water's edge and looked out to sea. A cloudless sky met the water out there, somewhere. He could not tell where the horizon line was; sea and sky blended perfectly. There was no sound but the whisper of the clean salt breeze blowing off the ocean and the gentle hiss of the waves.

Again he looked the way he had come. In the distance, following his meandering footprints, someone approached. There was something familiar about the other's slow, almost aimless walk.

As the figure drew near its shape rounded, softened. It was a woman—she too was nude. A small figure, lithe, almost boyish. Short brown hair cut in a shag, piercing green eyes. She carried a large basket

"Katherine," he said, almost a whisper.

"Joseph." She smiled, held up the basket. "A picnic?" He nodded.

They spread a red and white checked tablecloth on top of a nearby dune. He sat quietly as she prepared the meal, watching her sure, smooth movements, enjoying the beautiful twists of her nakedness.

The food was good, he was hungry. Thick slices of lean ham, potato salad, cherry tomatoes with salt, cold beer. They ate in silence—watching each other, wanting each other.

Later, after the meal, they made love.

Rayne had signed his contract and entered the psi reservation almost three years ago. Katherine had arrived two months before him. The reservation's population was kept close to one hundred inhabitants, births very nearly balancing the assignments. Mating was encouraged among those inhabitants.

It was a good life. They were permitted run of the reservation and allowed to do almost anything they wished, as long as it was not overly dangerous. The only interruptions to their life in paradise were the psionic reinforcement sessions.

Katherine was Rayne's psionic complement. They would grow old together. They would become immortal together.

Danger—240:02:215

A gravity wave ripped through Rayne's strong metal body. His constituent parts vibrated with the force, threatening to break apart. The universe he perceived was confused and chaotic. All incoming radiation stimuli were infinitely shifted to the red. His sensors could not handle the overload and, one by one, they failed.

Rayne knew what was happening. His orbit had decayed. He had crossed the black hole's first event horizon. But he should have been warned before this. His sensors should have told him of the danger before it arrived.

He wondered if time was warped this close to the black hole. At his last time check he had been out of subspace just under five seconds. The danger signal had registered at a little over four hours. He had lost nearly four hours.

Rayne fired his CO2 jets, attempting to break his inward spiral. They did no good. He activated his space/subspace interface circuits. Nothing happened. He continued to spiral inward, toward the heart of the black hole.

Another gravity wave tore through him, shaking the very thoughts from his mind. He had crossed the inner event horizon now. The gravity waves mounted in strength and frequency—their theoretical limit was infinity.

"Katherine!" he thought, as he felt the material of his body break down into separate, disjointed molecules. There was no pain, merely the knowledge that he was terminating, dying.

"Yes, Joseph," came Katherine's soft thought. "I am with you."

He felt the molecules break into atoms, then into stripped nuclei, and finally even into the elementary particles that a nanosecond previously had been the building blocks of the nuclei. The entire process lasted no more than a few milliseconds.

Yet, there was still thought. He wondered at that in a detached, analytic way. His brain was now merely a mist of scattered particles. How could there be thought?

Termination—240:02:216

No thought.

Awakening II—INFINITY

Nude, he climbed a low dune, turned and looked back the way he had come....

***

About the author

A. C. Ellis has published novel-length and short science fiction and mystery/suspense fiction, in both print and electronic formats. His novels on Amazon.com include Soldier of 'Tween, Shadow Run, In Pursuit of the Enemy and Worldmaker (which was reprinted in Germany and has been optioned by an independent Los Angeles film production company.) He has also written two Amazon Shorts, "The Navigator" and "Stolling the Road."

Ellis is currently working on a dark mystery/suspense novel titled Hollowpoint, as well as various shorter projects. He hopes eventually (read: soon) to return to the Pursuit series of mysteries with a sequel to In Pursuit of the Enemy, as well as writing the second book of the Ancients' War series, of which Shadow Run is the first.

Ellis lives in Denver, Colorado.

***

More Kindle eBooks by A. C. Ellis

(Those books that are not links are coming soon)

The Ancients' War universe (sf)

Shadow Run

Ghosts (a short story)

The Peripheral Man (coming later this year)

The Point novels (mystery/suspense)

Hollowpoint (coming later this year)

The Worldmaker novels (sf)

Worldmaker

The Brad Carpenter novels (mystery/suspense)

In Pursuit of the Enemy

The 'Tween novels (sf)

Soldier of 'Tween

Short Story collections (sf and Mystery/Suspense)

Spaceships & Brass Knuckles

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Table of Contents

A. C. Ellis

More Kindle eBooks by A. C. Ellis

Holes

Happy Three Hundredth

Termination Orbit

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