“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.
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 make with the bread-and-fishes routine? Isn’t that the function of captains?
Killing Vance was easy. He was bending over a circuit tracer, building a simple radio. He thought the folks back home should know that the valiant Fulton was lost. I drove a microsolder into the nape of his neck and out through his Adam’s apple.
Captain Oe discovered the body. His mineral calm hid any reaction. I think Doc suggested we cook him. Doc and I did the honours, producing a very serviceable sweet-and-sour Vance.
No one wanted to begin. The Captain ordered us to it. It was difficult to keep the meat down. We had diced the flesh well, so no part would be recognizable. No one mentioned that Vance had obviously been killed. Thus, we became murderers all.
Doc and I had removed Vance’s liver and lungs. She feared they might be poisonous—contaminated by Vance’s addiction to tobacco.
By our fourth meal, I had overcome my nausea. I viewed everyone else as items for future menus. They were too affected by disgust to notice my change. I left the meal still hungry, still empty, and tried to sleep on my bunk.
I kept thinking of the liver and lungs. Doc had refrigerated them, since we lacked means of recycling our wastes. The refrigerator could only hold so much. The Fulton stank like a sewer. If I ate the inner organs, I would either die or be sated. Either would end the gnawing pain of my stomach.
I crept to the medical room to remove the meat. I let it thaw on the surgical table. I collected some of Doc’s tools—they might be useful later. I watched the dim light of Aldebaran through the port, wishing the scene would magically change to the grey of hyperspace.
When the liver was fairly well-thawed—juicy on the outside and crunchy ice crystals in the middle—I bit into it. Unfortunately Doc entered the lab at this moment.She viewed the blood streaming down my cheeks with something less than affection. I put the liver down. I pleaded, “Help me.” She moved forward and I turned on a scalpel. Laser scalpels only cut a few centimeters, but this is adequate when the heart is your target.
I quartered her and hauled the bits to the in-system probe. I sealed us off. I activated all the sensors.
I felt no need to refrigerate the corpse and, in fact, enjoyed it more as it began to ripen.
They began pounding on the bulkhead hours later. First, they demanded that I surrender. A day later, they demanded their share of the meat. I watched my telemetry, ate, and slept. I did not dream. Dreaming was the first facet of humanity I lost.
Two days later, as I sliced some of Doc’s hams—I still used instruments in those days—a green light blinked out. I would need to act fast or I would lose out on the kill. Had Oe honorably committed seppuku? Or had his martial training removed Roxanne as Executive Officer? Or had Roxanne, herself, mastered the murderous act?
The Fulton smelled very bad. A hint of sesame oil overlaid the stench—Oe preparing a delicate Oriental dish. Moo-Shu Roxanne? I went deep into engineering. I activated one of our dumbest robots and told it to walk into the kitchen. I called Oe up, told him I would surrender to him.
I followed the robot. The kitchen portal dilated and Oe fired. He must have been crazed. No one would use a ranged weapon within a spaceship. Fortunately, the robot’s body absorbed most of the blast and no exterior bulkheads were breached.
The energy weapon triggered internal security. Poor Oe. If he’d only reasoned. Microsolders and scalpels are not weapons. Scores of idiot robots came to restrain him. In the brig, he decided to join his honourable ancestors.
Weeks later, when my meat supply was exhausted, I completed Vance’s radio and put myself in Cold Sleep. Fifty-six years passed in the twinkling of an eye. The rescue team was very, very understanding. There had been cases of survival cannibalism in the past. Of course, I would have to undergo therapy to expunge the terrible guilt I must feel. Then I could join the service, again. Of course, I could live pretty well on 56 years of back pay, as well.
They sent me to Tarsis Hospital on Mars. Within a week, I knew three things: 1. Therapy consisted of producing the “right” answers to an AI’s endless questions—a job even a moral moron could fake. 2. Their pills—which they gave me in great, multicoloured fistfuls—had no effect on me. 3. I couldn’t eat the food they provided. I wasn’t hungry or in need. I’d grown a thick layer of fat on the Fulton. I vomited up the first few meals and then I asked if I could take my meals in private. Understandingly, they agreed. I kept the food until it was moldy—then I could at least bear to eat it. But it didn’t satisfy. Something was missing.