Journey to Olympus
The corridor stretches out before me, longer and more luminous than I remember. I focus on the light panels that stripe the passage from floor to ceiling and they remind me of sun bleached temple columns. I gaze blankly for a moment, then move on. I know that there is something more pressing, I feel a nagging urgency that pushes me forward.
From where I stand the corridor seems to stretch to eternity, but I reach the end as soon as I decide to move.
Now there are three doors before me. One leads to the cafeteria and living quarters, another to the cargo hold, and the third to the medical wing. Without reason or deliberation, I tap the door to the medical wing and it opens.
There is something odd in here and it takes me a moment to figure out what it is.
The medical wing is divided in two, partitioned by a low wall topped with fogged blue glass. On one side, are all of the necessities for medical diagnosis and treatment, and the other is the hibernation gallery.
It seems the uneasiness I'm feeling has to do with the gallery. It is normally illuminated softly in blue but now is dark except for the dim flickering of a fluorescent bulb. There are no fluorescent lights on the ship, only light emitting panels. Even more strangely, I don't seem to care and once noticed it is almost immediately forgotten, fading into the background only to contribute to a general sense of anxiety.
There is something else going on that is more unusual.
As I look around the room I see layers of images and text that rise into my field of vision and melt away into common awareness. I look at a bank of drawers and become aware of the inventory and location of every medical device and supply. Some things seem to be of more importance. Steel clamps and cotton balls are briefly highlighted in blue, while the scalpels in the second drawer from the top are outlined in red and float in my awareness with more significance.
While considering this oddity I hear a footfall and turn to see a man rushing at me.
There is a flash of chrome and I jump back, light as an insect in the low gravity. A burning line of pain cuts deeply into my left bicep. I continue to stumble backwards, unable to regain my footing, barely able to keep from falling. Eventually, I collide with an examination table and brace myself while I assess my attacker.
The man has a large kitchen knife and his face is familiar, yet I have a hard time identifying him. He is preparing to attack again, bracing for a leaping lunge.
I cast about for some kind of aid and my sight locks upon a stainless steel instrument tray illuminated in red. I grab it by one handle and swing backhand just in time to deflect the advancing assailant. The other man spins away like a dancer in pirouette and crashes into a delicate looking instrument array.
He is back on his feet in an instant. His face streaked with blood from a split brow and his eyes narrowed in fury. With a twitch of his legs he springs forward, the knife held low, aiming for my gut.
The scene blurs, the attacker freezes in mid action and a feeling of vertigo overwhelms all of my senses. My vision continues to cloud until nothing can be seen. There is no reference point, no perspective, not even the comforting calm of emptiness. There is only the sensation of falling backward, of spinning freely in space. At the same time I still brace myself for the steel blade that will impale me at any moment.
“He is coming around.” I hear a woman's voice. “Felix, do not try to move. We have had an emergency revival.” Soft blue light blurs my vision. I can’t remember where I am. In my mind a description of my situation gradually comes together.
I am lying on my back with the open sky above me. Was I in an accident?
As my eyes focus I begin to see a figure. A head and shoulders above me, far above, at the top of a well. “His eyes are open.” The female voice again and as my vision clears more I can see that she has long dark hair in a single thick braid looped around and over her shoulder like a scarf. She is leaning over me but not from so far away as it at first seemed.
I can feel the tendrils of the muscle stimulators unwind from around my arms and legs and finally from around my torso. I am on my back in a pit, no a coffin.
Actually, I realize, it is a hibernation chamber.
I can roll my eyes around but my body is too heavy. I recognize some of what is happening but other facts are absent. I understand the basics of the chamber that I am in. I remember that I am on a space craft destined for the mid-system station Olympus in orbit around Jupiter. I can remember all that, but there is so much else that I do not remember.
“Who…” My voice croaks from disuse. I roll my eyes again in an effort to get up.
“Be patient.” The woman comforts me as she pushes a control and the small opening dilates to the full body length.
She reaches in and I hear a burst of compressed air from near my bicep. My body relaxes from a rigor that I had not noticed before, feeling returns, and along with it the ability to move. I turn my head enough to see her replace the revival serum in a little niche near my right hand.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Oh, I was afraid of that.” She smiles at me warmly. “You have hibernation amnesia. Don’t worry it's temporary. Luckily, you are the only one on transport who has been affected”
“Do not worry, friend.” A man's voice. “We are here to help” A noble featured man with short dark hair moves into view.
“My name is Delia Anatolius, I am the doctor of the body on this transport and this is Pranay Rishi, he is a doctor of the mind. We know you well, we all trained together for months before leaving Earth. You are in safe, familiar hands.” She reaches out to help me sit up and removes a cushioned band from around my head.
“Thank you, doctor.”
“Delia, please. We are all friends and equals here.”
I push myself up and try to stand shakily. The room is familiar. “I was dreaming and I saw this room but, it was different.” My throat is sore and dry.
“That device I removed from your head is a Morpheus crown. It stimulates dreams while you are in hibernation. The dreams are directed by a digital intelligence named Athena to train you for your new life off planet." Delia explains as she steadies me on my feet.
“I would love to discuss the dreams you had," Pranay supports my other side. "The scenarios are purposeful and important for survival. Life out here is different in fundamental ways and we have to learn to adapt in a deep psychological manner. Athena does that in a way that traditional vocation training cannot. It is also necessary that these neurological changes be integrated into waking life with the aid of a professional such as myself, but first you need to wash and reboot your metabolism.”
I look down to see that I am wearing only a pair of form fitting shorts. I contemplate the round yellow synthetic port protruding from where my belly button once was. I understand that it related to my digestive functions during the long sleep of space travel but I don't remember how I know that.
After a long hot shower, I dress in the clean clothes provided. They are the same that the others are wearing, navy blue pants and button-up shirt with sky blue stripes down the side. They are jokingly called galactic pajamas. It is funny the insignificant things that I remember.
The only people that I have seen are the two doctors. They tell me that there are other passengers but that I must remain isolated until I can be evaluated.
Delia leads me to a room with a table, chairs, and a visi screen on the back wall. The light columns are two tones faded together in the middle, pale blue at the top like the summer sky and a rich violet like sunlit grapes near the floor.
“Tell us about your dreams.” Pranay sits relaxed in his chair, hands clasped loosely before him on the table.
His manner is calm and conversational and his undivided attention is on me. Delia sits in much the same fashion, at ease with hands loosely clasped in her lap and yet she gives an impression of barely concealed anxiety.
I took my time in the shower trying to recall and catalogue my dreams, as well as any clues to my identity. As the heat softened the muscular aches and weariness from weeks in hibernation I found more of the former than the latter.
Now, sitting in this interview room I am given a nutritional slurry heavy with bacteria to revitalize my digestion. It tastes like muddy fruit.
“Well, there seem to be two types of dreams. In the earlier ones, I am doing routine activities on the space station, just living life and stuff." I pause to take a drink as they nod. "By the way, how is it that I can clearly remember some things, like trivial facts but I don’t remember my life before or any other people?”
“It’s a side effect of the hibernation process,” Delia explains. “One in a hundred or so hibernations result in a temporary partial amnesia. It's like a hangover from the Morpheus system that keeps your mind active and vital while you sleep for long periods. What you are experiencing is the most common variety where your auto-biographic memory remains disassociated. As we engage more you will, in a manner of speaking, wake up more.”
“So, let us continue to examine your dreams. They are very important to the process.” Pranay relaxes back into his listening mask.
"As I said, the first type seemed routine but the later ones were very different. They were about fighting. I was always in a one on one with someone. What could that be about?"
"Athena is a complex and intelligent system meant to intuitively understand not only your personal psychology but also the role in society that you will eventually fill. One of its goals is to prepare us for futures it anticipates. It is programming us to succeed in a new environment.”
“Athena is also privy to communications from Olympus which we as passengers are ignorant, maybe there is some unrest on the station in which you will be required to fight."
"That's not right though, the earlier dreams all take place on station but all of the fighting is here on the transport. What does it mean?" the two doctors exchange a meaningful glance. "What, what was that? What is going on?"
"It is nothing to be upset about." Pranay replies.
"What he means," Delia adds. "Is that we need to remain calm and behave responsibly."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"We cannot say exactly what intent Athena has in training you for hand-to-hand combat, but there is something that we have not told you. We were going to, but after your memory improves." The two doctors exchange another nervous glance, but Delia's face alights with warm compassion when she turns back to me.
"Do you remember what you did on Earth, your profession and calling?" I am blank.
"Do you remember what you did in your dreams of life on the space station?" Pranay asks.
"Teaching," It occurs to me after a moment of reflection. "I was teaching. Am I a teacher?"
"We are all teachers on this mission." Pranay says with a smile. "What did you teach?"
"Art." I realize after another pause. "I’m an art teacher?" even more surprised than before.
"Not exactly, but Athena was preparing you to teach your skills to others. She does the same for everyone, all Olympians need to be bonded to each other and intellectually well rounded." Pranay motions indirectly about. "Transport is expensive and space is limited on the station, we cannot take all volunteers. Only highly qualified and multi-talented individuals are eligible for the colony. There are plenty of scientific specialists and mechanical engineers but what the community lacks are creative professionals. You are, at least back on Earth you were, a famous artist and musician."
"And this makes your combat dreams even more unusual." Delia interjects and Pranay dismisses her with an annoyed look before continuing.
"The reason that there are fewer artists on station is the deep emotional attachments that bind them to Earth and the milieu that formed them. Those who are detached enough or otherwise willing, are often too unstable to qualify. You know how artists can be." His grin fades quickly opposite my blank expression. "Well, most stable and healthy artists are reluctant to leave behind all that they know and identify with. Do you recall why you decided to emigrate?" I thought about it then shook my head slowly.
Pranay sighs and taps the illuminated interface docked into a niche in the wall. The wall comes to life showing eight pictures, among them I recognize Delia and Pranay. "Do you recognize any of these people?"
"Just the two of you."
"This is the human cargo. You trained with us for six months in preparation for this journey. For any transport there is a requisite skeleton crew of four specialists in case of any unexpected events, the four doctors. There are the two of us, responsible for mind and body respectively. Then there are two for the ship, one a doctor of technology and the other of engineering."
One file photo illuminates and grows to fill half of the screen. It is a man with a tan face, crooked nose and shaggy cardboard colored hair. "Luca Marius, the doctor of technology. He is a specialist in software, digital intelligence, and other technologies. As you can imagine, his type are indispensable on orbital stations."
Another of the photos eclipses the rest and shows a pale skinned man with a brilliant blonde crew cut and weathered face. Even in the confines of the portrait it was apparent that he is heavily muscled. "Aleksandr Denisovich, an experienced doctor of astral mechanics and engineering. He is the only person among us who has been to Olympus station and has made the trip many times."
"Do you recognize any of the other people here." the two dominant photographs fade away completely, allowing the four remaining to divide the space equally. Felix examined them, two men and two women, all strangers.
"This one," The picture of one of the men is highlighted and enlarged, the label below it reads, 'Raque, Felix'. "Is you."
I gaze at the image. I had been sitting here soaking up information without emotion but while gazing upon my own face, foreign and slightly menacing despite a satisfied expression, I am filled with hopelessness.
There is a terror in that moment and I start to feel very aware of my location, of the ship being a bubble of vitality surrounded in all directions by a vastness of inhospitable space.
I examine the image looking for a shred of memory, slicked black hair, brown eyes like wet clay, a round nose and confident smile but there is nothing familiar. That scar above the eyebrow, what is it from? I reach up and feel it upon my own head and try to remember but it seems more like a coincidence than a real association.
The image fades from the screen and only three remain. "Don’t strain yourself, it will all return to you in time." But a tension remained between the two doctors.
"What are you not telling me?"
"Here are the three remaining passengers, a chemical engineer, an agricultural engineer, and an astro-biologist."
"Do any of these seem familiar?" Pranay watches my face intently as he increases the size of the images one by one.
"What the hell? You say relax, give it time but then you keep prodding me." My annoyance overflows a bit but neither doctor seems ruffled.
"Well," Delia hesitates. "There are some things that we have not mentioned. The course of the trip is plotted on six periods of 56 Earth days in which we hibernate for 49 days and revitalize for seven in each period."
“We are forty-five days into the sixth period, the shortest and final leg of the journey but we have had an emergency revival." They both wait patiently for me to ask a question. When I do not, Delia changes the subject.
"Do you remember why you chose to leave Earth?"
"No, not a clue." They both look significantly at the faces on the screen. "What’s going on!"
"Look at this woman," With a gesture one of the images overtakes the rest. "She is our astro-biologist, her name is Catherine d'Azure. You would have called her Kate."
It is a standard identification photo, a head shot before a steel blue background but somehow she made it look casual, almost candid. Her personality shows through in the still image. She has a fair face with skillfully tussled blonde hair, bright sapphire eyes and delicate lips and nose. I am interested, even a little attracted but there is no recognition.
The two doctors watch me fretfully.
"No." This whole process is frustrating and now even they seem to be feeling it.
"I know that this is hard, normally we would not push it but the situation is..." Pranay struggles to articulate something and I can see that he looks very tired.
"Very unusual." Delia looks exhausted too.
"And urgent. You are at the center of our dilemma and so is she, in a way."
"She," Delia struggles with what she is going to say next and my impatience shouts silently for her to just say it. "She is the reason you left Earth, the two of you were to be married on Olympus station." Her face collapses with sorrow and she begins to cry, quiet shuddering sobs.
"We, what? ‘Were?’ What does that mean?"
"Kate is dead," Pranay says as he puts his arm around his sobbing colleague. "There has been an incident and she is dead. That’s why we are all awake."
The room starts to spin around me, I suddenly feel empty like my body has fallen away into a deep cold pit and my head remains floating, spinning in the middle of the room.
"How can this happen?" I unintentionally whisper. "Was there an accident, with the hibernation? Did she get sick?"
I look again at the picture and feel the loss. Yes, I could have, I did, no, I do love her. I have lost all of my memories of her and now I find that I have lost my future with her as well.
"No," Pranay looks at me with clinical gravity. "You don't understand, there has been an incident. That is why your dreams are so important. Athena has prepared you to fight. Specific situations and conditions have been repeatedly rehearsed in your dream reality. There is now a combat instinct deeply ingrained in your neural networks."
"What?" This is a double blow. First the loss of my dear sweet Kate, and now the strange awareness that my mind has been tampered with.
Pranay removes his arm from around Delia, who is collecting herself, and with a few motions has selected one of the other crew profile images.
"Luca Marius, the doctor of technology, is responsible for all of this. Athena woke both of us because there was a medical crisis. It seems that Luca had tried to awaken Kate and there was a problem. He seemed to have a fancy for her during training but no one could have imagined this."
"When he forced her out of hibernation she went into shock and died. I don't think he expected us to be roused as a result but the health of every crew member is carefully monitored by the ship intelligences." Delia stiffens in defiance. "He has taken her body to the cargo hold, but when he discovered our vacated chambers he announced over the intercom that he would be happy to kill us when we are ready to die."
"Ever since, he has been waging a war with Zeus over complete control of the ship. It seems that of the many control systems, he may disable one while at the same time Zeus takes another back. It is a game of chess where the life of the crew is in the balance."
"How could this happen? What about Athena?" I ask.
"Athena only presides over the hibernation sequence and Morpheus interface." Pranay shifts in his seat. "As to how this happened, I don’t know. We all underwent stringent psychological profiling before being accepted into the program. He must be an immaculate sociopath to have evaded the screening."
"And we think that he must have arranged for a technological emergency to occur for which only he would be aroused from hibernation. A software time bomb of some sort." Delia wipes the corner of her eye carefully.
The lights flicker and the door opens. Pranay and Delia both stand in alarm. I creep to the open doorway and peer cautiously out into the hall. All of the doors are wide open.
"Zeus had him trapped in the cargo hold while we woke you." Pranay says. "He must have hacked the doors to get out."
"Athena chose you for this task, you have to do it." Delia emphasizes. "You have to stop him. If he can defeat Zeus and have ultimate control over the ship, there is no telling what he will do."
My heart is pounding so hard in my chest that it threatens to knock me over. I look again at the image of Kate. I can see in that image just how she would laugh, is that a memory or just my imagination? I wish that I could see it in real life but I never will.
I breathe deeply and resolve to do it. After all, I have been trained by Athena to take on this sneaky, underhanded opponent. That faceless enemy in the med wing simulation, it has to be Luca.
There is a sound out in the hall and we all jump a little.
"Go," Pranay urges. "We will be right behind you."
They move with me to the door but as I step out it shuts right behind me. I tap the door but it will not open.
I look around and all of the doors are shut again. I hear beating from the other side and I think I hear the doctors urging me on.
The corridor stretches out before me longer and more luminous than I remember. I feel adrenaline pumping through me, a rush of anticipation and though I move with caution I am soon at the end of the hall.
It all seems too familiar. There are three doors and I know where each one leads.
I hesitate. I think of the doctors, in fear for their life, the rest of the crew slumbering and in unknown danger and of Kate, the fiancée that I do not know. He had caused her death and what intentions he had had in waking her while the rest of us slept I do not want to know.
I open the medical wing door, it just seems like the right path to take. Everything looks strangely normal, yet the anxiety of the situation and the echoes of my dreams keep me on high alert. My mind knows every dangerous object in the room, though no meta-data shows as I look around.
I enter slowly, looking to each side as I do. I see no sign that my enemy is even in here. I inch toward a storage cabinet and find it locked. I guess that though Athena had informed me of every useful item within, though Zeus has found it prudent to lock out the criminal element.
I look around cautiously again, there are many places to hide. It is a small space but there are nooks were he could be out of sight until I am too close. My mind recalls the flickering lights of my dream. The sleep chambers would make perfect cover.
I creep along with my back to the cabinet lined wall, trying the doors and drawers while also trying to keep the whole room in view. One of the drawers opens and my mental inventory tells me exactly what is within. It was all general first aid, cotton balls, ointments, old-fashioned wrapping gauze. Nothing sharp or heavy.
A scuff of feet, movement to my right.
Luca Marius, the doctor of technology, vaults over the examination table with an iron bar in his hand. I am caught off guard in my inspection of the open drawer, no doubt what he was waiting for, and my awkward retreat sends me tumbling backwards.
I land prone clenching something in my fist. Not a weapon, just a roll of gauze bandage.
Luca lands near where I had been standing.
"Of all people, I didn't expect you." he grins with menace. "But all of us, in good time will be meeting at the river Styx."
He advances with the bar raised high. I wrap the gauze around each of my hands and stretch it taut just as he strikes a blow towards my head. I catch his wrist in the cradle formed and redirect the attack. I use the captured momentum of his blow and elbow him in the jaw. Following through with a twist I toss him prone and wrap a loop of gauze around his now empty hand.
With a speed and precision that I did not know that I possessed I loop more gauze out and tie it tight around his neck. A ringing in my ears accompanies the effort of pulling tight on the cotton tourniquet.
I began to feel dizzy and experience an exhilarating detachment. I see myself from over my own shoulder and feel a blissful rush like nothing I have ever known.
I see myself, one knee pressed into Luca's back, pulling on the gauze that binds his right hand close to his neck. His left hand flops aimlessly at his side with ebbing strength.
"Do not stop until you are sure." I hear a phantom voice command.
My peripheral vision began to fill with soft grey and close in around me. The last thing I see before falling into darkness is the blood engorged yet lifeless face of Luca Marius.
The vertigo and endless falling again.
My reasoning fails me momentarily and I am unable to appreciate the insult that these simulations represent. To awaken and reorient only to again be rudely ripped away from reality.
In the formless grey void, the bardo land between electronic incarnations, I see a vision. Though I feel like I am spinning weightlessly through space, untethered from any foundation, I see her always just before me.
She stands there tall and elegant, a mixture of classical and modern elements. Her armor is part space suit, part Grecian draped fabric, all with gold and bronze ornamentation.
Resting at her feet, a standing shield trimmed with black thermal tile, bearing a grimacing visage with a fringe of writhing snakes and frayed electric cables. Under one arm she holds a pressure helmet, golden visor lifted, and in the other hand she grasps a long brass tipped spear adorned with copper, gold, and silicon embellishments.
Her face is a vision unto itself, an unfathomable beauty that inspires loyalty, that urges some deep instinct within me to obey any command. Her olivine eyes peer right into me, pierce me as sure as if she were to use the lance in her hand and I hear her speak without moving her mouth.
"This is the moment of truth. Do not be alarmed to find that others have gone before you, but do as I have taught. All at once your odyssey is over, yet continues, and has only just begun. Be clever and true, and triumph over the usurper. Do this and you will receive my blessings."
I am unable to respond, words elude my grasp. My vision fades again and the spinning begins to wane. For a moment I feel her touch. Her hands on my head and a warm face near mine, I smell the fragrance of olive oil and the salt of skin. She kisses my forehead and my eyes open to the enclosed space of the hibernation chamber.
The smell within the chamber is not the comforting scent of a goddess but that of stale sweat and disinfectant.
There is no one there to greet me this time. I feel and hear the stimulators retract but I am still having trouble moving. I remember Delia, the doctor of the body, and how she used the stimulant to revive me. If only I could move my right hand to the injector.
The effort seems to last an eternity, as if all of my wires are crossed. When I try to lift my hand I can only shrug my shoulder, but eventually I regain some degree of control. Either through triumph of effort or a natural decline of the paralysis agent, I manage to maneuver my hand into the alcove where the injector is stored. After a great deal of effort I eventually discharge the gun shaped injector into the meaty part of my thigh.
With a wave of warmth my body awakens tingling with anticipation, though memories of my past and personality still seem to be beyond me. My bio-port itches and the Morpheus crown feels clammy on my forehead. I am flooded with bodily information that had been lacking in the dream state. As I move within the confines of the chamber I find that my muscles, though kept from wasting by the stimulators, ached and resisted action.
I want to wait and plan how to proceed but I know that it would be pointless, I’ve had enough practice. I have lived through variations of this scenario literally more times than I can recall. Besides, remaining in the coffin-like space is only increasing my anxiety.
I find the controls for the aperture and open the chamber. Cool, fresh air spills in as I listen for movement. Nothing seems to be happening, so I slowly peer out, fearing for a moment that Luca is right out of view waiting to strike me down.
Athena seemed to think that the conflict would occur in the medical wing because, though I remember other scenarios, most of them seemed to be here. I expect it was a matter of probability.
I rise and look around, three other chambers are open and empty. One would have been Luca and another Kate. What of the other? Had only one of the doctors been alerted, unlike in my dream?
I creep along with knees bent, periodically peeking over the partition and through the window into the med bay. I don’t see any silhouettes or movement.
When I get to the end of the division between the two halves of the medical wing I stand and survey the room.
There has already been some kind of struggle. The articulated arms of the auto surgeon have been knocked off the table, supplies have been scattered, some of the drawers were opened to their limit and cabinet doors stand ajar.
There is blood, dried and black, smeared about on some cabinets. On the floor a pool of it, still wet and red in places. It seems to be drawn out in the direction of the door, as if a body had been dragged away. I feel that I should be squeamish or alarmed but echoes of experiences that I do not fully remember make me feel excited at the sight of the blood and signs of battle.
Fierce determination drives me to find a suitable weapon. I head straight for the cabinet that I know holds repair supplies for the auto doc table. There is a replacement strut that will serve well as a club.
Just as I am halfway across the room, the door opens with a sigh. We both freeze in mid-action. He is covered with blood. There is a raw scrape across one side of his face and a fresh bandage covering the length of his forearm.
"Another, already?" He leaps at me, running full speed across the room. I hesitate a moment then turn back towards my original destination. He slips in the blood and falls forward, gliding toward the floor in a low gravity fall. He tumbles into me, taking my legs out and we both land in the tacky blood puddle.
We grasp and grunt, trying to get a hold or advantage.
I try to punch him but we are too close to make much impact. He is having trouble grasping my almost naked body slicked with blood. His face is close to mine and I look into his eyes. His blue irises are surrounded by a brilliant red hemorrhage that make him look inhuman.
"I'm going to kill you." he growls.
I grab the bandaged arm, making him grimace, and he lifts hard on my shorts, flinging me into the corner. I use that position to push off in a lunge at him. My legs, sore from disuse, do not perform as well as I hoped. He flattens out and I tumble over him slamming myself into a medical table.
He shuffles to one wall to brace himself and attempts the same maneuver. He leaps at me with something metallic gripped in one hand. I see it as if with telescopic clarity, a scalpel blade, I know well that the laser sharpened steel will quickly end the conflict.
I grab a piece of metal and hold it out before me, an arm from the auto doc. He sees it but is unable to change trajectory. I look at the device and recognize it from my dreams. I know how to use it, I know exactly what it does.
I lower it in a feint and fiddle with the controls. I trigger the hydraulic diagnostic test sequence which causes all of the articulations to extend. I raise it again just as Luca is closing in and the scalpel headed arm plunges deep into his belly. His momentum snaps one of the delicate joints and he falls over on the floor nearly beside me writhing in agony, his arms grip at the protrusion but his legs are eerily immobile.
"Don't stop until you are sure." I hear the echo in my head as I stand at a distance watching Luca Marius, the doctor of technology, fall unconscious.
A part of me expects to be swept away by a cloud of grey, to return to the spinning vertigo of bardo but it does not happen. I watch as a trickle of amber colored hydraulic fluid flows from the device toward the fast growing pool of dark blood.
When I am certain that no one could live after losing that much blood, I limp off to the showers. After a very long, hot shower, I dress in fresh clothes and dispense one of those nutritional slurries. I look into the medical wing and see that Luca's body is still there, twisted and crumpled around that bent spear. I follow the trail of streaked dry blood from that room to the cargo hold and find two bodies leaned against a half emptied shipping container. The sealed packages of food that it had contained were thrown into one corner of the room. I suppose he was going to put the bodies in this box.
I recognize them both from my last dream. Aleksandr Denisovich, the experienced doctor of engineering and the other, a chemical engineer that I do not know by name. Kate isn't here and only three hibernation chambers had been opened. This is everyone.
I walk down the long hallway to the control room.
It isn't as long or luminous as I remember. There I find some sort of program running on the Zeus interface. It looks like some kind of logic puzzle that never quite works out. Black and white squares and circles appear and disappear all over the screen in different patterns then at some point it locks up, resets and starts over.
On another screen I see where Luca had started to draft a ransom letter, intending to take the ship, cargo and passengers hostage. I return to the digital intelligence interface and with some technical skill that I did not know I possessed I manage to abort the program that has been holding the ship’s intelligence hostage.
The ship immediately begins automatic diagnostics. Red alert tags flash on the screen and attempts to make contact both with Earth and Olympus station show at comm stations. I highlight the alerts and see the faces of the three men that I know to be dead. I select the first chronological alert and it is labeled as a conflict incident. I watch a video of Luca entering the med wing looking furtively around. I suppose he must have been alerted of an awakening from the control room where he had been drafting his letter.
The squat muscular Aleksandr, sure footed in the low gravity, confronts Luca.
"Surrender now. There is no possibility of escape." It’s possibly the worst he could say, why remind someone that they are a cornered animal?
"What are you doing awake? It’s not possible, Zeus is chained."
"Athena sent me, and after what you did to my Kate you should consider yourself lucky that I am giving you the opportunity to surrender."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You sick son of a..." Luca bolted for a cabinet but Aleksandr was much more experienced navigating on the space craft and deftly leapt upon him. The burly engineer locked his arm around the other man's neck and pulled him to the floor. Luca held tight to a drawer handle, pulling it open and spilling the contents across the floor. Aleksandr squeezed hard until the criminal went limp.
Aleksandr dropped the body and turned to search the various supply cabinets, possibly for some kind of restraint. I remembered the admonition that Athena had given me when I had strangled the simulated Luca, 'don't stop until you are sure'.
Luca crept slowly to a crouch and picked up something from the spilled medical supplies, then he moved in on Aleksandr. With two quick jabs he stabbed the shorter man in the neck who turned and slammed his attacker into an open cabinet. The two wrestled in the floor where I had seen the pool of blood, until Aleksandr reluctantly fell unconscious. Shaking, Luca extracted himself from beneath the body.
I stop the video, having already seen more than I had want to. He had said 'my Kate'. My stomach knotted again thinking of it. I accessed the passenger roster and flicked through the portraits twice before expanding them into a mosaic covering the entire screen. She isn't there. There is no Kate, no Catherine d'Azure. The astro-biologist is a woman, and yes she is beautiful, but she is a raven haired stranger, Elena Benigna.
Dizzy and nauseous I stare with blurred vision.
The love of my life ripped away from me twice, no three times. A figment of a digital imagination and yet I feel the love and loss as if she were real. Even more strangely I notice that the doctors who had been my companions in the last dream, Delia and Pranay, are not on the manifest either. Are they also only constructs meant to serve a purpose? The only people that I could remember knowing, all just tools to shape me into a killing machine?
"Hello there, Felix. Are you alright? Do you need immediate medical attention?" I am startled out of my shocked stupor by a call from Olympus station. the image of a well groomed and uniformed officer is before me in the comms bay.
"I don’t know, I think I will be alright. I don’t really know what is going on."
"We have reviewed the records now that the lockout has been lifted. You have done a service for the space program and your fellow passengers."
"What is going to happen next?"
"Now that the controls have been released, the Poseidon engine can resume its automatic course. You will arrive at Olympus station in three days."
"What about my memory? When will the amnesia wear off?"
"I don’t know what you are talking about, sir."
"The hibernation amnesia! Pranay and Delia said it wears off, it’s only temporary."
"Could you please hold for a moment?" The flustered officer's face is replaced with an Olympus station logo on a midnight blue background.
I wait with growing anxiety.
"Mister Raque," A cultured voice accompanies a new face on the screen, a silver haired officer with a mask-like face. "We understand that you have had a traumatic experience and your situation will be better examined in three days’ time when you arrive. Until then there is little that we can do for you. I advise that you to return to your hibernation chamber and you will be revived immediately upon arrival." He pauses and watches me carefully, his face dispassionate without any clue to his thoughts. "Return to hibernation and let Athena take care of you. Before you know it, you will be here with other people."
"Yes, yes of course." My voice a harsh whisper, disused and weak. The officer scrutinizes me for another moment before the image goes blank.
I sit and stare. I want to search the databases again for Kate, the love of my life, my reason for leaving Earth. Or maybe for Delia and Pranay, the only humans that I can remember talking to. Apparently the only living person I have ever met I just killed.
It is all making me sick. I can’t remember my life or personality but deep down I feel the knowledge that killing is wrong. I feel a disgust at the eagerness that filled me in the moment of battle.
They want me to return to the hibernation chamber, that coffin shaped bed, where a digital intelligence had wrecked my mind.
I can’t stand the thought of it.
The next three days I avoid the control room and the death scented medical wing and the corpse fouled cargo bay. I spend most of my time in the conference room where the two doctors had consoled and buffeted me in that final digital dream. Most of the time I stare at the wall, trying somehow to sink, dig, or break through the barriers between me and my past or to escape the guilt of murder. I sleep occasionally and do not dream.
I awaken with a start. I think I felt some kind of change. Did the ship shake? Did we dock with the station? How long had it been? Three days yet?
I leave the conference room and come face to face with a man in an unpressurized environmental suit. I peer through the thick plastic face plate and see that it is the grey haired officer.
"Mister Raque, come with me."
He leads me down the main corridor where I see other men in suits going into the medical wing. We pass into the cargo bay where the suited workers are cleaning the areas where Aleksandr and the chemical engineer had been. We continue beyond the racks of cargo cases to the airlock, where already some crates of supplies are being unloaded.
"Mister Raque, there are some people here who want to help you understand what has happened."
"Yes, we would like to talk with you about your experiences." A familiar male voice.
"And it is important that we make sure that the changes that you have sustained have not permanently damaged your neural pathways." A woman adds.
"Pranay, Delia. I am so happy to see you." Tears spill down my cheeks. "I was afraid that you..." I cannot even finish the sentence and it is obvious that the doctors are both stunned by my recognition.
"Yes, well, we are happy to see you too." Delia takes my arm and Pranay flanks me solicitously as we exit the cargo ship.
"This, Felix," He says. "Will be your case worker through your recovery."
There before me, brilliant blue eyes and gently tussled hair, the love of my life.
"Kate, you're alive."
The End
Oneirataxia - the inability to differentiate dreams from reality