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Henri, Captain Hao, Mesfin, Suardana, all the rest of them.
I could not think of my sister. Nor my parents. Nor anyone on Earth I had ever known. I could not remember my alma mater, my hometown, my religion—if I had one. I could not remember veldts or rivers or cities. And I had not even noticed them go.
“Did I have a sister?”
“Of course you did. You always used to talk about her. Her name was... Oh, let me see...It’s coming to me....”
He trailed off and went very pale. We looked in each other’s eyes for a moment. Then he put a hand to his forehead and began murmuring to himself in French, too low and too fast for me to make anything out.
I was in no shape to comfort him. I made an excuse and went back to my room. I read the scant lines in this notebook, over and over again. ‘Onalenna’—that was her name. But I only know it because it is written here. It does not ring a bell.
I think we are all going to die out here. I hope we will die.
Harmony I: Day ???
How long has it been since I wrote in this notebook? A day? Five years?
It must have been a long time. Everything is in disarray. Wails and screams echo through the metal halls.
I remember nothing. I am not even completely sure that I am Moremi Maele. My only memory—recent? Or old?—is this:
I held a human heart in my hands.
Blood covered my fingers and stained my jumpsuit. I knelt and held the heart up to a woman, speaking words I no longer remember. She was cold and indescribably beautiful.
I remember a split second of revulsion on her face. And then a change, a sort of crumbling. In that moment, as I knelt before her, she gave in. She began to laugh. The stars laughed around us. I felt an odd, surging joy. We were theirs, now. Together, we had crossed the point of no return.
That is all I remember. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if it is a real memory or a false vision. I don’t know for sure whose heart it was, though I think I know. Call me cowardly. I can’t bring myself to go look in his cabin. Instead, I sit with this notebook. Waiting, though I can’t say for what.
Is Henri dead?
Is Moremi Maele, in any sense, still alive?
THE COMET CALLED ITHAQUA
By Don Webb
Don Webb began writing in a class at Texas Tech University in 1983. Since then, he has had fifteen books in English and one book in German in his name. He teaches creative writing on-line at UCLA. His next two books are a nonfiction book, dark esoterica Uncle Setnakt’s Nightbook from Runa Raven Press, and a collection of vampire stories, A Velvet of Vampyres from Wildside Press.
THE FIRST TIME, it was necessary.
It was centuries ago, during the Belatrin Wars. We were on the scoutship Fulton . One of our robots was a Belatrin spy with cunningly faked asimovs. It smashed our hydroponics, our communications, our Dirac drive. Melting it to slag relieved little of our anxiety. Two days without food honed our anxiety to high sharpness. None of us had ever been hungry before. Hunger was an impersonal, historical, statistical thing—so many million in Ethiopia in the 20th century, in Brazil in the 21st, on Mars in the 25th. The personally-new phenomenon of hunger displaced the transpersonally-new phenomenon of civilisation very quickly.
Doc talked about it first. She was probably the bravest of my shipmates. She’d spent hours trying to repair the hydroponics with the few tools the robot hadn’t managed to dump. She had also repaired one Cold Sleep unit.
“One of us could take the Cold Sleep. The rest could kill themselves painlessly,” she told us afterward.
“Or eat each other,” said Vance.
“I’m not getting into the Cold Sleep,” I said. “Any of you could raise the temperature a little and provide several kilos of meat.”
“Several kilos,” said Roxanne, patting my paunch. Captain Oe silenced us with one of his deep-space glares. Captain Oe was always on a distant planet, his quiet voice coming across cold light years. Why didn’t he
I could not think of my sister. Nor my parents. Nor anyone on Earth I had ever known. I could not remember my alma mater, my hometown, my religion—if I had one. I could not remember veldts or rivers or cities. And I had not even noticed them go.
“Did I have a sister?”
“Of course you did. You always used to talk about her. Her name was... Oh, let me see...It’s coming to me....”
He trailed off and went very pale. We looked in each other’s eyes for a moment. Then he put a hand to his forehead and began murmuring to himself in French, too low and too fast for me to make anything out.
I was in no shape to comfort him. I made an excuse and went back to my room. I read the scant lines in this notebook, over and over again. ‘Onalenna’—that was her name. But I only know it because it is written here. It does not ring a bell.
I think we are all going to die out here. I hope we will die.
Harmony I: Day ???
How long has it been since I wrote in this notebook? A day? Five years?
It must have been a long time. Everything is in disarray. Wails and screams echo through the metal halls.
I remember nothing. I am not even completely sure that I am Moremi Maele. My only memory—recent? Or old?—is this:
I held a human heart in my hands.
Blood covered my fingers and stained my jumpsuit. I knelt and held the heart up to a woman, speaking words I no longer remember. She was cold and indescribably beautiful.
I remember a split second of revulsion on her face. And then a change, a sort of crumbling. In that moment, as I knelt before her, she gave in. She began to laugh. The stars laughed around us. I felt an odd, surging joy. We were theirs, now. Together, we had crossed the point of no return.
That is all I remember. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if it is a real memory or a false vision. I don’t know for sure whose heart it was, though I think I know. Call me cowardly. I can’t bring myself to go look in his cabin. Instead, I sit with this notebook. Waiting, though I can’t say for what.
Is Henri dead?
Is Moremi Maele, in any sense, still alive?
THE COMET CALLED ITHAQUA
By Don Webb
Don Webb began writing in a class at Texas Tech University in 1983. Since then, he has had fifteen books in English and one book in German in his name. He teaches creative writing on-line at UCLA. His next two books are a nonfiction book, dark esoterica Uncle Setnakt’s Nightbook from Runa Raven Press, and a collection of vampire stories, A Velvet of Vampyres from Wildside Press.
THE FIRST TIME, it was necessary.
It was centuries ago, during the Belatrin Wars. We were on the scoutship Fulton . One of our robots was a Belatrin spy with cunningly faked asimovs. It smashed our hydroponics, our communications, our Dirac drive. Melting it to slag relieved little of our anxiety. Two days without food honed our anxiety to high sharpness. None of us had ever been hungry before. Hunger was an impersonal, historical, statistical thing—so many million in Ethiopia in the 20th century, in Brazil in the 21st, on Mars in the 25th. The personally-new phenomenon of hunger displaced the transpersonally-new phenomenon of civilisation very quickly.
Doc talked about it first. She was probably the bravest of my shipmates. She’d spent hours trying to repair the hydroponics with the few tools the robot hadn’t managed to dump. She had also repaired one Cold Sleep unit.
“One of us could take the Cold Sleep. The rest could kill themselves painlessly,” she told us afterward.
“Or eat each other,” said Vance.
“I’m not getting into the Cold Sleep,” I said. “Any of you could raise the temperature a little and provide several kilos of meat.”
“Several kilos,” said Roxanne, patting my paunch. Captain Oe silenced us with one of his deep-space glares. Captain Oe was always on a distant planet, his quiet voice coming across cold light years. Why didn’t he
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