skonen_blades (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skonen_blades) wrote2009-09-26 12:22 pm
skonen_blades) wrote2009-09-26 12:22 pm
Heaven
It’s a very strange feeling, waking up after you’re sure you were killed. I remember thinking that this must be how people who were in car accidents feel when they wake up in the hospital. Shaky. Disjointed sense of time. It must all feel a little unreal.
Except I’ve never felt better. And that’s strange.
I’m an astronaut. I was in a vessel making a cargo run between the Sirius Lagrange point and Andromeda 6 when the stars went out. My instruments all flatlined and there were no more stars in the viewport.
I’d heard of this before. A little patch of black ice, the other pilots called it. A little hole in reality. I’d never experienced one but here it was, happening to me. This would be a good story to tell my friends. If I just kept on the same heading, didn’t touch the controls, I should come out the other side without a scratch.
That’s when they cut into the hull. The sparks came raining down. I slapped the evac button on the dash and was immediately suited up by the ship’s servos. The helmet snapped down and sealed in a millisecond. I looked out from the faceplate as the left side of my ship lit up with sparks and welding torches working their way in from the outside.
The aliens clambered in through the glowing edges of the holes they’d cut as the atmosphere from my ship gusted out into space. They looked metallic and dog-like but with too many legs. Sort of like robot centaurs crossed with werewolves with a bit of centipede thrown in. They were strange and I didn’t recognize their species from any of the sighting books I’d studied in pilot school.
They noticed me. I was sweating and hyperventilating in the pilot chair. Two of them pulled out what looked like eggbeaters from their backpacks and pointed them at me. There was a flash of light.
I very clearly remember being torn apart. It was warm and wet and sudden and I didn’t have time to feel pain before the memories end.
That worries me.
Right now, I’m walking through a park. The sun is peeking out. It rained a few hours ago and the droplets are still dangling off of the leaves of the trees. It smells wonderful.
But it’s disturbing. This park is like the park I used to walk through with Angie back on Mars. The last time I was there, however, the park was paved and turned into living units because of the property value. This can’t be that park. But it looks almost exactly like I remember it.
The aliens come to visit me. They are the same shape as the ones that broke into my ship but they don’t hurt me. They are gentler and, in a way, almost apologetic. I understand them perfectly when they speak even though their mouths move nothing like ours. If I had to define them, they seem to be like doctors while the ones that broke into my ship were more like soldiers. The doctors that visit me seem ashamed but it’s hard to tell.
Every time I ask them where I am, they offer me more delicious fruit. Every time I ask them where the other humans are in this strange park that I remember from Mars, they offer to have me a race. Every time I insist on seeing my ship, they give me puzzles to figure out.
It’s becoming apparent to me that I’m being held in a prison. Or a playpen like a child.
I’ve been on a hunger strike for two weeks. The aliens are worried. I’m worried, too.
I’m worried because I’m not hungry and I haven’t lost any weight and it’s been two weeks.
Right now, the aliens are walking across the park to me. There is another doctor alien that I haven’t seen before at the front of the pack. It is taller than the others and it has a larger head. It also has another pair of arms except that they end in serrated clusters like a bush made of praying mantis arms.
The cluster of doctors stops in front of me.
“You are here because we are sorry.” Says the tall doctor. I see his mandibles flutter and click but I hear it as English. “We are distressed that you no longer enjoy it here. We want you to be happy. Perhaps it is time to stop fooling you. My name is unpronounceable to your mouth but you but you can call me Ronnie, like your friend from your memories of flight school.”
I picture Ronnie in my head. Red hair, always getting us into trouble. He’s married and living on Ganymede now. I haven’t talked to him years. I’m sorry about that now.
“I am smarter than the lower caste beings that have taken care of you so far and kept you here. I recognize in you an intelligence that is higher than theirs. I am about to see if you can handle the truth.”
The alien named Ronnie flexed his mantis-bush forelimbs and the air shimmered in front of me. A small window appeared.
In the middle of the window, I saw what looked like a small pile of steaks that had been burned to a crisp. It was floating in pale blue water. Blood clouded around it faintly. Thousands of small wires snaked into it and through it.
Understanding hit me.
“That’s me, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes”, said Ronnie.
“I see. So this is all fake and I have to spend the rest of my life here.” I replied.
“Yes”, said Ronnie.
The doctors looked at me with a stillness in their eyes. This had been a gamble for them. Diplomacy for meeting the new race of humans had been shot to shit when they nearly killed me. This construct kept me alive and happy.
“Can I have an apple?” I asked.
The aliens breathed out and twitched their back legs. I knew now that meant relief and happiness.
“And some friends?” I asked.
They stopped twitching their back legs.
“There was only one of you on the ship.” Said Ronnie.
“I know.” I said “Let’s get busy. I have some designs in mind. Let’s get to work.”
Ronnie looked at me, stunned, and then started twitching his back legs.
I smiled, too.
tags
Except I’ve never felt better. And that’s strange.
I’m an astronaut. I was in a vessel making a cargo run between the Sirius Lagrange point and Andromeda 6 when the stars went out. My instruments all flatlined and there were no more stars in the viewport.
I’d heard of this before. A little patch of black ice, the other pilots called it. A little hole in reality. I’d never experienced one but here it was, happening to me. This would be a good story to tell my friends. If I just kept on the same heading, didn’t touch the controls, I should come out the other side without a scratch.
That’s when they cut into the hull. The sparks came raining down. I slapped the evac button on the dash and was immediately suited up by the ship’s servos. The helmet snapped down and sealed in a millisecond. I looked out from the faceplate as the left side of my ship lit up with sparks and welding torches working their way in from the outside.
The aliens clambered in through the glowing edges of the holes they’d cut as the atmosphere from my ship gusted out into space. They looked metallic and dog-like but with too many legs. Sort of like robot centaurs crossed with werewolves with a bit of centipede thrown in. They were strange and I didn’t recognize their species from any of the sighting books I’d studied in pilot school.
They noticed me. I was sweating and hyperventilating in the pilot chair. Two of them pulled out what looked like eggbeaters from their backpacks and pointed them at me. There was a flash of light.
I very clearly remember being torn apart. It was warm and wet and sudden and I didn’t have time to feel pain before the memories end.
That worries me.
Right now, I’m walking through a park. The sun is peeking out. It rained a few hours ago and the droplets are still dangling off of the leaves of the trees. It smells wonderful.
But it’s disturbing. This park is like the park I used to walk through with Angie back on Mars. The last time I was there, however, the park was paved and turned into living units because of the property value. This can’t be that park. But it looks almost exactly like I remember it.
The aliens come to visit me. They are the same shape as the ones that broke into my ship but they don’t hurt me. They are gentler and, in a way, almost apologetic. I understand them perfectly when they speak even though their mouths move nothing like ours. If I had to define them, they seem to be like doctors while the ones that broke into my ship were more like soldiers. The doctors that visit me seem ashamed but it’s hard to tell.
Every time I ask them where I am, they offer me more delicious fruit. Every time I ask them where the other humans are in this strange park that I remember from Mars, they offer to have me a race. Every time I insist on seeing my ship, they give me puzzles to figure out.
It’s becoming apparent to me that I’m being held in a prison. Or a playpen like a child.
I’ve been on a hunger strike for two weeks. The aliens are worried. I’m worried, too.
I’m worried because I’m not hungry and I haven’t lost any weight and it’s been two weeks.
Right now, the aliens are walking across the park to me. There is another doctor alien that I haven’t seen before at the front of the pack. It is taller than the others and it has a larger head. It also has another pair of arms except that they end in serrated clusters like a bush made of praying mantis arms.
The cluster of doctors stops in front of me.
“You are here because we are sorry.” Says the tall doctor. I see his mandibles flutter and click but I hear it as English. “We are distressed that you no longer enjoy it here. We want you to be happy. Perhaps it is time to stop fooling you. My name is unpronounceable to your mouth but you but you can call me Ronnie, like your friend from your memories of flight school.”
I picture Ronnie in my head. Red hair, always getting us into trouble. He’s married and living on Ganymede now. I haven’t talked to him years. I’m sorry about that now.
“I am smarter than the lower caste beings that have taken care of you so far and kept you here. I recognize in you an intelligence that is higher than theirs. I am about to see if you can handle the truth.”
The alien named Ronnie flexed his mantis-bush forelimbs and the air shimmered in front of me. A small window appeared.
In the middle of the window, I saw what looked like a small pile of steaks that had been burned to a crisp. It was floating in pale blue water. Blood clouded around it faintly. Thousands of small wires snaked into it and through it.
Understanding hit me.
“That’s me, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes”, said Ronnie.
“I see. So this is all fake and I have to spend the rest of my life here.” I replied.
“Yes”, said Ronnie.
The doctors looked at me with a stillness in their eyes. This had been a gamble for them. Diplomacy for meeting the new race of humans had been shot to shit when they nearly killed me. This construct kept me alive and happy.
“Can I have an apple?” I asked.
The aliens breathed out and twitched their back legs. I knew now that meant relief and happiness.
“And some friends?” I asked.
They stopped twitching their back legs.
“There was only one of you on the ship.” Said Ronnie.
“I know.” I said “Let’s get busy. I have some designs in mind. Let’s get to work.”
Ronnie looked at me, stunned, and then started twitching his back legs.
I smiled, too.
tags